The April Fool of 2021, plus it's Good Friday, and RED Friday

A great good morning to all my friends and neighbors in Internet Land! And to family members who have dropped by, this story will not come as a surprise.

WARNING: WHILE NOT INTENDED TO BE POLITICAL, THIS POST DOES TOUCH ON SOME POLITICAL ISSUES. IF YOU FIND THESE OFFENSIVE, FEEL FREE TO REPLY TO ME BY EMAIL AT PAPAPATPATTERSON AT GMAIL DOT COM. I WILL NOT PUBLISH ANY POLITICALLY MOTIVATED ATTACK STATEMENTS ON THIS BLOG.

The blog title is “The April Fool of 2021;” but if I were writing this as a 19th century adventure, I would most assuredly add 

“Or, 

How Dr. Joseph Cousin, Senior, 

and I 

Combined Efforts 

To Produce 

Goodness From Goofiness.”

Despite appearances, you ARE getting a massively edited version of the events taking place on April 1, 2021. This is a John 21:25b-type event! (If I wrote it in detail, even the world itself couldn’t contain it…)

So, dispensing with the HIGHLY significant and relevant 1995 events, as well as those from 2001,  2011, and 2020s, even MOST of 2021 events (!), I present to you the story of how The Reverend Doctor Joseph Cousin, pastor of Allen Temple AME Church of Woodstock, and the Forward Focused Thursday broadcast, combined with my own gifts (!!) to play the best April Fool Joke on me EVER!!!

If you wish to know the background, you will find it in the breathtaking true-life story of “The Church Lady and the Motorcycle White Boy, Volume II,” which is still being written. And lived.

For reasons, every Thursday at noon since November, I have made it a priority to listen to Allen Temple AME’s Facebook live stream, “Forward Focused Thursday.” The patriarch, Bishop Philip Cousin, is joined by two of his two sons, Dr. Michael Cousin, Sr, and Dr. Joseph Cousin, Sr, and by grandson Reverend Steven Cousin Jr, with grandson Reverend Timothy Cousin making frequent appearances as well. (All these men are AME pastors, and the godly heritage itself is enough to commend it to listeners.)

I never finish the live stream as the same person I was when it started. Sometimes challenged, sometimes comforted, usually both; it’s an exposure to probably two centuries of combined experience of godly men. (Must I state explicitly that they all, particularly the 89 year old Bishop, bring a perspective that I can only PARTLY comprehend, and that’s my reason for tuning in?)

Yesterday, I go to the live cast as usual. Almost immediately, the team reminds me that this is Holy Week, when we remember the arrest, torture, and crucifixion of Jesus; yet, knowing the RESURRECTION is coming. Deep thoughts, not only of first century events, but what we can do TODAY. And I’m thinking those thoughts, when…

...a little past the six minute mark, Pastor Joseph says this is pre-recorded, because he has been asked to attend a “rally/press conference/event” to protest some legislation placing restrictions on the voting processes.

Since I am under a self-imposed ban on news, I wasn’t aware of this issue, so I paused the stream, and googled “Atlanta Voting Protest.” And THIS  is the result I found. The article states that a protest to Bill 531, to restrict some voting rights, was being held at the Capitol, starting at 5:31 AM, and going to 5:31 PM. 

THE APRIL FOOL JOKE HAS INITIATED!

O Best Beloved, if you have clicked on that link, and seen the article, did YOU catch the TWO alerts that I missed? Yes? No? I’ll tell you later, in case you missed them, as I did.

"That's a good cause," I thought. "I need to go to that, and take Kenneth." He's my 16 year old son, and was home yesterday. 

"Come on, Kenneth, put on your shoes and socks. I'm going to take you to your first protest demonstration!"

(SQUAWK SQUAWK!! “Protest? Protest WHAT?” SQUAWK! SQUAWK!!!)

But, he’s a good and cooperative young man, and in a moment or two, he does appear, wearing shoes and socks. 

I want to get there, participate, and get back home before the traffic gets bad. It’s about 12:30, I figure it will take us an hour to get to the Capitol, find a place to park, and walk to the event. So, minutes count; which is why I don't even finish listening to the rest of Forward Focused Thursday. They are around 10 minutes in, at this point, and talking about football, about which I know little and care less, so I just hit the PAUSE button, and down the road Kenneth and I go. 

