Which Reminds Me

And why am I hearing all these threats and insults from this snarky little Dale? I recognized him because he sang once at our college. He may sing well but without his Dad's library job to lean on, he won't get much attention from the rest of us now. The Tracy library advantage is gone now and no one wants to be reminded later of those naughty little children who turned their backs on the Christian faith. We go to college expecting to fellowship with Christians of like faith, not to be bullied by those people who think that they can just coast along based on their talent and staff connections. What, are Debbie and Dale still pretending to be Christian? Maybe they could go ahead and finish converting to some other religion so that we can all stop pretending that there is some advantage they have would over us which allows them to be so utterly rude to everyone else. There is really no reason for me to be intimidated by the crazy rantings of Tracy.

Which Reminds Me

This lousy script is not particularly conducive to my political futures, but who am I to argue with the authorities that be? Stumbling through the woods, we find that hideous fag Debbie, a mere piano robot, allowed to run roughshod over everyone and everything. All I can say about that is you must have mistaken me for Debbie's alter ego, that hideous fag Rose. For details of their internal machinations you would get a lot more information about their attitude problems if you would focus your interrogatories at Rose or Debbie or Sharon or Lynda. I was rarely if ever present at their dialogue festivals so I really don't know very much about that or at least don't remember much. You won't get very much information from me. I am just saying. You might check something out of the library, but I am refusing to engage in further dialogue with hideous fags named Debbie, Rose and/or Lynda.

P.S. If the only tennis rackets one can buy are of the Wilson brand, maybe I just won't be playing tennis ever again. I am just saying. Don't we all loathe Rose? She sings well but don't ask her to talk. Rose never had anything intelligent to say.

Which Reminds Me

You were talking about the newspaper career of William Brownlow McClellan, suggesting that I could spend all of my time rummaging through old newspapers tracing his commentary themes and peculiar wordings, his editorial interactions with rival editors and politicians of the time, especially the expressions of the mutual loathing that existed between himself and Houston. Yes, I suppose that the family book doesn't tell the whole story. There might be even more details available for the finding to those who may be independently wealthy enough to spend all their time in traveling to Texas and looking through the state archives and who knows what else. Perhaps some other branches of the family inherited more information about that than I did. But, anyway, who has time or interest in needlessly prolonging the personal rivalry of two 19th century men who have been dead for quite a long time now, more than century I would venture to guess? Don't we all have 9-5 jobs and duties that occupy most of our waking hours? I just don't see the point of that. There is no reason to imagine that Sam Houston would ever be recommended for sainthood, that we should need to pretend that he was always right about everything.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, how many times do we have to explain again that we are not directly related to the illustrious General George B. McClellan, who was born in Pennsylvania and died in New Jersey? Well, it is thought that there could be a distant connection somehow hundreds of years past in Scotland but we have not the resources to track the McClellans that far back. There is a shell of a castle there in Scotland once owned by McClellans but in all this time no one has claimed it so perhaps it is just as well that the U.K.'s National Trust should take charge of maintaining the grounds. And don't all McClellans find some satisfaction in seeing the high degree of success achieved by General McClellan, that is until he was fired by Lincoln, or rather he resigned. Even so, my grandfather McClellan was descended from John McClellan, born in Scotland, moved to the U.S. in the late 1700s and settled at Abingdon, Virginia, the vicinity of which most of his children were born. John married Margaret Brownlow, daughter of the local schoolteacher, the Brownlows, and it is thought that their son, our ancestor William Brownlow McClellan attended school there, one of his school classmates being Sam Houston, where they possibly studied subjects such as Latin, their 19th century rough-hewn heads being full of tales of warfare such as the Iliad and Odyssey and also the orations of Romans such as Cicero, stories of Roman wars and the like. Of the origins of their long rivalry little is known, just that Sam Houston well earned for himself the role of cranky old coot, spawning a whole new generation of cranky Houston monstrosities. So just winning the Presidency of the independent Republic of Texas doesn't necessarily qualify you for a place on the Union ticket, given that you so cruelly arrested and imprisoned our ancestor, William Brownlow McClellan, for having received and published information not conducive to the interests of the Southern Rebels. What was George thinking, allowing his name to be placed on the ballot opposite that of Abraham Lincoln? But I suppose that someone had to do that thankless duty. Robert E. Lee was not available at the time, he being the president of a separate country at the time.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I probably should have apologized to my cousin David at the time about that, but then again it would seem that the attempt to apologize would only compound the error even more, not to mention the embarrassment of having to explain that I didn't know what that meant at the time and that my mother had to explain it to me later. But to those 12 million other people who heard the story told all wrong and scrambled from someone else, well, I don't think that I owe you anything. I think that the rest of you are just stupid.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, one question to ask might be why are all of these people making such a fuss about some dimly remembered conversation that took place maybe 580 years ago? Soon to be 600 years. Well, if you ask me, the whole thing is a Jacobite farce. What are we going to do with all of these Jacobite pretenders? There just aren't enough thrones to go around. There isn't room for more than one king per kingdom. Nowadays fewer kingdoms than ever have a place for a king, and yet there are more pretenders than ever. There are pretenders to the thrones of France, Russia, Greece, etc. etc. While at the same time England, one of the few kingdoms with royalty, already has enough kings lined up for the next two or three generations. Pretenders of today don't have much hope of getting anywhere if they are pinning their hopes on seizing the English crown. Just being male won't get you that far. The English people seem to be content with the royalties they already have. So can't these pretenders just go and get jobs? Go get a life. So I am just repeating the obvious even though I really don't know whose idea it was originally to explode this point into a much bigger discussion than it was worth to me. Some people just like to argue about nothing much.

