The Dog Days Of Summer

No sooner did the American Meat Institute get Congress to declare July as National Hot Dog Month than the Vegan Vigilantes weighed in with a list of health hazards associated with one of America’s favorite summertime snacks, the All American Coney Island Red Hot Sausage In A Bun.

Inspired by America’s premier wet blanket, Ralph Nader, who alleged that hot dogs are “more dangerous than cruise missiles,” the American Institute for Cancer Research, Consumer Union, the World Cancer Research Fund, the National Institutes of Health, and even those cranky troublemakers of the American Association of Retired Persons, piled on the poor humble hot dog like a gang of subway thugs on a handicapped tourist. They claim the hot dog is the packaged food industry's equivalent of Typhoid Mary whose flaws are covered by the pancake makeup of mustard and onions. 

The American Meat Institute was quick to respond: “Hot dogs are part of a healthy, balanced diet,” AMI President J. Patrick Boyle said in a news release. “They come in a variety of nutrition and taste formulas and they are an excellent source of protein, vitamins and minerals.”

That drew cynical snickers from the bean sprout bliss ninnies. They added that hot dogs also include:

* Animal esophagi, ears, lips, intestines and snouts.

* Insect parts.

* Rodent hairs.

* Spinal fluid from cattle.

* Snips and snails and puppy dog tails.

* Jeffrey Dahmer's failed experiments.

* Sodium nitrite, sodium acid pyrophosphate and glucona delta lactones. In short: preservatives. They also add color to a product that would otherwise look as appetizing as a pair of high mileage sneakers.

Chemical free all beef kosher dogs are not exempt from the critical glare of the nutrition nannies either. They claim that even kosher wieners in an unopened package are just as dangerous as shrink wrapped pipe bombs ticking away in your refrigerator, as they may be sprouting listeriosis bacteria. Those little listers can cause fever, muscle aches, nausea, stiff neck, loss of balance and convulsions, heart disease, type-2 diabetes, and are especially hazardous to pregnant women. Other risks cited by the Weiner Greenies include colon-rectal, brain and pancreatic cancer, and someone somewhere is choking on a hot dog, often a kid.

So, what can we do about these squawking Chicken Littles and their dire warnings in The Liberal Media, other than hunt them down and stuff them into sheep intestine sausage casings? Well, you can chew your kids’ hot dogs for them to minimize the choking risk, but other than that, not much.  Kids can be such little fussbudgets about anyone else chewing their food anyway, so just relax and enjoy the dog days of summer.

Bon appétit.
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Comments & Indictments:

I think the real question should be: since hot dogs taste so good, why can't they make a healthy one? 

No, no, I'm not advocating for a tofutti dog <shudder>!  I mean a REAL hot dog using healthy meat that doesn't come from snouts, lips, and spinal fluid?  I can live with bugs; bugs aren't going to kill us.  Preservatives aren't necessary, and nitrates, except for those naturally occurring in celery salt, are no longer used even in some of the better Oscar Meyer brands (look for the package that says so).  Hot dog producers have made some changes in the right direction, but only because the health foodies have been pushing hard and American consumers are looking for healthier alternatives.

Out here, we have something called a Sonoran Dog. a bbqed, bacon-wrapped (yeee eees), grilled onions, pinto beans, fresh chopped tomatoes, mayo (yeeee eeeesss, don't knock it until you've tried it), mustard, and jalapeno sauce. (I know, I know, I thought the same thing about the mayo, but it works.)

Colon rectal cancer?  Uh. Exactly which ingredients cause that?  Red meat?  Nobody said you have to eat hot dogs morning, noon, and night. -- Tab

According to the American Cancer Society, a diet high in red meat, which includes the poor maligned hot dog, is one cause. So are smoking, alcohol, lack of exercise, obesity, race or ethnic background (especially African Americans and Ashkenazi Jews), and the presence of Type 2 diabetes.  So, if you are an overweight diabetic black Talmudic scholar whose idea of exercise is uncorking a bottle of Mogen David while puffing away on a cigar, you might see an oncologist or proctologist about a checkup.  If you live in Jamaica, proctologists are listed in the Yellow Pages under Pokemon.
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I wonder if the "bean sprout ninnies" know that insect parts are organic? -- Kerry　
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I enjoyed the essay. I am trying to cut down on red meat but still eat hamburgers and steaks once in a while. -- Ken

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That was excellent, Mike. :) I always enjoy pointedly eating my char-barbequed, carcinogenic, cheese-jalapeno-sausage-stuffed hot dog in front of the pasty, unhealthy-looking tofu hot dog eating set. And my husband is THE sweetest man ever, but boy does he dislike the granola types. -- Sandy

Nice going.  Anyway, tofu and granola are not among the four basic food groups:  caffeine, nicotine, hot dogs and Cheetos.

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Clever the way you manage to hammer both sides -- Galen

A pox on both their houses, I say. Jerry Brown's first governorship nudged me toward right, then I worked for a pro-business Babbit mag that sent me scuttling back toward the bean sprout for lunch bunch on the left. So now I'm hemmed in among the radical centrists.
Thanks for reading my rants.
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Amy and I had a hot dog at Sonic as part of a 150 mile round trip, then read your mail after we got back.  Too funny.  -- Nick

Sonic is the only restaurant chain I know of with Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue" on the jukebox.  Reason enough to go there.  Good eats, too.
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 Loved it, as always!! -- Juli
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Thanks for putting a smile on my face on a down day. I lost a close friend who passed away Friday night, an intelligent, compassionate, progressive friend I’d known since kindergarten. We would have coffee or just hang at his place about once a week these last few years.

My friend was an oil and gas broker who put deals together for investors and drillers, yet even here in the heart of Oklahoma, with its radical right, ultra-religious society, he was an outspoken liberal thinker on all issues. He never shied away from any conversation, debate, or challenge to his ideas.

I wish you two could have met, but then that's the case for so many of us in the Internet age, is it not? -- Stan

It is, and thank you. I am sorry for your loss.
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Fortunately I am not one of those Green Liberal Vegan Ninnies of non food. There is nothing like a good hot dog, especially at a baseball game. However, please don’t put me in the category of those Game naysayers. I feel certain most of these people must sit around all day wondering if beet greens have any worth at all and if there is any real value to cooked celery. -- Peggy
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Thanks so much for putting me on the list. I am going to enjoy this much -- Tammy
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I intend to keep eating hot dogs. I like to live on the edge. -- Lady W
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As it happens, I just awoke from a very important nap. Only to find out that when I'm down and out, and on the street, I really shouldn't beg for a hot dog. Well, bollocks! -- Beaty

Oh, go ahead. Bollocks are among the ingredients. I just forgot to name them.
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I don't care if hot dogs have bug parts and hamster hair. I only know that when I go to the store to get groceries, filling my cart with fresh broccoli and organic grape tomatoes, fake sugar pears in a can and low-salt soy for my free-range chicken, I stop at the hot dog display with glassy eyes. There they are. Those. The ones with the store-brand label, full of beef tails and pig ears and fat particles from god knows what. I buy those. They really taste good.
And if anyone tries to tell me they are bad for me, I strike them down like a thief kid hovering over my collector Gumby. -- Zoey
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I never considered hot dogs as edible human food. I tried a New York one, once, at a street stall. It looked as if it had long ago died of hydrocution. Soggy meat, swollen belly, no matter how much mustard and cabbage the guy added to it, it still tasted like shit. And in the end I believed it was shit! Anyway...it had been boiling for so long that all the germs were dead. -- Mssr. Gerard.