I will spare you from hearing the chants I told Kenneth he would have to learn before we got there. 

“It’s a protest, Kenneth! Of COURSE you have to chant.”
“I don’t want to chant,” he replies. “It bothers people.”
“That’s the POINT!” I said.

At the Capitol, we do find a protest, and some of the protesters are wearing "VOTE" facemasks, but they are there for something else. 
I eventually discover NO ONE is there for protest against 531, and that the 531 protest was: 

last month. 

This rally was in support of the family and cause of Justice for Jamarion (Robinson), who would have been 31 years old today. I wept, hearing his story; could have been my Kenneth. Could easily have been me, at that age.

When we get back home, I discover that the Channel 11 news item I had seen was dated MARCH 1, not APRIL 1. And that the protest took place on a MONDAY, not a Thursday. (Didn't notice that.)
Then, I listen to the rest of the Forward Focused Thursday cast, and at around 33:00 hear Pastor Joseph say that he is headed to the World of Coke for the protest event.

SO:

Wrong cause.

Wrong place.

Wrong month.

Other than that, everything went GREAT! 

I had a great time with Kenneth, and was deeply moved by Jamarion's story. 
I got to take Kenneth to his first protest event:

One of the organizers and Kenneth, 

because I needed a pic to send to Vanessa,

who had no idea what I was doing

And I learned another lesson in the sweetness of willingly accepting a drink from the Cup of Humiliation! It burns horribly if you resist, but it goes down like cool balm for the soul if you accept the correction. 
Habakkuk21b: “I will keep watch to see what He will say to me, and how I may reply when I am reproved.” 

If my reply is “Yes, Lord,” then I can laugh at my foolishness, and not be ashamed.

So, laugh with me!    

Peace be on your household.

Fan fiction of the OOOPS! type: a proposal

I wish to propose a new type of fan-fic, which I think off as the OOOPS! style.

Take a well-known scene from a book written by someone in Sarah's Diner (or a Baen author) (or whoever you want) and at the height of the action, screw something up. 

It should NOT be due to a newly-introduced character defect of the protagonist, but rather from a bit of randomness that throws off the entire plot.

NO resolution is needed!

An example follows; this is from the second Belisarius novel, actually packaged in the somewhat recent omnibus version.

Background, with (limited) spoilers: 

A faction in India has the backing of an evil supercomputer from the future; the plan is to rule the world and eliminate timocracy forever, thus maintaining blood purity. Rome’s best general, Belisarius, has been provided with a supercomputer as well, sent back to prevent the changes in the timeline. His computer exists in the form of a jewel, which he keeps with him all the time. 
Belisarius has persuaded the Indian leaders of his intent to betray Rome, as a way of gaining access to their plans. However, he is forced to meet with the enemy computer, which is a near-perfect lie detector. He is forced to flee by jumping out a window into the river.

What follows is the text of Eric Flint and/or David Drake, the authors, except for the last line:

Belisarius reached the window. There was no time for anything but a blind plunge. He dove straight through the silk-mesh screen, fists clenched before him. The silk shredded under the impact. Belisarius sailed cleanly through the window. He found himself plunging through the night air toward the surface of the Jamuna. The assassin's hurled knife missed him by an inch. Belisarius watched the knife splash into the river. Less than a second later, he followed it in.

He decided that he had time, finally, to shed his clothing. He needed to wait, anyway, to observe whatever search pattern the galleys would adopt. It was the work of a minute to remove his clothing. Another minute, to remove his boots without losing them. Another minute, carefully, to make sure that the pouch carrying his small but extremely valuable pile of coins and gems was securely attached to his waist. He reached to secure the pouch containing the jewel around his neck...it was GONE! 

OOOOPS!

So, I suggest that you go back and consider your favorite works, and utterly destroy the plot, just for fun. Again: this should NOT be due to a previously unrevealed character defect by the primary players; Johnny Rico's suit can fail at bad time because he forgot to gas it up, but he shouldn't be revealed to be a vampire when he sits down to dine with Carmen. 

But you can do that if you want to, I suppose.

Peace be on your household.

The Freezer Fairy is Joined by the Pantry Fairy

 Greetings to all of my friends and neighbors out there in Internet Land, and to those family members who have stumbled on this site: YE KNOW WHEREOF I SPEAK!