Which Reminds Me

Anyway, I have better things to do than discuss my personal business with some naughty little psychoanalytic brat who is obviously a few bricks short of a full load. I am just saying.

Which Reminds Me

Ok, so Heather and her catty rich friends wrote me out of the story and discarded me like yesterday's garbage. So obviously they cannot come back later, now, and pretend that they were such nice people back then when actually they were scary. I am just saying. Not that I didn't have my own emotional hangups. I am just saying.

Which Reminds Me

I see no reason for myself to dialogue with horrible Heather's cadre of catty rich people. I have an idea that they are promoting the concept of vineyard growing, a pursuit that seems to me entirely obnoxious. I much prefer the idea of raising animals, if you ask me. But ultimately it is not my place to say what happens to some piece of dirt that really does not belong to me anyway. I would rather avoid those pushy obnoxious vineyard people whose interests are so utterly dull and boring. A more zoological scheme would perhaps serve to explain them away.

Which Reminds Me

I wonder why these horribly wicked snooty rich people of San Francisco area  imagine themselves in place to confiscate my personal identity. I have visited the tourist attractions there but have no other connection to that horrible and loathsome Bay Area. My aunt sold her house to that girl who lived next door to them. However, she is not related to me and I do not want to be hearing from her later, never mind about some crazy and misinformed things that my aunt might have said in her grief-stricken way about how my cousin David might have married the girl next door if his life had not taken a crooked turn. Not meaning to be rude, but we cannot now bring David back from the dead to explain to us that, had he taken the straight road, that actually he might have dumped that hideous fag and pathetically stupid production department drudge in favor of someone more suited to his brilliant self. She should be glad that at least she has a job and a roof over her head, but she is not going to get anything else from us. As we all know, his life took a somewhat crooked turn and that has made all the difference. A fork in road is just a distant memory of past events, not really a promise of future riches for you.

Which Reminds Me

Anyway, I never took drugs so you probably have me confused with someone else. I would venture to guess maybe my cousin David who might have had some talent but having wasted his brain on drugs and Eastern religions and other trivial pursuits, not much is known of what became of him. He has been dead for a long time now, more than 25 years, so there is really nothing else that we can say about that.