Zut alors!

Alex And Me

I must have jinxed Alex Trebek.  He suffered a mild coronary after I met him years ago, and this week he injured his Achilles tendon chasing a hotel burglar who had tried to rob him in San Francisco.  Just call me an old egocentric, but I do feel somehow responsible.  Let me explain.

There I was, not at my brightest at 7:30 one Saturday morning while attending a conference of the Sacramento Public Relations Society in the gymnasium at American River College.  I had been invited to appear on a panel discussion as one the representatives of the news media.  A magazine, in my case, but the coffee in my Styrofoam cup had not kicked in as I wandered around, greeting people whose names I remembered and nodding at people whose names I’d forgotten, hoping I wouldn’t doze off on the dais during the Q & A with the audience.

Then I spotted a guy who looked vaguely familiar standing off by himself, far apart from the clusters of gabbing publicists and reporters.  He looked sad and abandoned, so Gladhand Galahad Browne just had to come to his rescue.  It’s a character flaw of mine that can lead to embarrassing moments.  This was one of them.

“Hello,” I said.  “Who are you?”

The man looked at me like I was a talking plant.  “Trbk,”  he mumbled.

“I’m sorry, who?”

“Trbk.”

“Oh.  My name is Mike,” I said, as none of us were wearing stick-on name tags identifying ourselves and our organizations, which prompted my next question:

“So, Mr. Trbk, who are you with?”

Well, shoot.  I am just not a morning person but I am a Jeopardy fan, and after it finally sank in that I was talking to Alex Trebek, I wondered if Alzheimer’s was beginning to dodder my way in a walker.  Then again, I didn’t expect to meet His Trebekness or any other national celebrity in a junior college gym in Sacramento at 7:30 on a Saturday morning either.

And I guess he didn’t expect to be greeted like a wholesale tire distributor at a regional sales conference.  No chauffeured limo had met him at the airport.  No little girl in a communion dress had presented him with a bouquet of roses, and the mayor and city council must have been having a working weekend somewhere.  I am not sure if a conference official had met him at the airport either, not even one of our work-at-home-moms with a kitchen table public relations agency and an SUV with toddlers in back.

Even social equality has its limits, and Mr. Trebek thought so too.  “Whenever you have a celebrity visit, try to make a bit of a fuss over him,” he told the conference during his address.

Yes, well I really should make amends to Mr. Trebek for not recognizing him right off the bat when we met, but I'm afraid that doing so would extend the jinx to an even more harmful effect, even if the amends were in the form of a question:

"What obscure Sacramento scribbler will feel responsible if his apologies for not making a fuss over you results in your being replaced on Jeopardy by Dame Edna?"

I’m sorry, but I just can't risk further jeopardizing Mr. Trebek that way. 
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Comments and Indictments: Please let me know if you wish to unsubscribe. -- MB

Did he really say, “Whenever you have a celebrity visitor, try to make a bit of a fuss over him?” 'Cause, if he did, I may have to rethink the opinion I was in the process of forming about him. Not that I think of him one way or the other. Nice piece! -- Beaty

Yup, he did.
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<3 your stories, TomatoMike -- Pirate

And I heart you right back. -- MB
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Keep em coming Mike I read the shit outa these things you do
and enjoy ‘em too -- Nick
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Just send out fewer of these...once a week or so should be fine, that way we don't get inundated. People are busy these days but making time to read this shouldn't be that hard, they're fun to read. Thanks! -- QB

Good point -- MB
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I've always thought that you or Surf would make a fine Jeopardy contestant. Remember when EHSAL [an AOL screen name]  was on "Millionaire"? And we were her "phone-a-friend" backups? (Sitting at home praying the phone didn't ring...) And the only unsubscribe request with my name on it will come from one of my relatives. If you get it, it will mean I've passed on. -- Sum
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What? Unsubscribe? Blasphemy!!! I wouldn't want to miss your missives, ever. Doyle, for instance, is etched in gold in this otherwise feeble brain of mine. Keep 'em coming, Mike! -- Len
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I've been of fan of Mr. Trebek's for years so this resonated with me. -- Rusty
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'His Trebekness' was brilliant. -- Ldy W
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Hey TomatoDork! Naah, keep me on your list. You make me feel superior, you sorry old hack you. -- Zip
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Never take me off your list -- L. G. Vernon
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Anybody who "unsubscribes" to your work is CRAZY!!!! -- Pross
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My father and I sat and did the Jeopardy thing every so often over the years, right up until the last few weeks of his life. My Dad was bright - very bright - and while I am reasonably intelligent regarding the trivia in the world, I couldn't catch him with a well-oiled baseball mitt and Mickey Mantle's hand under it to help me along. Dad was really good at it.

I hardly think you were responsible for Alex's injuries. I mean, we are all in charge of our own running-with-older-Achilles tendon injuries, regardless of the peripheral events.

Jeez, I like Alex. However aided by a screen of perfect answers, he pronounces those cities in Siberia and Mongolia so perfectly I can't help but wonder how he is in bed. -- Z.

You didn't put that thought in the form of a question.  -- MB

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I enjoyed reading this essay.  I am reading an interesting novel, Juliet, Naked by NIck Hornby. The book focuses on a celebrity musician's life. I really enjoyed About a Boy, another book by Hornby. I read it three times and also enjoyed the movie version. -- Ken

Career Moves

July and August are slow months in the limousine business, so I’ve been casting about for a part-time gig to help pay the bills.  Of course I check the classifieds and Craigslist, both of which have an abundance of low paying, humiliating and sometimes fraudulent job listings.  But out of the mud blooms the lotus, and you can find some really swell job opportunities if you know how to look for them.

The trick is to decipher the codes of the various ads.  For example, an ad seeking a "Jewish Egg Donor" does not require much effort to translate.  It’s quite simple, really.  The advertiser wants a Jewish person who’s giving away eggs, possibly for distribution to food banks and consumption by the homeless, I guess. Very straightforward. Noble, even. But not a good career move for me.  I'm not Jewish.