Hooray for science! It's given us some GREAT ways of living longer, healthier lives. What we DO with those lives is up to us, but for that, we also have the Scientific Method. Define the issue; study it; form a hypothesis; test the hypothesis; rinse and repeat!

Or, if you want to go somewhat old school :

 "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." (I Thess 5:21, KJV)

It's the same thing, really.

And yet, despite science, and the scientific method, and all the lovely technology that exists to prevent us from having to slave all day, hoping to get enough to eat and a place to sleep, a persistent believe in fairies seems nearly universal.

Sure, it's transformed somewhat since my great-great-great-multi-greats were leaving offerings for them in Scotland and Africa, but only in the location and composition of the sacrifice. Instead of bowls of milk by the door, or porridge by the hearth, my offspring leave half-eaten bowls of cereal under their beds, popcorn in bags by the television in the family room, and significant meal remnants on un-scraped plates, which are often, but not always, placed in the approximate location of the kitchen sink.

Now, these are not just sacrifices offered out of the goodness of their hearts, although I do not deny that goodness, not for a second. My offspring have ALWAYS had certain expectations for the fairies. While my ancient ancestors may have expected that their placations would prevent the cow from going dry, or keep the potato crop healthy, the modern expectations are more techno-centric. This is likely due to the fact that we no longer keep cows or plant potatoes, and why should we, when their are three major grocery chains within two miles, and three convenience stores as well as a stand-alone pharmacy? If the milk turns up sour (*), we can have a fresh gallon in under five minutes, guaranteed.

*My offspring eat a lot of breakfast cereal, so the likelihood of the milk going sour is pretty slim. They usually go through a gallon of milk every four or five days.
(I have discovered, however, a way to stop them from drinking so much milk: buy TWO gallons, instead of one. If I buy TWO gallons, milk consumption IMMEDIATELY ceases, and some two to three weeks later, I'm dumping clotted dairy product to feed the garden. )

No, the expectations which I believe have been universal in my family, at least those in the pre-adult stage, but not limited necessarily by youth, are quite modern. They simply expect the fairies to turn the lights off. At one point, it was the job of the fairies to turn the television or game systems off as well, although I took steps to disabuse them of that misbelief, by confiscating power cords.

For the last significant period of time, though, I have become aware that everyone else in the house  is a firm believer in the power of the Freezer Fairy.* My recognition of this roughly coincides with the closing of the schools last spring, which meant that I was daily joined by the teen members of the Chattahoochee Pattersons, every day.  

* Before you assume that I am some sort of MONSTER: Maybe some 25 or 30 years ago, I bought a state-of-the-art-ish refrigerator-freezer, with an automatic ice-maker and water dispenser in the door. It worked great for about 5 years or so, and then water started leaking out uncontrollably. So, I turned off the water supply, and we went to ice trays. And we have never HAD any ice in any form other than ice trays since sometime in 2001 or 2002. Which precedes the arrival of my current brood by nearly a decade; thus, they have never experienced, on a regular basis, the delight of on-demand crushed ice, etc. Except when we go visit Heath, Eliott, and Evelyn. They have a BRAND NEW refrigerator freezer, and Kenneth and Alicia stand fascinated as frozen and macerated water drops into their glass...

But, on the home front, the belief in the Freezer Fairy persists. Somehow, they believe, those ice trays WILL be filled! It's not THEIR job, oh, my, NO! PERISH the thought! Refill the ice trays? Why, that would deprive the Freezer Fairies of the reason for their existence! And, if the Freezer Fairies move out, who will eat the half-consumed sandwich placed carefully under the bed?

So, I have often gone to get some ice, from one of the four ice trays we keep. It is VERY rare that I will find an ice tray without a single cube; on the other hand, it is quite common to find two or three ice trays which each have but two or three cubes remaining. On one occasion, I found all four ice trays in that condition, and I promptly threw all four of them into the living room, where Kenneth and Alicia Ann were engaged with electronics, and didn't say a word. They got the message, though. On THAT occasion, they got the message.

But, life goes on. And this morning, while waiting on my Black Rifle Murdered Out coffee to emerge from the Keurig, I went to the freezer to ice my water glasses (I keep TWO water bottles with me, because I guzzle it). And that's when I discovered that in addition to the ice tray duties, the Freezer Fairy is now responsible for re-filling empty popsicle containers as well. A closer examination of the kitchen table revealed that a Pantry Fairy is expected to be on the job, as an empty box of popcorn bags was also present. (I don't like those bags. I go old school with popcorn.)