Which Reminds Me

And what if I do not wish myself to be found by you? So what if you never find me? I never was all that important to start with and so perhaps if I make myself scarce you will just never find this photographic evidence you seek with which to put me in some window box that never quite fit my situation anyway.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, who was that who said that about Jezebel being pushed? I had always thought that it was her own fault, that she was leaning too far out the window or over the balcony railing and fell of her own weight. But some people perhaps have added their own uniquely picturesque interpretations to the original wordings. Even so, I can't quite remember who said that. It just all blurs together in the mind later.

Which Reminds Me

If you wish to write your doctoral dissertation elaborating the background sources of Sir Thomas More's "Utopia," go right ahead. No one is going to stand in your way in that regard. I imagine that many scholars have already done that anyway. Besides which, for me, to start with, I don't know Latin, so it would be rather late for me to even try to make the attempt at such an enormous undertaking. I imagine that it is a very complicated story.

Which Reminds Me

Speaking of persons who have disappeared, I am happy to say that Lisa is completely gone, disappeared, nada. Lisa always was such a horrible person, always conspiring against me behind my back, always complaining if I get any sort of attention that she doesn't get, always hoping and praying for my destruction, always angling to snub me in an uppity-up way. I am glad that Lisa finally disappeared so that I don't have to be bothered by her worthless junk.

Which Reminds Me

I vaguely recall making the acquaintance of Robin from Buffalo, N.Y., who lived down the hall during college and accepted one weekend of hospitality, when three or four of us visited with maybe her mother somewhere in northern area of Los Angeles. However, I later moved to a different floor and do not know recall what happened to her. She seemed to disappear from college and I never really heard a clear explanation of that, whether she was expelled or just dropped out for some unexplained reason, so I really cannot explain the details of what her problem actually was or why I am hearing about all this Robin garbage in a scrambled way through the back door when it really wasn't that important. Sometimes people just disappear from one's life never to return and this not a problem. If I never see or hear from her again so much the better, fewer problems for me, not being confronted by the psychotic delusions of these neurotically challenged New Yorkers. This bizarre presentation of Robin makes me want to flush all of this stinky rotten pineapple juice down the toilet where it belongs because, anyway, I never had the slightest connection to North Carolina.

Which Reminds Me

You underestimate my intelligence if you think that I would fall for your so-called Victor, another weaselly skunk masquerading as a winner, when actually not. Well, there is nothing more that I would need to say about that.

Which Reminds Me

I am not in the business of endorsing presidential candidates, needless to say. I am always somewhat reluctant to work for any particular candidates' political machinery, given that my volunteer services were rebuffed earlier than that. Really. I don't bet money on race horses so don't try to pin that one on me. If you ask, I would be in favor of shipping them all home to Puerto Rico, its own independent country separate from us, but we don't always get what I want in this complicated world.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it is obvious that they do not want to pay the price. They just expect to get endless freebies from me at no cost to them. I don't think this is fair to ask me to pretend that they are not wicked sinners just like everybody else. It is only by the grace of God that any of us get anything on this point.

Which Reminds Me

All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, says the Bible, even you. Yet Jesus forgives my sins, so why do I still have to listen to the idiotic rantings of these TV trash people who wish to intimidate me? Wasn't well-deserved jail time enough for them? It wouldn't be appropriate for me to discuss my personal situation some bratty little TV mouthpiece who I interviewed once for an assignment. Didn't what's-her-name know not to take that too seriously? But we cannot fill in the gaps for them. They have their jobs to do and questions to answer. But there is really nothing that they can do for me other than complicate the mess even more than it already was complicated, and I wasn't planning to work in television anyway. I'm not that photogenic, as I have already told you many times before even though you weren't listening. And anyway, it is not like they are ever going to really pay the price that would require. They are just playing all their chips into the hands of those Pagan Hen-dues who are planning to dominate the landscape in the coming Roman Catholic Republic. Anyway, we Protestants won't want to be here on this planet by the time their schemes come to fruition. There will just be nothing but misery with them in charge.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, Rafael sat directly behind me in the alphabetical scheme of things during high school. However, it does not logically follow from that that I would have any inside track on the Utopian schemes of Sir Thomas More. Enough said about that.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I see no reason for myself to be intimidated by that nasty little brat, Anne, who is always so mean to me. Enough said about that.