I watch the "marketing/pr/ad" section for possibilities.  Knowledge of the code is crucial here. For example, the ad for an "On-site Event Coordinator" may seem like the advertiser is looking for a person who can organize a fireworks display or a public hanging, but what the advertiser really wants is a kindly granny who can pass out samples of smelly cheese and weird crackers from a cloth covered card table in a Safeway.  Not much of a career move there, either.

But this Craigslist ad really snagged me:  "Help Further The Progressive Agenda."  I just had to check it out, because politically I am a godless commie pinko kneejerk liberal who wants to tax everyone to the hilt so the government can build day care centers for the offspring of unwed crack whores next to expensive gated communities.  Or in them.

I called the number listed in the ad, and spoke with a young person I’ll call Jason.  I asked Jason if furthering the progressive agenda meant attending editorial board meetings and arranging for media-hip liberal spokespersons to appear on talk shows, both of which I have done in a past life, and writing op-ed pieces in fighting the good fight. I’ve done that too.

"You have the right attitude," Jason said, "but this is more of a grassroots campaign.  You’ve heard of Proposition 8, the ban on same sex marriage that passed in the last election?"

Sure.

"We’re trying to get it reversed with petitions.  You would be working directly with the public."

An alarm bell went off in my head.  I’d be standing outside a Safeway with a stack of petitions on an ironing board, ambushing harried shoppers who just wanted to get in the store, then home before their ice cream melted in the furnace heat of a Sacramento summer.  At least the cheese and cracker lady got to stand inside, where there was air conditioning.  I told Jason as much.

"Well, we also canvass homes," he said.

Ohhhhhhhhh no!  Door to door canvassing is often done during evenings and weekends.  That's when homeowners are most vulnerable to doorbell attacks with offers of roofing, siding and solar hot water systems guaranteed not to leak until the minute the warranty expires.  I did that in a past life. The occupants were less than cordial.

And now Jason proposed that I interrupt peoples’ dinners, game shows and weekends to bug them about granting homosexuals the right to be legally married, with all the rights, privileges and misery attached thereto?  I mean, the signators would not even get a free high pressure sales job for a leaky solar hot water system in return.  I doubt the occupant, standing in the doorway with a chicken drumstick in one hand and a can of Budweiser in the other, would get all warm and fuzzy at the prospect of being one of a thousand points of light for gay rights.  That did not seem like much of a career move.

Jason tried to be accomodating:  "We also canvass businesses."

Worse yet.  Most businesses discourage soliciting and post signs to that effect: "Do Not Solicit Here Or We Will Punch You In The Nose."  I can only imagine the reaction if I ignored such a warning and strolled into a shop named Guns ’N Things and tried to get the retired cop behind the counter to sign a petition overturning the ban on gay marriage. The basement scene from Pulp Fiction comes to mind.  Definitely not a good career move at all.

I thanked Jason for his time.

Maybe I should reconsider handing out samples of smelly cheese and weird crackers in a Safeway. While it may not be much of a career move, I could at least have snacks
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Comments & Indictments:

Love this -- Margie
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I'm so glad July and August are slow for you. Well, not for you so much as those of us who are avid readers of The Tomatoman Times. What a wealth of well put together words.  Thanks for all three Wednesday morning wake-up calls.   -- Linda

Cowboys For Communism

Not long ago I saw one of my former professors on some cable program about California’s north coast, where my alma mater, Humboldt State, is located.  The prof was posed by a wall of liquor bottles in a bar, projecting the romantic image of the drinking poet, decked out in a tweed jacket with the obligatory leather elbow patches, a turtleneck sweater and a thatch of carefully coiffed Robert Frost hair.  The narcissistic son of a bitch had even taken to using all three of his names, like the poet William Carlos Williams, although he was not even close to being in Williams' league, and here he was national television droning on about the late poet and short story writer Raymond Carver.  Carver had been a student of his.  So had I.   

Carver graduated from Humboldt with an AB in English several years before I enrolled.  By then he had transferred to Chico and later Sacramento State for graduate studies, supplementing his meager income with minimum wage jobs, one of them as a janitor. "See what a bachelor's degree in English from Humboldt State gets you?" he wife at the time sneered. 

Then the New Yorker and the literary press began publishing his poems and stories.  That led to grants, paid speaking engagements and a gig teaching poetry at Sacramento State.  As JFK once said, "Success has a thousand fathers, but failure is an orphan."

Well, Carver succeeded as a writer, and here was this pretentious twit of a professor claiming literary paternity in a public forum.  That prof's only real claim to attempted paternity was confined to frosh girls who fell for his poet manque nonsense.  Oh, he had male acolytes too; struggling student poets working in bowling alleys, tending bar and writing arcane verse for each other, all of them making me consider changing my major from English to something more functional like diesel repair, as suggested by a Marxist friend of mine.

My  commie pal was Jim McEachron.  Jim was over six feet tall and probably weighed 250 pounds.  He worked on a ranch and wore a straw hat and bib overalls with pockets stuffed with radical screeds about the evils of capitalism.

Jim was the only self-proclaimed Marxist I knew who had a sense of humor, which did not sit well with the radical elements on campus -- or with the administrators of the community college we both attended before moving on to Humboldt State.  They paled at his proposal to start a chapter of Tom Hayden's Students For A Democrtic Society on campus.  The year was 1968.  Not a banner year for favorable press about college students, radical or otherwise. The school, College Of The Redwoods, was funded by bonds voted on by the conservative local electorate, many of whom thought all college students should flogged by hags and sent to Siberia, and Jim was not the kind of student to mellow their view.  Permission denied. 

Jim shrugged and renamed his group the Semi-raspertorious Discussion Society, his idea of a camouflaged derivative for SDS,  which he referred to as Cowboys For Communism.  He even had letterhead printed with a big red star at the top of the page, and took another run at the college administrators for permission to meet on campus, thinking an endorsement from John Wayne might help.

"I wrote to John Wayne asking him to be our honorary chairman," Jim said, "but the Duke must be very busy.  I haven’t heard back yet, but I should any day now."

The school administrators were quicker to respond.  Permission denied.  So Jim changed the name to the Chess Club.  Then the administrators relented.  Jim and his troublemakers were allowed to use college facilities, if for no other reason than to shut Jim up.  Besides, chess players weren't known for taking over campuses, trashing offices and courting televised coverage of their mass arrests. 

No matter.  Jim gave up radical politics when the Jesus movement smote college campuses in the early 70s.  He adjusted to the changing times and claimed to be forming a congregation of Cowboys For Christ.  The Jesus faction on campus got huffy in a most unchristian manner and the idea fizzled.  True believers are never much fun.