Freezer Fairy: two things to refill.

Pantry Fairy: just one.

Alas, since I have no real expectation that either fairy will appear, this will be my job. At least, they still find SOME use for the Old Man. All is not left up to me, however: yesterday, Alicia Ann, completely on her own, made up a shopping list for me, and told me she wanted to go with me to the store. She then agreed to make up a meal plan for the rest of Fall Break, so, today, the boxes will all get refilled. Even the boxes that weren't left on the table.

Peace be on your household.

 

 

Cold Case Murder Clue

Greetings, internet friends and neighbors, and a great good morning to you! And to those family members who have made their way here, I surely would appreciate the return of the big Tupperware containers. My gift-from-God, happily-ever-after trophy wife Vanessa, the elegant, foxy, praying black grandmother of Woodstock, GA, made a bodacious portion of mac and cheese (it's the ONLY mac and cheese I will willingly eat) and I have to put it in the icebox. If you can't bring it in person, at least send me a text (or comment on this post) and tell me where you might have hidden the larger food storage items.

I ain't playin' wit' you!

I need to store this!

This morning, I was thinking about a death, under mysterious circumstances, that was THE talk of the nation, a little more than a half-century ago.

Lacking anything that might reasonably be considered as proper crime scene evidence, for as contemporary documentation we have only the record (ummm...literally) of certain allegedly non-involved local residents discussing the death of a local teen. While this claims that the death was a suicide, the location and circumstances of the young man's death were sufficient to stir widespread speculation as to what really happened.

Time: Early summer. The actual date of the death of William Joseph McAllister is somewhat vague, but probably took place on or about June 1 or 2, 1967.
Location: rural Mississippi. Although a cursory impression of the community is that of just one more sleepy, dusty Delta farming settlement, appearances can be deceiving. Just shy of 12 years prior, another teen-age male had been killed in the exact same location. Despite the similarities between the cases, there has evidently been NO official effort to link the two murders. (Both were teens; both were guilty of nothing that could be regarded as a crime; both bodies were discovered in the very same river.) -FOOTNOTE 0-

Although the circumstances surrounding the death of a young man in rural Mississippi were vague in the extreme, that did not stop speculation. It is, perhaps, the very meaninglessness of this death that has provided so many with the desire to find answers. No one likes to believe that violent death can visit innocents without warning, but it was becoming quite difficult to hold on to this fantasy in the light of the casualty lists coming back from Viet Nam. Perhaps, the more a belief is challenged, the more we tightly hold on to it.

And yet, that attempt to hold on to the belief, plus our tendency to believe the FIRST witness to an event, blinded everyone to a critical clue, found in the opening lines of the single record we have. Admittedly, most of the speculation came from those living in cities and towns, places where the rhythms of agricultural life are unknown.

Still, once revealed, the blatant lie stands out, and cannot be unseen. To point it out, I must disclose certain agricultural truths.*FOOTNOTE 1: SPOILER CONTAINED IN FOOTNOTE*

Although farm life is a 24/7, 365 day/year occupation, there are DEFINITE seasons where some tasks MUST be done in a timely fashion, or dire consequences result. Most of these are related to the life cycle of plants, although animal husbandry needs prevail at times. During the (few) moments when neither of these tasks demand immediate attention of the farmer, the time is devoted to repair and maintenance of fences, equipment, and shelter.

With a proper understanding of this agricultural rhythm, we can evaluate the alibis offered by those seemingly most interested in the death of the young man, especially since the actual date is disclosed. The first task mentioned is carried out by the narrator. It is tedious work, but does not require the massive upper body strength that certain tasks do. Cotton is a cash crop for farmers, and the health of the crop requires that each plant be given clear access to sun, rain, and not be in competition with those pesky weeds that seem to proliferate without cause. The cotton can be planted, depending on local conditions, any time from the first of April through Memorial Day, and, as soon as the young plants begin to show, and have developed a strong enough core, a trustworthy family member or hired hand is sent out to kill everything that isn't cotton. This process is referred to as 'chopping cotton,' although the cotton itself is NOT chopped.

