Which Reminds Me

Yes, once again someone is reminding me that there was a theory during high school, that there were Nixon jokes circulating somewhere round about, but I personally do not remember much about that. You might have more luck by sticking a fork in Libby to see what comes out about that, because I personally don't have much about that.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I am suddenly reminded of a story I heard about how Kenton and Carole went out for a walk together in Miami, and the story that I heard later was about what he said to his mother about Carole. Much later I also heard online that Carole has a much different version of that story, which, Ok, fine, that may be true, but also it is hard to give her much credit for that now that she and her late first husband are in legal hot water for faking prescription drugs, or at least that is what we heard.

Interesting how these little Swedish milkmaids are able to hog the airwaves, as if they were the center of the universe and everything were just all about them.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I do think that I vaguely remember hearing that lady talking about the impending invasion, but that was several years ago, before all this border stuff started actually happening. And who was that? How was it possible for me to hear this unknown person saying all these sort of mocking things, although anyway we asked for the huddled masses so why are we so surprised when they come here, as if I would even know what was happening?

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I do think that my GPA is not so bad, after taking into account my various Spanish handicaps. Who invited this blue collar skunk to my party? I do not remember discussing that with you.

Which Reminds Me

 Yes, I do remember telling you that I quit, so that I will not be available to cover for that. You could always ask Cori where she got that, because I really have no idea.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I already told that I quit, so I will not be available to cover for that. You could always ask Cori where she got that.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember that when I was maybe 13 years old, there was a sleepover at Susie's house, and at that time her older sister Becky and her boyfriend, Mickey Wright, were outside of Susie's room, in the hallway, and Susie told us that they were practicing their French kissing, of which Susie described some things about how that is done, but anyway that was not "our" thing, I only remember something that Susie said about that.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, and then there is the landlord from hell weapon. 

So many weapons lined up against me, so little time.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, interesting how they belong to the Nordic Alliance of New York, a place of no interest to me. 

In a Nordic binary view of things, you are either Nordic-Swedish or black. There does not seem to be any in between space for the rest of us to squeeze past the threat of being overrun by the black tide. 

And it does not necessarily help me to go Pentecostal, rather than Alliance, when the Pentecostals are becoming predominantly Nordic also, so they can use the Nordic weapon to leave us out in the middle of nowhere. 

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I so much could not care less about their legal claims to whatever it is that they own, of which I know absolutely. I have my rights, and why should I want to surrender to them my rights to anything? Do I really need to remind them that I am NOT their slave property?

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember that there was some chatter about eagles, the American bald eagle being thought symbolic of the United States of America, whereas the eage eating a snake is the national symbol of Mexico on their flag, as we were discussing with your possible Mexican spy. So that could be confusing, ir you are only talking about eagles. Which eagles? There are eagles and then there are eagles. 

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I do not actually remember, but I am starting to think that maybe I did stick my finger in your wedding cake when I was maybe five years old. And I did not even attend your wedding so how did I do that? How did I say all of these things that I cannot for the life of me remember saying?

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember that many years ago, during a youth group expedition at a bowling alley, David was there, and declared to me his support for Bruce Springsteen of "Born to Run" fame. Well, whatever, anyway, that was not a song about running in an election. I thought that song could be construed as having something to do with drug addicts escaping being on the lam, escaping from the heat or police authorities, or not. Maybe you could give it some other signification. It is a bit surprising that anyone of my acquaintance would be so interested in some New Jersey rock star. I really was not paying that much attention to that. It just did not mean that much to me.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I am not quite sure how much more broke and penniless I would be able to get, dependent as I now am on the largesse of the Social Security system, and yet this stupid person continually harangues me on the topic of money, as if I had anything of that nature to throw around. Ridiculous.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I do agree that the cause of tree plantings and reforestation is a very noble cause. I always think it is very nice to have lots of trees nearby to generate oxygen, and host creepy crawleys and various other things. However, that said, I am not much a a tree hugger. I think that the trees should stay out there in the forest and not intrude too much on my personal living space. I am just saying. Trees are a good thing. No one is going to be complaining about too many trees on the planet, at least not any time soon. So when a tree planting is called for, that would be one thing, but personally I am not much of a tree hugger.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember hearing that he died and was discarded in a beer bottle dumpster. So? What was I supposed to do about this blithering idiot with a Ph.D. in Stupid?