I ran into Jim as he was walking out of the local Sizzler steak house a year after we graduated. Gone were the bib overalls.  Gone was the straw hat.  Gone were the radical paperbacks bulging from his pockets.  He was wearing polyester slacks, a polyester shirt, and a clip-on tie. 

"Jim!  You sold out!" I said with mock horror.

As a matter of fact, he had.  Big time.  He was working as a reporter for a weekly newspaper so right wing that it made the Hearst papers look like Pravda.  Jim took a toothpick out of his mouth and summed up his political conversion with a single on-the-mark question:

"Mike, do you know there are forty-nine ways to make macaroni casserole?"

Ah yes, hunger trumps politics every time.  I'm not sure Jim was really a radical anyway.  He was more of a satirist, and satirists are often conservative.  From Jonathan Swift to George Carlin, satirists have used a personal conservatism to satirize the world as they see it.  That does not mean actual conservatives are intentionally funny. They aren't.  But they sure provide a lot of comic material.  Michelle Malkin and Rush Limbaugh come to mind.  

Even so, radicals, conservatives and satirists have one thing in common:  they all have to eat, as my friend Jim McEachron so trenchantly observed with his question.  Even tweed bedecked English professors who give interviews on national television have to eat.  I just wish their diets included a few slices of humble pie. 

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Comments & Indictments

Raymond Carver's lover was my poetry teacher at my university. Wild Irish woman. I hear they're making another movie out of another of his stories. -- Tab

Was your poetry teacher Tess Gallagher? Last I heard, she was living in Port Angeles, Washington, and If there is a sequel to the 1993 release of Short Cuts, directed by Robert Altman, I hope it's a good as the first: Short Cuts - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Nice blog. Unfortunately, I read satirist as satanist the first him thru....caused a double take. -- Doc

A lot of satirists’ targets would agree with your first reading.
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SWM Seeks SWF

Okay, okay already!  So I don’t look like Brad Pitt!  Brad Pitt looks like Brad Pitt, but he still could not hang on to Jennifer Aniston.  I like to think I have more staying power than Brad Pitt. Hell, I even wrote to Jennifer Aniston and said so. I mean, you don’t get to be my age without being equipped for the long haul.

What’s more, I offered her what a lot of women claim they want, like walks on the beach in the rain, cuddling by a fire, candlelit dinners, and wrote that I even like cats. That last wasn’t really a fib. I really do like cats. They taste a little like chicken, but I didn’t mention that to Jennifer Aniston.  She might be one of those women who get all squeamish about cats as a dinner entrée.  Guess she hasn’t had tandoori chicken at her local Bangalore Buffet.  You should try it sometime. The leftovers found in the better class of dumpsters are quite piquant, even if the leftovers once had fur and not feathers.

Anyway, Miss Aniston didn’t write back, for some reason.  Could be because I talk too much and was overheard by a jealous rival.  I mean, maybe someone blabbed that I had been banned from all public beaches that I thought were clothing optional, or that my fireplace was actually a curbside barrel, or that candles were my sole source of heat and illumination since my electricity was shut off because of an obvious misunderstanding with the power company. Some sort of mishmash about a supposedly unpaid bill.  Whoever said “you can’t fight city hall” never had to deal with some electric company pinky who writes snotty letters threatening customers with eternal darkness and cold tandoori chicken.

That reminds me of another condition a lot of women impose on a potential mate: financial security.  That seems to be an unfair burden, especially considering the amount of loot Jennifer Aniston makes for a so-so sitcom, a few ad layouts, and whatever the trash tabloids pay her to be photographed outrunning the other paparazzi.  I saw in a castoff edition of Forbes that she’s worth 18.5 mil. And she would expect me to pick up a dinner tab? Fat chance.

Still, I did plead for a little understanding on her part, but she seems to be playing hard to get. Pleading is overrated anyway.  Over the years I’ve learned that some (but not all) women think begging is an undesirable trait in a man, especially as a prelude to foreplay, and I guess Jennifer Aniston is one of those women.

Well, so much for her!  Anyway, this ad is a open ended response to the numerous ads posted by women seeking a male companion for walks on the beach in the rain, etc., etc, and I have a few questions of my own.  Here goes:

1.    Do you weigh less than a Toyota?

2.    Do you have any cats?

3.    Do you have a credit card or cards?  If so, specify limits.

4.    Do you have access to firearms?  If so, where do you keep them?

5.     If no, are you currently on probation or parole?

6.     If yes, were you convicted of a crime involving firearms?

7.     Are there any liquor stores or 7-11s in your immediate area?

8.     Do you own a car?  If yes,  provide the Kelley Blue Book value.

9.     Do you believe in love at first sight?

10.   If yes, do you believe in sex on the first date?

11.   If no, are you willing to listen to reason?

12.   Are you taking any prescription medication?

13.   Would you describe yourself as a sharing person?

14.   If the above answer is no, see question 11.

Any additional comments you may have are welcome. Please respond with a current photo.

Thank you.

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Comments & Indictments:

Mike, this one is a PERFECT comment on our times, and our foolishness when it comes to trying to find a mate! Thanks for sending it my way! -- Amanda

Tease.

You know, if I weren't already married to a much younger man …  Shag

I don't know where you found that pic, Mike, but I'm saving it to share with Anthony in case he ever starts thinking about getting a tattoo. And now I must go scrub my eyeballs with bleach, thank you very much. -- Sum

That's a shirt, right? RIGHT? They're not really tattoos? Surely nobody could be that stupid. Don't you ever just want to ask ..."WHAT ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH WERE YOU THINKING??!!!!" -- Tab A

I met a New Zealand sailor in Singapore named Pricky Price who had…well, who showed a picture of 13 tattoos on his … oh never mind. You get the idea. I have an idea that Pricky’s thinking was probably influenced by a flowing abundance of Malay Tiger beer.

Just tell me this man would not be our neighbor!  Please! -- Beaty

Haaaa wonderful one!:) -- Juli

Do Undo Others

My reading was interrupted by three little boys whose faces appeared in the open doorway of the stretched Humvee limousine I had parked in a church parking lot.  My passengers were inside the church, a Hispanic family that had chartered the limo for the quinceañera of their 15-year-old daughter.  

A quiceañera is a celebration of a young woman’s fifteenth year and can be as complicated and crises ridden as a big church wedding, and may include a special mass for traditon-minded Hispanic Catholics.  Mamas and aunties began picking fabrics and making dresses weeks and even months in advance.  Papas, uncles and male relatives rent colorful tuxedoes, small boys are collared and forced into similar attire.  Churches, reception halls, limos and caterers are booked;  invitations are printed, tempers are flared, doors are slammed, tears are shed.   In short, it's a typical large formal family occasion.  I guessed the boys in my doorway had gotten squirmy and restless during the long, droning service and been shooed outside by their parents.