Which Reminds Me

I once baked an orange cake for the high school class bake sale and also another time I baked a lemon cake. In the alphabetical scheme of things, Joan sat directly in front of me, Rafael Carias directly behind, but we never talked. At least I rarely talked. I heard that Rafael is in Canada now, where Ann also lives. We are rather relieved that Ann is now in Canada so we don't have to listen to that again.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it is true that during high school, when our class held a bake sale, I baked a cake and gave it to the people who were holding the bake sale, and the orange cake sold well, and later that day the empty pan was returned to me. So I was happy to help with a delicious cake because actually I do love to bake. That may be the only thing that some of those people remember about me, but not really the sum total of who I am and what I stand for.

Which Reminds Me

I have always been a loyal citizen of the United States of America so I imagine that my own government will eventually explain to me how I am supposed to pay my rent and expenses whilst all of these people pick my brain apart, as if I could ever control what lies and misunderstandings those foreigners are propagating about me behind my back. We pity the baker of Joseph's dream whose basket of baked goods carried on his head was taken by the birds, meaning that his head will be chopped off, but we here don't carry baskets of cakes and cookies on our heads so that really is not our problem. There seems to be something of a flood here of Michigan people spreading their contagious magazine disease. But I never lived in Michigan so I feel that I should not be required or compelled to shovel their garbage that they have accrued all by themselves without any help from me. This problem has serious implications for me and yet they seem to think it is just a matter of some email jokes. Something is wrong with this picture and I don't have all the pieces so ultimately I cannot solve this all by myself. I am just saying. When this whole thing started I was not even aware of the existence of Marvin, and now that I am, well, Ok, fine, if the government has a job for him someday I suppose that would be nice, but that really has no bearing on me and my life. We don't begrudge him a job, but the rest of us, we don't have our Ph.D. in economics so obviously we weren't expecting anything so grandiose as that for ourselves. We just wanted something practical, obviously. Mom always was right. Practical and common sense is more important than all of this other hifalutin stuff.

Which Reminds Me

I don't find it particularly amusing to find myself categorized as one of the untouchables. Just because some bratty little girl wants to fashion herself a Brahmin score card, that doesn't fool me. If you are so desperate to classify yourself a Brahmin, then go home to India and see how you really fit in with those finicky snobs. Here in America we don't have that. Well, we have a class system but we also have our jobs and our own lives to worry about so that subject does not preoccupy us too much. We already know that talents vary in quantity and quality so obviously we all can't live in glass-walled palaces. Even so, that doesn't put me at the bottom. I suppose that things could be even worse.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I did think that was strange how Anne was pretending to be so offended at the suggestion of Punch when, anyway, it was only Kool-Aid with maybe ice cream or sherbet floating islands, and also that wasn't the point of it. I don't quite remember why it seemed funny at the time to be joking about punch. I must have been out of my mind to even be there, but only because I was told that I had to go along, not because I particularly wanted to be there. Anyway, Anne is usually angry at pretty much everything that I do or say, as if I were a form of vermin, so it really was not particularly surprising or unusual that Anne would be screaming at me and making a huge complicated mess out of something that seemed so very small and insignificant and utterly devoid of magazine depths, maybe some TV skit. Ok, fine. So whatever.