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember that Ann made some cryptic comment about the "family jewels," but I had thought that she was referring to those two guys who allegedly were in a fight at our school or else nearby. I never really heard any news report to elucidate that topic further, and did not see that myself, so I really cannot say anything about that.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, shuffling around the genealogy lists, we learn that our Strickland ancestors arrived in America in about 1680, maybe, if that is really us, although it is not all that clear. And tracking that back even earlier than that we find various Walter Stricklands ancestors in England of Tudor times and earlier. 

However, what is clear is that the "Anarchist Baronet" Walter Strickland (1851-1938), born in Enlgand, is NOT us. Not him. That much we can say, now that we have learned of his past existence. We can say the same of the Baron Gerald, now that we have been made aware of his existence. It is hard for us to understand what is there to discuss with those mutant branches of the Tudor tree. 

 

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it was hard for me to understand why my editors harbored a strange and bizarre obsessive animosity toward Mayor Smith, an irrelevant person of no interest to me. I thought that it was weird to see Rick or Bruce or Steve foaming at the mouth with hatred for this person of whom I know really nothing. I just have no idea why they were expecting me to please them by inserting improper things into my copy, or did the editors add that stuff later. I cannot remember now how that happened. Yellow journalism idiots! So embarrassing.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember that during my senior year I enrolled in journalism class, which involves working on the student newspaper, and I was assigned by my editor, Beth Slater?, to go and write a story about the Homecoming Queen election, who as it happened was Lori Reece, who I already know anyway from other places, and so my assignment was to get some comments from her and also from other people, so I interviewed some guy who had the title of mabe class president or something important, I forget exactly what, I was only following the instructions of my editor so as to produce the appropriate story for publication. So what? 

Why don't you name the stupid little butthead who dares to challenge my facts?

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember that during 5th grade at the Escuela Americana, I read a storybook in the library about a girl who lived in the country, she moves to the city, there she feels the culture shock generally experienced upon moving to a new place, and also meets a new friend. She tries to talk about her experience with her new friend in the city, and is sharply rebuked and told that the city friend does not want to her anything negative said about people, by which this story serves as an example of how not to gossip and say or repeat bad things about people. So by reading this story in the 5th grade we learn to never say anything negative about anyone. I remember discussing this book with someone, I forget who. And that works well for a children's storybook, but in real life sometimes it is hard to live in a Pollyanna land where nothing bad ever happens. Sometimes we need to know stuff, to fine tune our perceptions of real life, and to develop a correct assessment of what is happening around us.  Although I did enjoy reading the Pollyanna books, the name of Pollyanna's husband was James, but do not remember taking any vow of joining the Pollyanna club.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, no one at our house is interested in laying a claim on the castle, with its attached millions or maybe even billions of dollars in maintenance costs, how would I know. We so much do not care about assuming that enormous responsibility, now that we have been made aware of its existence. Oh, I did not know that. So good luck with your social-climbing castle-shopping expedition. We have no such ambitions here so there is no reason why we should be getting all this mail from the uppity-up social climbers of New York. I am just saying, so what?  

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I might not want to address the office spy-private detective from Oklahoma in the same way that I would address you, because the private detective is only fishing for information to use against me, and reacts in strange ways to things that I did not mean that way, but whatever. After the cat is out of the bag, there is no going back there.

Which Reminds Only

Yes, it seems to me, that the previous year Cheryl had been the only angel in the Christmas pageant, and with her blond hair she did look the part in a superficial sort of way. Besides, Susie, also blonde, was gone on furlough that year. I do not recall myself asking to be an angel or even particularly wanting to do that, but mothers sometimes make these arrangements and we children are supposed to do whatever they want. 

Which Reminds Me

Yes, where is that photo of the four of us girls dressed as angels for the Christmas pageant at the Centro Evangelistico. Susie, Cheryl and myself would have been 10 years old that year, and my sister 8.  It was only a short-term Christmas program, not a lifetime commitment to pretend to be something I am not. But of course some people took that very seriously. There was some chatter about that.  