“Boy, this is a big car,” the eldest said.  He looked about nine.  “Did my dad pay you a lot of money to rent it ?”

I laughed.  Just the kind of artless question I posed at that age.  I said he would have to ask his dad about that.

“Can we look inside?”

They seemed reasonably tame.  Their white shirts were spotless, their hair neatly combed, their navy blue pants carefully pressed and shoes brightly shined.  I  guessed their ages to be nine, six and three.  Earlier, inside the church, I had seen the eldest boy pick the youngest one up so the little guy could get a drink from a water fountain.  I liked the way he helped his little brother.   Sure, I said, as long as they stayed on the back seat by the open door. They clambered up the access step and sat in an orderly little row.  

“What’s your name?” the eldest asked.  I told them, and asked theirs.

“My name is Alejandro,” the eldest said.  He nodded toward the others. “He’s Alfredo.  The little one is Alexis.”

Alexis?  That gave me pause.  I thought the name Alexis was better suited to a tall middle-aged woman with an aristocratic bearing, maybe British, all tweeds and brogans and redolent of Yardley’s lavender soap, but not for a three-year-old boy who, at the moment, was “disappearing” me by putting the backs of his hands over his eyes.  I've since learned that Alexis is a common gender neutral name in Latin America and increasingly so in the U.S., like Taylor, Tyler or Madison.

Alfredo spoke up.  “Do you have to be really smart to drive one of these?”

This time I stifled a cynical laugh.  I explained that you need a special drivers license to drive a limo this big, and you have to study for it, but no, you don’t have to be especially smart.  But you do have to deal with all kinds of people on special occasions, and mostly you just have to follow the Golden Rule.  I stopped talking at that point.  I was getting preachy.  Preachy adults give off blips on the unfailingly accurate bullshit radar of all kids everywhere.  Another rule:  When a kid asks a simple question, give a simple answer.  Otherwise you just prompt more questions.  Alexis latched onto the phrase right away.  “Goden woo,” he said.

“I know what that is!” Alejandro said.  “Do undo others like they do undo you!”

“Goden woo, goden woo, goden woo,” Alexis said.

Close enough.  And it did bear repeating.  Then the boys got bored and started looking outside for something to.  The parking lot didn’t look too promising, but they piled out anyway and scampered off to create an adventure, leaving me to ponder goden woos and a nine-year-old’s thoughts.

_______________________

Comments and Indictments:

I loved it. -- Beaty

Not bad, Mike. I could see a picture in my mind -- Nick

Thanks, Nick.  Your comment prompted me to add one at the top of the page. MB

“Do undo others like they do undo you!” (And run like hell, denying knowledge or involvement if caught!) Yep. Those kids are ready for adulthood. -- Brat

What a sweet story, Mike. Undo you..hahaha, and ya betta undo others first! -- Amanda

Loved it!!! -- Juli

Ah yes the golden rule....we should all remember it and put it to constant use. Once again a parable from the tomatoman times. -- Mary Pat

I enjoyed reading this essay. -- Ken

From Glomar:

When Womyn Rule America

The following is a likely transcript from of the House Committee On Equal Rights in the not-so-distant future. The issues under discussion are two political hot potatoes: One would give men the right to vote. The other is even more radical, a measure allowing men to sit anywhere they want on public transportation and not restrict them to the back of the bus. The committee chairwomyn is Rep. Shulamith Fonda Franklin (Republicrat - Womynnesota).

Chairwomyn:  The chair recognizes our esteemed sister, Congresswomyn Gloria Peterbilt, who has a martyr’s burden of representing that wishy washy, fence straddling, knee jerking hopelessly liberal state of Calipurnia.  I suppose you’re going to play devil’s advocate?

Rep. Peterbilt:  Well, the voting rights thingy is a non-issue in my house.  The male unit will vote the way I tell him to vote, and anyway, the only things he is trained to read are recipes and fashion tips.  Anything else, especially something as complicated as a ballot measure, is just beyond the little dear.  But isn’t it about time we allowed male units unrestricted seating on public transportation?

Chairwomyn:  What for?  So they can plunk their brutish bodies down anywhere they want on the bus?  Don’t be absurd.  Just because you don’t care who violates your personal sacred space, think of how your mother would feel, or your daughter, for Goddess’s sake, if some hairy lout reeking of Aqua Velva presumed to be so…so….uppity…as to actually sit next to her innocent flowering She-ness.  The mind reels.

Rep. Peterbilt:  Yes, I can see where that might be troublesome for some unenlightened souls, but a properly trained male unit would never presume to sit just anywhere on a bus if the back wasn’t already overflowing with nattering giggling males.

Chairwomyn (sighing):  I know, I know.  They get really annoying in a group. That’s why I stopped my male unit from having Schtupperwear parties at our house. All those chubby male bodies stuffed into Speedos like cheese blintzes and parading around like snooty models on a high fashion runway.  Worse, they whine about their personal circumstances.  How we don’t understand them.  How don’t care about their needs.  How we expect them to have sex at what they consider inopportune times, like at a funeral or on a windswept beach in the rain.  Hell, a little wet sand up their buns may have a cleansing effect, so what’s the problem?

Rep Peterbilt:  Excuse me, Madam Chairwomyn, but we were discussing voting rights and public transportation.  There are political and social reasons why we should allow male units voting rights and equal seating under the law.

Chairwomyn:  Oh for Minerva’s sake, what are they?

Rep. Peterbilt:  As for the voter franchise, the political reason is voter apathy with absentee ballots mailed prior to primary elections.  Many indifferent womyn just turn the ballot over to the male unit like a Sudoko card and allow him to mark it up with a Crayola.  I mean, they are already voting anyway.  Why not register them in the hope that they may create a landslide mandate when directed by their womyn?  Two votes for the price of one.  And maybe they’ll feel responsible enough to stop marking ballots with crayons.

Chairwomyn:  I know.  Makes our ballot box stuffing machines all waxy.  Still, we’re working on some attack ads showing the effects of male units being allowed even a sub rosa voice in the outcome of national elections.  Unrestricted seating on buses is just for openers.  Soon they’ll protest being required to sit in theater balconies.  Who knows?  They may even insist on having their brainless entertainment legally broadcast on national television.  Imagine having a nice weekend ruined with games of baseballs or footballs blaring out of your TV.   Anyway, what’s the social reason for giving male units the vote?

Rep. Peterbilt:  A declining birthrate among the desirable demographics.

Chairwomyn:  You mean eligible voters not on public assistance.  Go on.

Rep. Peterbilt:  My staff is seeing an alarming trend.  An increasing number of my constituents write that their male units get sulky during womyns' estrous cycle and refuse to sleep with them. Instead of getting in bed, their male units curl up in tight little balls on couches, like armadillos, and cry all night about not being treated as equals.  That includes open seating on buses and being able to vote.

