Whiners

Yes, I do not understand how my fate got mixed up with that of the Orlando waitress. No one ever caught me drunk, let alone in a drunken rage akin to those drunken sots Paul and Jan. We all have heard the rumor but don't know anything about it. It is not exactly a secret so it is not like I could not repeat the rumor if necessary for purposes of better understanding the truth, except that I don't write for a gossip newspaper so it is not my assignment. Thus, I don't understand what their problem is. Funny how these drunken whiners try to make it look like they got it from me. Not even close.

Southeastern

Oh, was a graduate of Southeastern the waitress who caught Paul and Jan drinking themselves drunk at some restaurant in Orlando? I heard the rumor but I would not know the identity of the waitress, now would I? And why does a college graduate have to wait on tables? And who did she report this to? One never seems to hear what happened to her. Did she not get a reward for turning them in? I just have no clue, but I somehow doubt that she got any prize. People don't really get prizes for being witnesses for the prosecution, but then again it was not about money, now was it? It was about the truth and justice being done, now wasn't it? You cannot really pretend to be so holier-than-thou when you are not playing by the rules, now can you? Spend too much time trying to find some reason to turn me in to the authorities and God just might find a whopper to throw back on your plate. This is not a prophecy, just common sense.

Southeastern Riff Raff

Now isn't that funny, these nasty Southeastern Trailer Trash daring to criticize me. I don't even know who they are mostly but obviously with such a rotten attitude they are a poor witness to the caliber of Southeastern and its dimwitted graduates. Not that I would dare to criticize them, powerless MK that I am, but obviously there is no reason for me to be impressed. Even with teaching credentials, they make such a poor impression with their lack of Christian love and backhanded tactics. Even their Cuban dogs are nothing to boast about. We all know that Cubans have such a thick accent it is hard to understand them. We do not have any problem understanding Central American or Mexican Spanish but Cuban Spanish is almost like a dialect. If we cannot figure out what they are talking about, stuck in a time warp as they are, how can we expect our children to learn modern language skills from these bitter people? Just talking at a fast speed, machine gunning it as the Cubans do, does not prove that you know what you are talking about. They have the teaching credentials so what can we say? Fortunately they are not teaching our children so it is not our problem. We feel sorry for them but there is nothing we can do. The Bay of Pigs was a disaster as we all know. Anyway, lots of very sick, bad people have teaching credentials so just having a teaching credential proves nothing. People with teaching credentials are trained to work with children but we must remember that they have a hard time communicating with intelligent adults such as myself. We have a hard time feeling sorry for teachers when they already paid far more than they are worth. Who was it that I was talking to about the annoying thing about trying to talk to people with teaching credentials who think that everyone else is their stupid pupil? We agreed that is partly because of the limited experience of credentialed teachers. We on the other hand have no need of fourth grade assignments. We are far beyond anything an elementary school teacher could ever teach us so we just listen politely to their chit chat and then we send them back to their schools because that is where they belong.

James

Just to clarify, there is no real James. James is a fictional character, the husband of Pollyanna in the series of books, many of which were to be found in the MK school library and read by me. I really liked that name. The James in the Pollyanna books was such a nice person, the husband of Pollyanna. But he isn't real. Still, I thought at the time that if I ever had a son I might name him James or else Kenneth, after the main character in another book in the MK school library. But I probably won't do that now that I know of too many other James characters who do not fit this description. Thus, there is no James in my life, as it turns out.

State Of Affairs

Yes, one would think that the U.S. State Department would be embarrassed of this garbage dump they have left all over the place. Is this how the government treats its private citizens such as myself? How am I supposed to function as a normal tax-paying citizen when the fate of WWII is still hanging over my head like the sword of Damocles? As if I ever thought for a moment about a career in diplomacy. I always knew I wasn't cut out for that so it boggles the mind that anyone would think otherwise. These State Department can't seriously expect me to regurgitate all of these lame, pathetically bad genealogy jokes about the origin of the surname Catto, a tribe of wild Indians rarely glimpsed cavorting in the jungles of Ceylon. You must be joking. This drivel is not even funny, just the product of a mind much sicker than mine. Where is the cavalry? Where is the exit from this funny farm maze? I need to get out of this mess now. Now that we all see where this is coming from we can all turn it off and go home now because it is all just a very bad joke and nothing more.