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I agree that, watching all these stories about migration on TV, make me very grateful and thankful that I am a born-in-the-USA citizen, so that I do not need to go through all those hassles to get here. All I have to do is show my US passport at the border, and there would be no problem whatsoever about me returning to my home country from whence I had departed at the end of my term.

Which makes me curious to learn how is it that the U.K.'s Stephanie Share is strutting around the U.S. pretending to be a native citizen, when actually everybody knows that she is from Scotland. She said so herself during one of her prolonged monologues in the economics classroom. But, whatever, that might be more information than I would need to know, so I am not going to be asking questions of persons whose personal business is none of my concern. Those who know already know, and those who do not know have no way of knowing. So that is how things stand at the moment.  

Which Reminds Me

Yes, wouldn't that be nice, if I had millions of dollars with which to hire an actual qualified judge and many other sharp-tongued TV personalities to defend my cause, although I am not even sure what my cause would be, and to put a gun to your head to force you to like all the many people that you hired to make my life completely miserable. Oh, yes, wouldn't that be fun?

Which Reminds Me

Yes, what was that you said online about Charlotte? I cannot necessarily rely on these online missives, but it sounded like you were saying that Charlotte is now married to Mr. Hawthorne, so she is not the same person that I remembered in college. If true, what an interesting coincidence. And Mr. Hawthorne is somehow related to that wicked evil witch Linda, of whom really nothing is know, we studiously avoid her wicked evil outbursts from the pit of hell, so I really cannot say much about that, whether true or not.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember that during college I once sang a girls' trio in chapel with Cheryl Gansky and Charlotte What's-her-name. So that was nice. Sometimes it is not until later that one realizes that there were some really stupid people there at our college. Oh! So? 

Which Reminds Me

Yes, there is that bit about how she gave the money to "him," not to "her." Yes, of course. I think everyone has already heard that saying anyway. Yes, and isn't that how money makes the world go round? That is a song. And without money, how can the world go round? Of course, and there is Ruth gleaning the fields, looking for any leftover scraps she can find, not exactly the main thing but something is better than nothing, after the staff have already done their jobs, as long as you are dishing out free clues. Sometimes being nice encourages these little scrappers a bit too much. And what if Ruth's name is really Sylvia? How would I know that? These little scrappers all look the same to me.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I did find something online and read something about the Hawkins book about nuns, that you were pointing to in such an unbearably rude way, which is a story that is quite shocking, but anyway, I am not Catholic so I cannot say much about that. I would let Hawkins speak for herself if she can, because I certainly cannot help with that. I cannot offer any firsthand information on this topic. 

Which Reminds Me

Yes, that was odd. Maybe you could fill in all those parts that I didn't hear. 

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember that during maybe our last year in El Salvador, there was a healing evangelist who was supposed to be there to preach at a series of Revival meetings, but he fell ill and was not able to arrive, but there was a Revival service anyway because, not wanting the people to be disappointed after all that advertising blitz with the evangelist's name on it, my Dad was the one who preached the sermons and prayed for the sick. So that might sound like a lie to some clueless person who did not hear this story told in the right way, but anyway, that was how that happened. 

 (Don't even get me started on those Baptist idiots.)

Which Reminds Me

Yes, that was quite a show you put on in economics class, announcing your obviously private tryst with What's-his-name in front of the entire class. Thus, you should not be acting so surprised when various interpretations are flung around, as if I should care about your tacky lousy taste in Spanish men.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember thinking that a bit humorous of them to imagine that I would ever consider emigrating to that utterly gloomy and depressing land of Blackie-Stan. And I did not even know why I felt that way to say anything about it. But then I heard them online talking about how they are so good that they deserve to have a white husband, whereas white girls are bad and deserve to get stuck in some miserable deal chained to some horrible clone of Farmer Terd. And I only hear about this online, without any opportunity to address them directly in regards to where they can go or not. So?