A second essential farm task is haying. There are any numbers of grasses that can be used to make hay, and those are selected based on the needs for feed, as well as the needs and nature of the soil.  For reasons not fully developed here, however, **FOOTNOTE 2: SPOILER CONTAINED IN FOOTNOTE**, it is essential that the  selected grasses reach a certain degree of maturity, at which time the proper balance of nutrients is reached, and the non-nutritive woody components have not become dominant. As well as the time spent growing, the time of day when harvesting is critical; grasses cut in the early morning will not have stored the maximum of photosynthetic sugar, and will be wet with dew, making them likely to mildew while on the ground waiting to be baled.

The clue. And THIS provides us with the clue that we need***FOOTNOTE 3: SPOILER CONTAINED IN FOOTNOTE*** in order to determine a false statement in the alibi. For reasons related to local ground chemistry, weather, and common planting schedules,  IT IS ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE for the two tasks mentioned to be performed simultaneously on the date mentioned. Thus, we have a broken alibi, leading us directly to the (figurative) smoking gun. And, after more than a half-century, the case is solved.

From the record:

It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day,
I was out chopping cotton, and my brother was baling hay.
(Ode to Billy Joe, Bobby Gentry, 1967)

Peace be on your household.

******************SPOILERS************
Footnote 0:  I have seen no record that Bobbie Gentry had this in mind, but the Tallahatchie Bridge crosses the river in Money, Mississippi, immediately adjacent to the site of the store where Emmett Till allegedly whistled at a white woman, for which he was lynched on August 28, 1955. And yes, my 2020 mind just created the association between the two murders.
Footnote 1:  I don't know any agricultural truths. I used Google to look at stuff.
Footnote 2: They aren't fully developed, because I don't fully understand them, and they are boring to anyone without a vested interest in growing hay.
Footnote 3: No, it's NOT true, as far as I know, that chopping cotton and baling hay couldn't be performed on the same day. I just made that part up, because the story needed it.

Steel-Eye McGinty and the Fight for Creativity

Greetings and well-wishes to you all, my dear Internet friends and neighbors, precious family, and especially all those patient authors who are waiting for a review.

It has been a week since I last made a post here, and much, much longer than that since I have been able to read to any good purpose, specifically with respect to writing a review.
It is not from a lack of appropriate material; I have (at least) 10 books in my TBR&R queue, and my perception, based on the authors, titles, and covers, is that these are books I will VASTLY enjoy. And some of those authors are important to me!
Behold, I shall conceal nothing from you: the last several weeks have been a challenge.

Not all is my story to tell. I have related a bit of the Georgia Monsoon of 2019 Septic Tank Disaster in my last post.
I have NOT mentioned the new, different, agonizing, sharp, stabbing, localized, intermittent, and migratory back pain I have been experiencing for the past six weeks. (More on that in a later post!)
And I don't recall if I have included a statement about the simultaneous failures-to-function-correctly status of our refrigerator, followed by the dryer and washing machine (those last two in the same day).
If those were not occurring in MY house, they would be brief, transitory, insignificant events, compared to what some of my dear ones are facing.
All of them, though, have contributed in some way to my inability to read.

If there is a virus that causes Writer's Block, then perhaps Reader's Block is a mutation.  And perhaps inspiring a burst of creativity will help.
With that in mind, I will relate to you one of the famous McGinty stories, composed a couple of decades ago for the Young Moose, now 27 years of age.

The Young Moose, 1996

Once upon a time there was a man called Steel-Eye McGinty. That wasn't his real name; his real name was Henry McGinty, but nobody called him that. He had lots of brothers and uncles and cousins, such as Gordon and James and Howard and Cecil, but nobody called them by those names. Everybody called them Tweety-Bird McGinty and Iron Pants McGinty and Crow Bar McGinty and Tow-Truck McGinty. Everybody, that is, except for their grandmother. She said all those names were a bunch of foolishness. She wasn't a McGinty; she was a McGillicuddy.

Henry McGinty got his name this way: He was not very smart, and not very strong, but he was as sweet as the day was long and he was the best mechanic and driver anyone had ever seen. He was hired by the mayor, and he took care of the trucks and buses and cars for the town, and he drove the mayor wherever he needed to go. He always took the best way (this was before the days of global satellites and traffic reports), and he got the mayor where he needed to go, on time and safely. The mayor had to go a LOT of places, because being the mayor, he had to promote the town's syrup factory, and he had to go see people all across the state to arrange to buy sugar cane and sell syrup. Everybody liked the mayor, because he took good care of their jobs, and he always had time to talk to anybody.