Which Reminds Me

Anyway, it was the Apostles themselves who instructed Christians to, at the very least, refrain from eating foods sacrificed to idols. So this explains why, when we see Catholic-Pagan Patty burning incense to her Hen-Due idol gods, we are a bit shocked. But that is how these Catholics are, they just don't seem to understand that we Christians live by faith, not by works. So just filling your church with statues of mostly dead people, that does not mean that we would be impressed with your 'points' agenda. I am just saying this only because you asked, but of course if I try to answer your questions it will only make you more angry at me than before. Yet if this point bothers you so much, ask yourself why you can't admit to your own mistake. Because, anyway, it is really not about me.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it feels very scary for me to be the target of all these aggressively militaristic Roman Catholics who are desperately trying to resurrect the subjects and symbols of the Protestant Reformation, always at my expense, because it so happens coincidentally that my ancestry is somehow supposedly connected to Sir Thomas More, a Catholic martyr of sorts, although I really did not know that until more recently and still don't quite understand how that could be. Sir Thomas More was a man of his times but he has been dead lo these 550+ years and, well, we cannot rewrite the past. The Tudor events were what they were and I really think that it is pointless to discuss that yet again. And besides, his head and body were buried at separate locations so it would be difficult for us to reconstruct those events or to imagine what was going through his head at the time. I have not studied that part of history in great detail but I suppose that King Henry VIII had his points, too. So just because someone wants to pave the way for a Universal Monarchy, that is not a reason for me to offer my uninformed commentary. You probably are thinking about the prospects of reuniting the Christian Church under Roman domination eventually but I can't tell you how that will happen or why that should matter to me. I might not live that long anyway and it might not affect me that much given that my spiritual life is in order anyway and I only care about getting to heaven. I already know that I have no control in this earthly life, and that the powers-that-be hold me in utter contempt, so the only thing that matters to me is whether or not I get to heaven later, a matter of personal faith. That is what salvation is all about.

Which Reminds Me

It has come to our attention how you coddle and pamper that vicious witch Jezebel, how her idiotic rantings are prominently featured in your window, her every capricious whim catered to. And how are we supposed to respond to that? We only know by reading the Good Book that Jezebel's own servants and advisers threw her body out of a window and how she was eaten by the dogs. So if we are going to be going by the book, well, that is all we would have to say about that.

Which Reminds Me

To summarize, I did see the movie and read the books by David Wilkerson and Nicky Cruz, and do have a high regard for the Teen Challenge organization generally speaking, its origins being connected to our church denomination. However, I do not wish to discuss the subject of Teen Challenge with some clueless person who only wants to make some cheapskate political points at my expense. Just because you perhaps have a lengthy rap sheet and criminal history, that does not mean that I want to hear more about that.

Which Reminds Me

This script is somewhat awkward for me, forasmuch as I really would rather avoid Patty Cruise, a rather scary high school person often known to emit strange verbiage. I seem to hear that she wants to protest that she is not a product of Teen Challenge, an organization that takes in stray women off the streets, out of the sewers, and tries to reform them. Well, at least they tried. I would be lying if I told those Teen Challenge women that while it is nice that they repented and changed their evil ways, that there will not be consequences for their bad behavior. You can't just run wild on the streets of the Kandahar and then pretend that nothing happened. Personally I would really rather avoid Pagan Patty at all costs rather than attempt to deliver this unwanted message that I did not ask for in the first place. I too wish the Teen Challenge idiots would just shut up because they will always be a few steps behind in life because of their lengthy rap sheets. But, anyway, there it is. We can't rewrite history just because some Teen Challenge witch wants an excuse to scream at me. I did read the Teen Challenge books when I was younger but I have other things on my mind now and do not wish to review their problem-addict problematics.