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I can see that some people are confused, because all these people from Michigan are punching down on me, and also the people of Ohio are doing the same, but even so, moving to Ontario would be just one step too far to go. Ridiculous. I might not want to even think about those people or who you are in such detail.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, let me guess, your third cousin twice removed once stopped for dinner at Lima, Ohio, on your way to somewhere else, so you imagine yourself entitled to inherit the entire Barth family output. Something is weird about Ohio but I cannot quite see what that game is about.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I think that most of us have seen that whimsical cartoon, "Olive Oyl for President," whether on the original TV or on Youtube reruns, but anyway, that was yet another piece of Popeye's Loony Tunes humor that really did its job of entertaining people of all ages, although perhaps not my job. I do not recall myself ever wanting to actually run for president.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I seem to have noticed that you had the entire Tooth family cousins or-in-laws (surnamd Tooth) donw under at your command, but no, you wanted an American tooth fairy uninitiat4ed in the timeworn lore of Tempestuous Alice. So it is not clear how that might work out later. Whatever that meant.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember that Karen Ha, a classmate in college, was dating and later married John Williams, a person of whom nothing is known beyond his function as a male cardboard prop. I was surprised to hear him online saying nasty things about us white girls. Since when do I care about the opinions of these male cardboard props who prefer to acquire foreign exotic women from mail order catalogs? That wouldn't be quite fair for me to say, given that I really have no idea of how they met or their relationship, but there is that type of male cardboard prop. 

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember that someone was trying to throw me to the role of Grandma Calkins, who could seem quite severe on occasion, although actually the shoe does not fit me. But, anyway, many people often get very emotionally high-strung at certain moments in their lives, and if you cannot sometimes overlook when people step on our toes or whatever, then you probably do not deserve to be that high in the police force, even if you sound sort of like a cousin of mine.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, how nice that I won the Spelling Bee in second grade, and I have the trophy prize on my shelf, which means that I do not have to put on some silly show about running for office. I can only wish that the trophy had more monetary value, because anyway, life happens. All this out-of-control runaway Depreciation really can hurt. 

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember hearing that some nasty horrid rich girls are trying to trip me up. However, they are confused. Kathy is the one who works for the CIA and has all sorts of resources to make herself grand and glorious so they should be getting their cues from her, not from me. Come to think of it, I really have no obligation to do stupid things to help them in some mysterious and incomprehensible way. I have only enough space to fend for myself, can't help them also. That would be too much to ask.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, you would think that these people would thank me, because at least I made the effort to wade through your depressing book about Anne Frank, which is often recommended to explain about people who died in the Holocaust, but no, you were angry that I had read that, and you were making some other points about her that, well, I cannot even think about that now. The dead cannot come back now to the land of the living, needless to say.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, what is this ridiculous notion that I am going to pay for cleaning up your stupid mess? And whose money am I going to use to do that? I do not like the idea of myself being dependent on some horrid nasty rich people. I may have bad news for them. They might not like what I have to tell them. So I am just sitting here waiting to die eventually, because there is really nothing for me to do about that.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember my first job as a reporter covering city politics, and the first time that I covered a city council meeting, the resulting story that I wrote was a bit of a mess. My boss discussed it with me, and scheduled for me a meeting with the city manager, Mr. Burt, who kindly explained to me something about the essential book Robert's Rules of Order, and how these meetings are conducted by the rules as set down in writing by Mr. Robert. So that was helpful for me to understand what was happening when they were up there chattering, and implementing some various motion strategies. My boss also recommended reading some articles written by the competing reporter from the competing newspaper, to see how they do that, in comparison to what how I do that, at least to gauge if I am getting it right or maybe I am getting something that they don't get, in which case never let it be said that I would omit an opportunity to whip the competitor whenever possible, regardless of whether her name may be Cindy from the New York Times.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, never let it be said that I should be mistaken for some flatly dull and humorless harridan. That would be missing the point.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember hearing about the book that Lois Williams had written. I heard that she had completed her book summarizing her or their life's work before she died but I have to confess that I did think that it was a bit odd that she did not supply us with a courtesy copy, given that we also worked closely with them for some years. But they have withdrawn into their private Buzz Walker bubble,  so I had to acquire my own copy of the book more recently (2014) from some random online seller.

Of course I would think that my Dad has an infinitely better way of telling that joke than some Williams poacher, but whatever.