The mayor liked to talk. On the long trips across the state, he talked a lot with Henry (this was before cell phones; today, he probably would have been talking business with other people), about life, the universe, and everything. Henry liked those talks; they gave him a lot to think about, and the mayor was always interested in hearing what Henry had to say.

Henry especially like the way that the mayor helped people. He liked fixing the trucks and buses and cars, and he really liked driving the mayor, but he began thinking that he wanted to help people, too. He and the mayor used to talk about that on those trips. The mayor told Henry that he WAS helping people, because without Henry, he wouldn't be able to go visit farmers to buy sugar cane, and then the syrup factory would be hurt. Henry understood that, but he wanted to do more. But Henry knew he wasn't very smart, and he wasn't very strong, and he didn't make much money. What he really wanted to do was to go to other places, poor places, where farmers couldn't grow sugar cane because they didn't have enough water, and help them. He just didn't know how to do that.

His uncle Fill-up McGinty told Henry to just Do The Next Right Thing. Henry said he didn't know what the Next Right Thing was, and Fill-Up told him to Fully Rely On God (Fill-Up was a part-time preacher, but a very nice person anyway). Fill-Up told him some other things, too, but Do The Next Right Thing and Fully Rely On God were the things Henry remembered. For a while, he thought he should be a missionary to China, but Uncle Fill-Up explained that he didn't have to do that, and it was probably a bad idea anyway.

So, Henry and the mayor kept travelling, and they talked about syrup and the sugar cane crop, and water for irrigation,  The mayor was interested in Henry's plans to help people, and he told Henry that he thought Uncle Fill-Up was right. They were talking about ways in which Henry could know what the Next Right Thing was, headed east on US Hwy 82, when the chains on a log truck coming toward them broke, and dumped it's load in front of their car. Henry had just the barest moment to see it coming, and the last thing he saw was a log coming through the windshield.

Later, Henry found out that he had managed to steer the car just enough to the right that the log didn't kill him or the mayor. The mayor, in fact, didn't have a scratch on him, but Henry lost his left eye. The State Patrol had called in a medevac helicopter, and he was in the Trauma Center in Macon fast enough that they were able to save his life, but glass and pine splinters had damaged his eye so bad it had to be removed. He had a concussion , and a deep cut to his left arm (the mayor had used his belt to make a tourniquet to keep him from bleeding out), but they expected him to recover fully, except he would meed a prosthetic eye, and he needed some physical therapy for his left arm and hand..

When he was well enough to understand, they explained to him that he had a big insurance settlement coming, and that all his medical expenses were covered. That included $8,500 for an ocularist to make him a prosthetic eye that would be so real that no one could tell the difference. It would move just like his good right eye. The Georgia Eye Institute in Savannah would take care of everything.

And that's when Henry told them "No!"

He found out he would still be able to drive, once he learned how to adjust for depth perception, and he could still be a mechanic. He told them that he was going to Fully Rely On God, and Do The Next Right Thing, and he wanted to give the money to an irrigation project in South Sudan to help them grow sugar cane. He wouldn't change his mind, and after talking with him, the mayor and his family all gave him their support. The money went to the South Sudan, Education and Peace Building project, as a Designated Gift.

Since he refused to buy the prosthetic eye, he tried wearing an eye patch. He thought that made him look too much like a pirate, though. His physical therapist was having him playing with ball bearings to help his hand, and he decided to see if one of those would fit his eye socket. It did, perfectly! He also had to do some painting, to help his fine motor control, and he tried painting different designs on the ball bearing so it wouldn't look like he had Terminator eyes. At first, his art was pretty bad, and it never got REALLY great, but the kids liked it when they saw his new designs, and they started calling him Steel-Eye.

Steel-Eye remains happy with his choice. He has the internet now, and he is able to check up on the status of the sugar cane project. It is going well.

Kenana Sugar Cane

Although he does not seek publicity, his story has inspired many others. He has even had a hymn written about him, and although he says he can't sing a lick, he is often heard to be humming the tune.

Steel-Eye will trust Him
Steel-Eye will follow
Steel-Eye will listen to His every call
When the storm rages on
And he  can't find his way
Steel-Eye will trust you, Lord

So, now nobody calls him Henry; everybody calls him Steel-Eye. Everybody, that is, except for his grandmother. She thinks these nicknames are a load of foolishness. She's not a McGinty; she's a McGillicuddy.