Which Reminds Me

All of these references to 'Napoleon' have suddenly reminded me that there was a time in El Salvador, Central America, when there was a politician of that name who was running for president of the Republic. I seem to remember that he may have died in exile, not that I was following those events closely at the time although I do remember hearing something about that in the news just like everybody else. Missionary families such as ours do not get involved in the local politics as a general rule so it is hard to see what that has to do with the price of tea in China. If you put a million Encyclopedias in a blender and turn the speed on high it would be hard to predict what would be the result of that but, anyway, if someone thought that would help, I really don't know who that person might have been. I only know that it wouldn't be me.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it does seem a bit odd to learn that all those weaselly skunk organists everyone is trying to politely avoid, Dawn trots out and boasts of, and loudly, as if Mark were anything but an embarrassment to everyone who matters politically speaking, and we do care about our own political futures. Of course it would not be politically correct to say that in so many words, so obviously we will just avoid Dawn so as not to be tainted by her associations. Which also means we should probably avoid some other people. They look like such angelic beings at their keyboards, with their golden halos tilting precariously, until you start peeling the onion and your eyes are opened. Reading the Good Book, we learn about how those who pray so loudly on street corners are not necessarily so commendable. The Lord Jesus calls them hypocrites. So then we think that perhaps the title of "Ye Greatest Hypocrite" is not a thing to so urgently be grasped at or aspired to.

Which Reminds Me

Some people were angry with my grandmother in connection to a question of oil well drilling. My grandmother used to frequently say "I reckon" which is an old-fashioned way of saying "I think." I in my generation tend to say, rather, "I think," looking at the reckoning as a rather old-fashioned way of thinking about something. She reckons therefore she is, but I think therefore I am. My grandparents may have gotten some money from the oil well but it probably wasn't because of anything that they did right on certain points, but because perhaps someone was merciful to them. So that was nice. However, some other people were angry about that, arguing that mercy should not have been bestowed upon my grandparents. Ok, well, fine, if you are so bent on eradicating this concept of mercy, well then, fine, we shall see later when you beg for mercy how that works out in reality because, anyway, I really don't know what their problem is or why I should care. Only God knows the details of that. It is really not up to me. But who's counting?

Which Reminds Me

I am such a nice person that I would never really want to have to say what I really think about the continual whining of Bill. Guess what, Bill, all those royal commands are not demanding the presence of you, Bill. We would not want Bill to get the impression that we were even thinking about Bill at all. Not that I would be able to express that, much less even think of it, nor we would want to transfer that thought to ditzy sounds-like-Donna, whose idiotic rantings do not deserve to be taken that seriously. I thought I heard you saying that there could be a special place in hell for Donna because she never does anything helpful. And is Debbie Donna's identical twin sister? But of course that wouldn't be true either so I am just going to ignore this huge snowball of garbage because if you really had attended college with us you would know that nothing that those angry people say can ever be taken too seriously because, anyway, we really don't quite understand what she is talking about, so whatever.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, all of this gallows humor does make one wonder whether the clueless Italian winemakers of California borrowed a trick from the Scottish moonshiners of West Virginia, not that I would know anything about that. I was a child raised by Christian teetotalers so obviously I really could not care less about the finer points of moonshine still operations and the possible applications of that, not to mention the mental confusions of Heather. Needless to say, my body and/or body parts are not included in that trick. Well, my driver license does allow for organ donations but, anyway, if you try to catch me that way apart from natural causes you can be sure that you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the criminal law, obviously. Thanks for listening.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, who was that girl, American, at lunch who was saying all those things. Maybe Vickie Canfield would remember her. I really don't. I remember some of the things that were talked about but not much about her.

Which Reminds Me

So just because Heather handed me some papers on the first day of high school and said some nonsensical things of obscure meaning, that did not mean that I was going to take that very seriously. I am just a high school student here just like everybody else and have to do my homework on school nights just like everybody else. So there was really no other special significance to that.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I generally avoid these Italian efforts to engage me in some type of confrontation. I am very conflict avoidant and thus conveniently forget to engage in dialogue with the Italians, be their names Heather, Joan or Kathy matters not to me. It is clear to me that the shrill Italian hags are seething with anger but I have no idea why and could not care less what their emotional problem might be. Their strange fragments of dialogue are disjointed and have no logical connection to any reality of my awareness. For this reason, I really don't want to be bothered by them. I would rather kill myself, obviously.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I do not recall whether I ever had a chance to tell Heather that I do not take my orders from her. Not to be mean but she never seemed to understand that I am an independent American who thinks that rich people should be seen and not heard. Just because she has Italy's CIA at her command, that does not mean that her authority extends to me, a private citizen of the United States. The validity and genuineness of my U.S. citizenship does not depend on the insignificant opinions of these Italian operatives who are of no interest to me. They do not seem to be able to process information in a normal way which leads me to think that they are actually mental retards, not helpful to me. They seem to put any conversation with me into a shredder and thus I might as well not say anything to them because, anyway, they just won't understand.