Chairwomyn:  Well, have your constituents tried distracting their male units away from substantive issues with chocolates and new shoes?

Rep. Peterbilt:  Many reported doing both.  Didn’t work.  The chocolates made the males think it made their bottoms look big. That made them whinier than ever.  As for new shoes, have you tried shopping for shoes with your male unit?  They can never make up their minds.  They try on everything in the store on before settling on a pair of pumps they could’ve picked up at a factory outlet for half the price.

Chairwomyn:  Okay, so how will giving male units equal seating on the bus, not to mention the vote, arrest the decline of the retail shoe economy and benefit womynkind?

Rep. Peterbilt:  It would be the first step, so to speak, in giving them full citizenship under the law.

Chairwomyn:  What the hell for?  Look, if we give them an inch, they’ll take a mile. Everyone knows that all male units are good for is spending money and being decorative. Other than that, the little dears are just plain useless. They can’t even take out the trash or kill a spider in the bathtub. One other thing, if you care to hear about a really alarming consequence of giving male units the vote.

Rep. Peterbilt:  And what would that be?

Chairwomyn:  Male units in Congress, that’s what!  How does that grab you?

Rep. Peterbilt:  Oh nonsense.  That would never happen.  Never.

Chairwomyn:  Oh?  You think not?  And why, by all that’s holy in the name of Isis, not?

Rep. Peterbilt:   Well, even equality has it limits.

Chairwomyn:  Don’t count on it.  They may even try to put a male unit in the White House. Imagine that!

Rep. Peterbilt:  Oh please, Madame Chairwomyn, I mean really!  Surely, even in the great state of Womynnesota, you’ve heard the word “ninny”?

Chairwomyn:  I have.  Usually applied to misguided Calipurnians.  I say we table this issue and let it die in the Rules Committee, along with that lunatic balanced budget and arms reduction bill.  Let’s move on. What’s the next agenda item?
___________________________

Comments & Indictments:

Who are these wonderfully horrible people you made up?  -- Beaty

 

Oh, they're composites of people I've known.  I just changed their gender to female.

 

I ask, what do you mean WHEN women rule?  We already do. -- Brat

Not so loud, you!

I enjoyed the humor in this essay.  -- Ken

Loved this : )  -- Juli

Do you get paid for this?  Very funny. -- Gambatay

No, dammit.

Coupla things I really loved: Womynnesota and Schtupperware -- Shag

Yet again, Mike, I'm in awe.  Curse you and your writing talent, too -- Sum

Sigh. See below:

Stop sending me this please -- Echo

Okay. I’ll miss you. Now I think I’ll go lie down in traffic and mull over the whys and wherefores of personal rejection.

Thank you, Mike. You’re a funny man. -- Fay

You spun out on this one -- Nick

Is that good?

Metaphysically speaking, some exist only to serve as a warning to others. You may soon join our horridly funny little world -- Nick

Now you’re scaring me.

Disorder In The Court

Bailiff: Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! The Superior Court in and for the County Of Laputa is now in session, the honorable Judge Gilbert N. Sullivan presiding! All those with business before this court draw near and be heard!

Judge:  Do you have to be so goddamn loud?  I may be old but I’m not deaf.  One other thing. I’ve been on this stupid bench for 35 years and no one ever told me what the hell “oyez” means. Is it “oh yes”?

Bailiff:  No, your honor. Oyez is Norman French, a plural nominative from the verb oir, which comes from the Latin verb audire, both of which mean ‘to hear’ and…

Judge:  Quiet, you!  No one likes a know-it-all. Okay, so who’s the first among this miserable pack of scruffy felons, lying philanderers and freebooting scofflaws to protest their soiled innocence so help them God?

Bailiff:  The first case is The People vs. Birdsong, your honor.  The charge is arson.

Judge:  Arson!  Not again!  Goddamnit!  I’ve told the district attorney time and again I will not hear any more arson cases! Don’t even swear this Birdsong person in!  Birdsong!  Where the hell are you?  Speak up!

Birdsong:  Here, your honor.

Judge:  Oh.  There you are.  Why are you wearing that hideous orange costume?

Birdsong:  I’m in jail, your honor.  It's what they gave me to wear.

Judge:   Well, it doesn’t do a thing for you.  Orange is an Autumn.  You’re not an Autumn.  You look like a Spring to me.  Yes.  Light greens, maybe.  Greens would highlight your eyes.

Birdsong:  That’s what I thought.

Judge:  You thought?  I didn’t ask what you thought!  If I wanted to know what you thought, I would’ve asked what you thought, and apparently you don’t think much!  If you had thought, you never would’ve gotten that girl pregnant!

Birdsong and bailiff in unison:  Huh?

Judge:  Well the charge is arson, right?

Silence.

Judge:  Oh now don’t tell me that young Birdsong here is accused of committing arson with an animal!

Bailiff:  No, your honor, but…

Judge:   But what?  Some farm machinery?  A kitchen appliance?   My god, you young people these days!  I tell you the country has gone to hell ever since the Warren Court and The Liberal Media got a such a throttlehold on the body politic and allowed arsoners to arson anything in sight!  Including the body politic!

Public defender:  Uhhh, your honor?

Judge:  Another country heard from!  Who the hell are you?

Public defender:  I’m Mr. Birdsong’s court appointed attorney, your honor.

Judge:  Oh really?  And just who on God’s green earth appointed you, you ambulance chasing, bloodsucking Perry Mason, Melvin Belli, Johnny Cochrane wannabe to represent this vile debauching arsoner of innocent maidens and farm machinery?

Public defender:  You did, your honor.

Judge:  Hmm.  Well, what does the highly esteemed counsel and defender of widows, orphans and the arbitrarily accused have to say to this court?

Public Defender:  My client pleads not guilty, your honor.

Judge:  Nonsense!  He was arrested, wasn’t he?   He’s in jail, isn’t he?  Therefore he’s guilty as hell!  Hipso fatso!

Public defender:  The phrase is ipso facto, your honor, it means ‘by the fact itself’ and …

Judge:  By god, counselor!  Are you related this smartaleck know-it-all of a bailiff?

Public defender:  No, your honor.  I just wanted to say that my client could not possibly have committed the crime of which he has been accused.  At the time of the alleged arson incident, he was in a full body cast and traction in a Tijuana hospital after doctors appeared  to pull chicken parts out of his body.

Judge:  What kind of surgery is that?  Did your disgusting degenerate of a client have arson with a chicken and get stuck?

Public Defender:  No, your honor.  There were even witnesseses.  A TV crew from 60 Minutes was present, doing a story about miracle cure medical scams.  My client had initially sought treatment for an acute case of pityriasis simplex capillitii.