And...that's the end of that.
Sure, it's a long story for the punch line, but I was almost there already from choir practice, and from telling Young Moose the McGinty stories, so I just went with it. If you'd like to hear the REAL words, click here.

I'm hoping this will jump-start my creativity, and I can start reading and reviewing again. If not, perhaps it will serve to amuse. And, if I can bring a smile to faces, then I smile as well.

Peace be on your household.

Does Your Ego Lose Its' Structure From The Faux-Pas From Your Lips?

Greeting, internet friends and neighbors, and those who are related to me by blood, and yet have found cause to examine this blog.

(Probably to see if I am talking about them. Not an unreasonable thought.)

(WARNING: This blog post uses more than one font. Please try not to burst into tears.)

When I was a lad of approximately...10 years old (? Maybe?) I had the great good fortune to be waiting (interminably) in the car, for a parent to return from some incomprehensible adult errand. Not being particularly wicked (must have been my mother, I guess) they left me with a book (my favorite thing) and the radio playing.

And then....across the airwaves...and penetrating the deep concentration/coma into which I customarily lapsed when reading (this was a book of Boy Scout stories, IIRC), came these dulcet tones:

"Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its' Flavor On The Bedpost Overnight?"

Lonnie Donegan

He was born in Scotland.

I had not been known for being able to hear a song played once, and then being able to sing it. But THESE lyrics set my toes a' tappin' and my synapses clicking:

Does your chewing gum lose its' flavor on the bedpost overnight?
If your mother says "Don't chew it!" do you swallow it in spite?
Can you catch it on your tonsils, and heave it left and right?
Does your chewing gum lose its' flavor on the bedpost overnight?

On the bedpost overnight!
A dollar is a dollar,
And a dime is a dime
We could sing another chorus,
But we haven't got the time!
On the bedpost overnight!

So, the song stayed with me, and I sang it on those frequent occasions when it seemed to be appropriate.

Decades passed...

I found myself in my middle 20's working in the Admissions Office at Georgia State University, and going to school at night, just as MOST of the clerical staff at the University were doing. Actually, I could take one class on my lunch hour, and another at night, and that was a full graduate load at the time, and I could go home before it got TOO late.

Interacting with the public, a LOT, side by side with other college and graduate students leads, inexorably, to using a lot of words. Articulate bunch, we were; and, in the natural course of things, a certain percentage of those words just went...wrong. Painfully, embarrassingly, WRONG. I hope I don't have to explain that to you, because it's sort of the driving point to this blog post. (Well, that, AND the fact that I'm HORRIBLY behind on reading (and reviewing) these books I've got in queue.)

And so, after some forgotten, but doubtless humiliating, episode, I wrote this song. If you HAVEN'T clicked on the link to the You Tube video, and you don't know the tune, then by all means, click the link NOW.

We'll wait....

Okay, got it?

I DO need to make one linguistic and cultural point: In the language of 1978-ish, a "boner" referred ONLY to a mistake. Southern conversation, especially that found in an institution of higher learning,  did not permit sexual innuendo in mixed company. Such references would have been  treated by all as crude, and might even have resulted in a quiet reprimand from a superior.

Here's my song; please, feel free to imagine four-part harmony:

Does your ego lose its' structure from the faux-pas from your lips?
Does your self-esteem take a nosedive from your fumbled, bumbled quips?
Does saliva from your foot-in-mouth result in falls and slips?
Does your ego lose its' structure from the faux-pas from your lips?

From the faux-pas on your lips...
A boner is a boner,
And a rhyme is a rhyme
I could sing another chorus,
But I haven't got the time,
From the faux-pas from your lips!

And: that's it. There is no point other than passing along a memory, and hopefully, bring a smile.

Peace be unto your house.

A Birthday Meditation

Greetings, Internet friends and neighbors, and the occasional relative who from time-to-time drops in this way, leaving not a trace of their presence!

(This is not the Appalachian Trail, guys, you ARE permitted to leave some sign behind.)

Today is my first-born son's birthday. Here's what I wrote him:

First, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Second, some meandering pursuit of whatever interesting things pop out with consideration of ages.
I was born in 1953; this year, I will celebrate my 66th birthday.You, my firstborn son, were born 30 years later, in 1983, and this year (this day!) you celebrate your 36th birthday.Heath Jordan, your first-born son, my first-born grandson, was born 30 years after that, in 2013, and he has celebrated his 6th birthday.