Which Reminds Me

All of this commotion makes me wonder what is this wicked secret that my evil cousins are concealing from the rest of us? Because, really, my cousins are not really so bright and sparkling that they should be given such prominence in the public arena, not that I would ever dare to express this obvious point. It's just that their many protestations and defensive maneuvers, their coweringly craven fear of attacks from me, their desperately frantic attempts to pass themselves off as respectable adults and/or rich people, as if anyone was asking, raise the question of what they might be hiding from us behind the scenes.  Because, really, so?

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I remember that we were rather annoyed with Lowry for allying herself with those croooked Italian mafiosi in that she was dating Tony. This gives the mistaken impression that we all would want to date Italian idiots when actually quite the reverse is true, we can hardly wait to get back to the U.S. where we can flush them down the garbage disposal where they belong.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it is a bit confusing, the clueless Baptist Bells and Reese's pretending to represent anything but their own selfish interests and/or peanut butter cups. These Baptists like to flatter themselves on their own self-important pretensions but we Pentecostals know that true power comes not from our own understanding. I am surprised that anyone would give any credibility to the idiotic blatherings of Lowry. There is really nothing going on in her empty head that would be of any use to anyone. We try to be polite because we have to get along in civil society but I will always be two or three years head of those little brats and no amount of manipulation will ever change this minor point.

Which Reminds Me

Two years at least after college, my aunt mentioned to me having had a conversation with Debbie Tracy. That was surprising to me. I did not know that my aunt and uncle were acquainted with the Tracys. I cannot imagine what they would have had to talk about.

Which Reminds Me

I remember my aunt and uncle mentioning that the swimming coach to Mark Spitz, the famed Olympic champion, lived down the street from them in Mission Viejo. They also had met Mark Spitz when he visited the neighborhood and thought he seemed like a very nice guy. That is the only thing that I can remember about what they said about that. I imagine that my cousins would have a much more detailed description of that than I could possibly provide.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, how many times do I have to again explain that I am not related to Tracy Caulkins, the champion swimmer of Olympic fame? There is no 'u' in my surname, Calkins. Obviously. So I really should not have to explain this point. Again. And again and again and again. This confusion did not arise before Miss Tracy won the Olympic medals but, anyway, it is good that the U.S. was well represented by Miss Caulkins' nautical performance, never mind that she is really not related to me. So I suppose that this name confusion is a small discomfort, only a small price to pay for the glorious success of the U.S. swimming team at the Olympic Games, never mind that I have no connection to that other than a sense of generally shared pride in the Olympic achievements of my own country of birth origin and citizenship. Thank you very much.

Which Reminds Me

I do vaguely remember that someone was somewhat too laboriously an obscure point about the story of the paralytic man who was healed by Jesus after his friends cut a hole in the roof of the house and lowered him through the roof on a mat. Jesus said to him, "Your sins are forgiven."

So some person was saying that obviously no one would do that for a woman paralytic because Jesus might not so easily forgive her for intruding on his privacy that way. 

And then later Jesus said, "Rise, take up your bed and walk." And also that was no woman who could be called upon to take up her own bed of her own volition without a husband to do it for her, someone was saying. 

So obviously Jesus takes these cases on an individual basis and commands differing remedies as required by the particular facts and circumstances of the situation. So? I am not even the person who said that and was not worried about that.