Mouse

Yes, it was Pam who called me a mouse. I get so tired of hearing Pam's mindless mutterings repeated ad infinitum all over the place, as if silly Pam were anything but a scurrilous rodent, always hiding behind other people whenever she attacks me. As if Pam even knows what she is talking about. She just mindlessly repeats some stupid gossip from some stupid gossip source, whoever it might be. But what do you expect from a stupid Michigander? Stinking rats live in Michigan. We have no expectations that anything coming from Pam's mouth is anything but copycatting gossip so we will not be calling Pam again. Pam has no place in my life. She is just another clone of Lori Kelderman or whoever it is. She always did have a peculiar angle on things. I am not sure where she gets her twisted thinking but she does not get it from me.

Stricklands of Malta

Yes, isn't that interesting. I may well be descended from the Stricklands of Sizergh Castle, even if you probably have to go all the way back to Elizabethan times to find a connection to Katherine Parr, the last wife of Henry VIII, or Mary Queen of Scots, but I am not alone in claiming such descendancy. Thousands, nay, perhaps tens or even hundreds of thousands of Americans may have descended from Strickland immigrants to America. Take for example Matthew Strickland, who sailed from Liverpool in 1680 aboard "The Globe" and settled at Isle of Wight in Virginia. Among the distant cousins of the Stricklands in America, found by punching the famous relatives button on Ancestry.com, we find illustrious presidents of the United States such as Jimmy Carter and Lyndon B. Johnson, even First Lady Barbara Bush, all the way down to the famous bank robbers and outlaws Bonnie and Clyde Barrow and Chuck Barrow. If it were not for our Strickland connections we might not be enjoying a connection to all of these varied peoples.

Thus it might also be imagined that the Stricklands left behind in the United Kingdom are also equidistant in kinship thus also affording a variety of entertaining connections even if further removed in terms of geography. One interesting example might be found in Gerald Strickland, the 1st Baron Strickland and 6th Count of Catena. Unlike we Strickland descendants here in the U.S. who have not the slightest interest in Italian politics and did not even know clue that Maltese people don't even speak Italian, their Strickland was born in the city of Valletta, on the island of Malta, to a Maltese mother, Luisa Bonici Mompalao, a niece of the Count of Catena. Strickland is even buried there on Malta, at Mdina. Strickland founded the Anglo-Maltese political party in 1917 (funny thing is my sister used to own a Maltese dog, Tiger), which later evolved into Malta's Constitutional Party. Oddly, Strickland represented Lancaster in the House of Commons in the U.K. (Conservative Party) and also served as Prime Minister of Malta and it seems that the terms were overlapping. Strickland also published newspapers, the Daily Malta Chronicle and the Ix-Xemx

Yes, from 1903-1917 Strickland had previously served as Governor of Tasmania, Western Australia, and New South Wales so he had a lot of experience in government, obviously.

Obviously we have not the slightest thought of competing with or taking over for Gerald in his role in British politics given that the relationships is so far removed from our existence here in the United States as to be unimaginable, not to mention that we have no connection whatever to the island of Malta.

In 1930 things got very dicey for Strickland after the Catholic archbishop published a letter declaring it a mortal sin to vote for the Constitutional Party or to read the newspapers published by Strickland. Finally Malta got a new constitution in 1939.

Mussolini announced Italy's plan to annex Malta, a British colony since the early 1800s, but Strickland died in 1940 so he did not see the outcome of World War II.

And why are you bugging us anyway? Are you not happy and relieved that Italy's fascist government was a colossal failure and by 1943 had already surrendered to Allied Forces? Is independence not good enough for you? Do you really think a Big Brother would not make your lives miserable? Perhaps you really liked being a British colony or perhaps you would prefer be annexed to Italy after all or even to Libya rather than the United States or the U.K. given the many similarities in culture and politics and language. That is something that the people of Malta would have to decide for themselves. We can't really tell you what to do. Over here we don't even speak the Maltese language. Gerald is gone. Gerald is dead. You will have to find your own way just like everybody else.