Judge:  What the hell do you have against the English language?  First you hispo fatso this court and now you're pissing simple capitalists.  Just what is that apparently dire medical condition anyway?

Public Defender:  Dandruff, your honor.

Judge:   And 60 Minutes was interested in that?  Oh, never mind. There goes my ruling on hearsay evidence.  Well, I suppose your client is going to plead not guilty.

Public defender:  Yes, your honor.

Judge:  Fine.  And as for you, Birdsong, do you agree with this ambulance chasing shyster, I mean, your learned counsel, and affirm your plea of not guilty?  The sooner you do, the sooner you can get out of that unbelievably ugly orange outfit.  So, what’s it gonna be?

Public defender:  Not g...

Judge:  I didn’t ask you!  Jesus H. Christ on a crutch!  Don’t you people ever listen?  Case dismissed!  Now get out!

Birdsong:  What does oyez mean?

Public defender:  Never mind.
________________________

Comments and Indictments:

Thanks once again Mister Mike!  -- Stan

Thanks once again for bothering to read it!  -- MB

Mike,  I did public defender work as a volunteer for the first 4 or 5 years of my practice.  It was a great experience!  My cousin, Pete Gullett, served as City Prosecutor here in Hazard, KY for a few years before I got out of law school.  In those days, Don Fouts, a wonderful old fellow and local restaurant owner, was the Judge.  Don could be very cantankerous at times and he produced many stories that are similar to yours. The bevy of "town drunks" produced many of the funniest stories.  Don's wife, Zita, is a saint in heaven, no doubt, for putting up with him all those years, and for making wonderful pecan pie!  PS: The "orange costume" line made me laugh out loud. -- Doc

Good god…[In France] Strauss-Kahn isn't half way out of the shit with judges of that species! No big deal as far as I'm concerned. You may keep him in an orange outfit for the next 70 years. -- Gerard


Mssr. Gerard is referring to Dominique Gaston André Strauss-Kahn, a French economist, lawyer, and politician. His political career recently ended after he was charged with multiple counts of attempted rape. Not a nice man. MB

Considering the hours I spent in court, this is funny, funny, funny! -- LGV

LGV is a former deputy sheriff -- MB

Good chuckle. Thanks! -- Brat

I've heard court sessions come pretty close to this. God Bless Michigan! -- Shag

I've often wondered what a guy who wears the comfortable robe up there at the big desk would say if he was just given free rein to let all thoughts roll off his tongue, eh? I like it. I really do. I think if it was me, I'd wear a pastel robe in the spring. I think it might make me less cranky. -- Zoey

Made me laugh, Mr. Mike. -- Thea.

Thanks, Mike. Just what I needed.. -- Fay

Thanks for sharing, Mike, this made me laugh out loud. -- Sandy

Shakespeare's Rejection

From The Deske Of Thomas Entwhystle, Acquisitions Wordsmith, Caxton & Companie, London.

To: William Shakesper, Stratford-On-Avon

Deare Master Shakesper:

Thee flatters us with kyndness in proposing that Caxton & Companie publish thy playe “Romero & Joliet” in parchment back form, but hold and alas, we believe it doth not suiteth our needes at this tyme.

As thou knoweth, Caxton & Companie printeth Holy Scipture and sundry how-toeth bookes, such as our “Flogging Penitents & Papists For Funne And Proffit” and “Grist-Milling For Dummies,” and we have prayerfull hopes that our lord Sir Francis Bacon will bless our modeste press with his work-in-progress, “Hamlet And Egglet, A Storie of Star-crossed Lovers From The Houses Of Montague & Capulet In Old Verona, which, if thou will forgiveth me for saying, thy “Romero & Joliet” doth resemble in stylle and mannerr.

I remain thy obedient servant,

Thomas Entwhystle
___________________________

My Lord Thomas:

May the gods cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war to pisseth on thy leg! Bacon is a hacke and a blackguard and you, sir, deserveth a plague on your house for printing such a foulle stinker as he! He hath absconded with treachery my Romero & Joliet! I would rather be flogged by hags than be renown as a companion in prose to this villainous serpent, this scribbling snatchbottom and scuttling crab louse on the bearded arse of ill fame! I shall never dark on your door again! I exeunt, stage left!

WS
___________________________

Deare William:

Perhaps we can reach some happy accord? Caxton & Companie are hostinge and wyne and cheese pageant Tuesday weeke. May we expect thee to honor us with thy gracious presence?

_________________________

My Lord Thomas:

Fucketh thou.

WS
_________________________

Some correspondents writeth:

Did you know Shakespeare used to have lunch by the Avon river, in a burger joint called McDuff?  He used to have the King size one, with a large portion of fries -- Gerard

See? Nothing new under the sunne. MB
____________________________

Scribbling snatchbottom rocks. I will try to remember to use it in chat this week. Useth, I mean. -- Shag
________________________
　
Maybe I'll copy old Will for my rejections......not bad company....heehe -- Canids
________________________

Thou art brilliant! -- Ladye Shannon

I blusheth -- MB
________________________

What a hilarious work of yours, Mike! You slay me, truly. -- Amanda
________________________

Question (since I'm away from dictionary) ~ what does sybarite mean? -- Thea

I had to look it up. Means someone from Sybaria, an ancient Greek colony in Italy known as the Las Vegas/Tijuana of its day. Sybarites were given to pleasurable excesses, like, oh, eating too much popcorn and trying to invent chocolate, since it hadn’t been imported from the New World yet. -- MB
_________________________ 　

IS THIS THY OWN WORKE?   Faith, but thou doest become funnier with each passing yeare -- Sum

Aye, 'tis mine own poor offering on the altar of ink-stained wretchedness. -- MB
_________________________

“I would rather be flogged by hags than be renown as a companion in prose to this villainous serpent”…. Ya know, I’m just LOOKING for an opportunity to use this quote -- Lynda
_________________________
　
I will send this with my chuckles to a man I visited for a week a few years ago in California - one of the few I have met from online. He has been a Shakepearean actor his entire adult life and performs regularly at Ojai in many productions. He knows all of Shakepeare's plays by heart and will have a laugh at your contribution. Thanks. -- Zoey

Don’t mistake his gagging noise for a chuckle -- MB
_________________________

Vanity, all is vanity. You left out, "I shall stabbeth thee behind thy arras, ye rump-fed ronyon." -- Wasabi

I’m claiming rump-fed ronyon. MB

I Heart Libraries

The only card in my wallet I treasure is my library card. If I were mugged by a renegade English major in Birkenstocks wearing a gender neutral biodegradable mask and brandishing a sharpened Bic pen, I would give up my 29.9% APR Visa, my plastic drivers license with a picture that makes me look a drug addled detox resident, and even my Blockbuster Video card that I haven’t used since VHS went out of style, but not my library card. Nope. No way.

“Look,” I’d say, “I’ll give you all the money I have on me, which might be just enough to buy a Barbara Cartland paperback with the cover torn off, but you ain’t gettin my liberry card, pal. So fergit it.” At which point the mugger would burst into tears and flee. You have to talk tough to muggers who wear Birkenstocks.

Yeah, well, I’m serious about my library privileges, which I will protect even to the point of hurting the feelings of a literate mugger. I even pay my overdue fines without quibbling with the library staff; those Dewey-decimal guardians of the written word, those soft-spoken saints of the stacks, those quiet and wise guides who lead the confused, the impatient and the lost though the shelved thickets of Aa through De and beyond.

During my wild impetuous youth I considered becoming a librarian as a career, but only two schools in California offered library science degrees, UCLA and San Jose State, both geographically and financially beyond my reach, so I settled for being an English major at a state college close to home.

I costumed myself in English major couture. I bought a shabby corduroy jacket and faded Levis at a thrift shop. I also developed an English major’s taste for three-dollar-a-gallon Chianti in screw top bottles and, on special occasions, sangria made with Chianti in screw top bottles. I even dated girls majoring in English for awhile, but soon learned that most of them were terminally complicated and ten times smarter than I was. They intuitively knew that my references to the alliterative genius of Gerard Manley Hopkins was just another ploy to get into their knickers. Worse yet, they enjoyed listening to Joan Baez records, whose fingernails on the blackboard voice made my fillings hurt.

This was during the rebellious days of the late 1960s, although my own rebellion was not against the Establishment. It was against the collegiate mainstream of the day by having short hair, two jobs, and by being a military vet several years older than the bead wearing, bath avoiding, draft dodging, herpes carrying and patchouli reeking majority of my nominal peers.

But I was momentarily nudged toward the unwashed Left by none other than Ronald Reagan. In person. The then governor came to our small and politically apathetic college during finals week in 1970. For those of us who preferred to labor over our blue books instead of hearing the governor speak, the school administration had strung outdoor speakers all over the campus so none of us would miss a word. Also, the governor's visit was preceded by 200 cops in full riot gear, including one overhead in a helicopter with a rifle visibly pointing at the assembled rabble below.

That did not sit well with the assembled rabble. Neither did the gist of the governor’s speech: he intended to raise tuition at the University of California and hike fees in the state college system. You could hear pages being torn from blue books in every classroom. Our teacher dismissed the class at that point, saying scholarship was impossible under these conditions, that she already knew what our final grades would be, and we were free to go.

I went to the library balcony, the building being on a hill overlooking the open area where the governor was speaking and where the helicopter was hovering, and where I would be out of the way if the cops decided to beat the snot out of us dirty hippie commie pinko students and spray us with Mace as we collapsed in hairy heaps. Media images of the Chicago police riot during the 1968 Democratic convention were still etched in our glassy-eyed gourds. A few of us had even been there.

So, like Quasimodo in the bell tower of Notre Dame, I sought sanctuary in a high place. All I needed was a bad back and an unconscious lady to hold aloft. But I had neither, and anyway, the governor’s speech was about over and the cops were preparing to leave.

I drifted into the library itself, feeling instantly at ease among tomes of Aa through De and beyond, where even the young student librarians had a look of middle-aged rectitude and calm, far removed from the world of club wielding cops and showboating governors with Brylcreemed hair.

Hell, I’m still there.
______________________

Responses & Reprisals:


You missed the opportunity of seeing a master up close. Reagan was doing what he did best, standing up and BSing a crowd. Oh, and my library fantasies involve a cute female librarian back in the stacks. -- Wht

Join the club. MB

Mike, I also love libraries. I was so strange as a child that one of my biggest summer thrills was reading enough books to get my name up on the bulletin board at the branch library. That was the Ross Branch Library in Denver. Any kid who wanted one got a little notebook thingy to record the books he/she read over the summer. When the magic number was reached (I think it was usually ten), the librarian put your name on the bulletin board, usually written on a paper cut-out balloon or leaf or whatever. I still remember the layout of that library and where each type of book was located. I was born in 1942, and in those days I was allowed to walk the eight or ten blocks to the library alone whenever I wanted. Magical!  Blessings -- Carmen

I studied Lib Sci one semester and fell in love with the organization and the touch of the card catalog drawers. And I still love it, even with self-checkout. Talk about trust! And I love to hear the prim older librarians talk about the Privacy Act. They will walk proudly to the noose before revealing my obsession with English detective fiction. There cannot be a nobler profession.
You might look into joining Garrison Keillor in the Professional Organization of English Majors, or POEM.  Yours in letters -- Canny

I’ve already signed up and even have a Lake Wobegon t-shirt. MB

Ssshhhhhhh...quiet please. Enjoyed it much! -- Dana

Love it... wish I'd written it. You know, I still marvel, when I drift into my local branch, that a place still exists that is founded and based upon pure trust, and couldn't, in it's current form, without it. Nobody's out to screw anybody... everybody respects the little treasures they're allowed to borrow, and if someone messes up and forgets to return one on time, the consequence is respectful as well... a mere tap instead of a sledgehammer as a reminder. Keep 'em coming, Mike... we all luddju, and your little blog too. -- Sum

Toto and I thank you. MB

Nice recollections! I enjoyed. -- Gambatay

I loooove my libraries. They are more important than they ever were.
I can't beleeeeve you said that about Joan Baez. Or about being a Reagan supporter. -- Lady W

I never supported Reagan, but I did wind up working for him several years after the incident I wrote about. Long strange story, but not as strange as Joan Baez’s agonized screech of a vibrato voice. MB

Muggers who wear Birkenstocks have feelings, too!. I read about it in a library. Thank-you for taking me back there. -- Pirate

Well that explains a lot of things. -- Lynda

Oh Mike, thanks for taking me back to happiest childhood summer memories spent at the library.  This was back when I could walk to the neighborhood library alone, and not worry about being abducted.  The library was, and still is, a magical place for me.  It was air conditioned, unlike my house. I remember thinking what a grand idea to allow ME to be able to take out books, read them, and return them to get even more books.  What a great idea!  Of course none of my siblings saw it this way.  For me the library was an escape and through books I could go anywhere, and for a brief time be someone else.  The children's librarian was like 60 something with a mole on her face with a protruding hair growing out of it.   She watched me like a hawk, making sure I did not wander from the children's section into the adult section.  I could not wait to trade in my "J" library card for a "YA" card so I could get more sophisticated books, then onto the converted "A" card.   AHHH yes the "A" card.   THE card to have, that would allow you to take out any book of your liking without the cruel stare of the mole woman.  I managed to pass my love of books and libraries onto my children and I curse the make of these new ebooks.  They can never take the place of the neighborhood library!   Thanks for taking me back there Mike!  -- Mel