6; 36; 66.

What fun can we have with those numbers?

Well, let's factor Heath's Age: (HA)= 6 = 2 x 3. Nice and simple. The first two prime numbers.

Your age, YA = 36, gives a BIT more to play with, because your age, YA =HA*HA, or HA ²
YA = 6 ²⁼ 6 * 6 = 2 * 3 * 2 * 3, or 2 ² * 3 ² : The squares of the first two prime numbers; that's nice, isn't it?

My age (MA) , 66, has given me a bit more of a thought problem.
At first glance, it resolves into MA = 2 * 3 * 11, which is ACCURATE, yet strangely unsatisfying.

I wish to celebrate the resonance of father age as a function of first-born son!

Viewed that way, MA = YA + 30 = YA + (6 * 5) = YA = 2 * 3 * 5.
So:
HA = 2 * 3YA = 2 ² * 3 ²MA = 2 ² * 3 ² + (2 * 3 * 5)

...and that allows me to participate more fully in the celebration of my first-born son as well as HIS first-born son. And while I recognize that this is merely a case of personal satisfaction, and doubtlessly blesses no one else, it DOES compel me to reflect on the miracle of your birth for just a bit more than a simple card would have done.

Happy birthday, first-born son. If I had done nothing else in my life than be your father, it would have been enough.
Papa 

And thus endeth the morning's ramblings.

Peace be on your household.

I Was Ambushed This Morning by the Middle Schoolers

Greetings, to all my Internet friends and neighbors, and howdy to the one or two kinfolk who can read.

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day.

Didn't really care for it as a kid. I was painfully shy, and was never able to tell girls that I liked them. What if they said no?
I might DIE!
This was long, long before I learned to read body language and interpret tone of voice, eye contact, and that sort of thing. It was terribly limiting.
I no longer have that problem; so, let me take this opportunity to clear this up:

Kathy Powell, wherever you are, I was madly in love with you in the 7th grade. 

I taped the Valentine's Day card you gave me over where I thought my heart was, and wore it to the 7th grade skating party at Durr's Lake. Just never was brave enough to tell you about it.
Probably made you nuts, but I was just too shy to let you know.

There. That's one more amends taken care of!

So, this morning, I got ambushed by the Middle School Brother Sister Tag Team. Now, I had spent ONE HOUR with them earlier, in serious, yet interesting, conversation, about menus, grocery items, and Proverbs Chapter 13.

And the did not say pea turkey to me about ....this.

But they were running a game on me, because just MOMENTS before they go out the door, faithful (yet often pestiferous) little sister Alicia comes into my man cave, and says (read this in a winsome girl voice):

"Papa Pat, when you go to the grocery store, will you get Kenneth a big heart-shaped box of chocolates and a bouquet of flowers?"

"Why?" I asked.

"Well, he's got this girl at school. and, just get the chocolate and the flowers, okay?"

"What girl?"

"She's this girl at school. Just get the chocolate and flowers for Kenneth, okay?"

"What girl?"

"She's a friend of mine."

"What girl?"

"It's SQUERDLOCK." (gives the name of a lovely young lady we have known for several years. )

"Well, I need to hear this from Kenneth."

Alicia vanishes, and a moment later, Kenneth APPEARS in my man cave. Actually, not ALL of him appears. Just his head and shoulders; the rest of him is out of sight, behind the door, with just the tips of his fingers appearing to have a death-grip on the door frame..

And HE says (read THIS in a ninety mile-per-second adolescent boy voice, devoid of any inflection whatsoever)

"PapaPatWouldYouPleaseGetMeABoxofValentineChocolateAndABouquetOfFlowers..."

...and he's gone. In the vacuum left by his passing, sheets of paper and maybe a tumbleweed fly through the air.

So, I get the flowers and the chocolate:

Roses, and Russell Stover's (the big box) .

Come big, or stay at home.

That's my motto!

And, a few minutes ago, Kenneth and Alicia got home from school. Their reactions were not what I had expected.

ALICIA got all excited upon seeing the flowers, squealing, etc. Kenneth's reaction was...meh.

So, I inquired. And got the entire story:

It seems that SQUERDLOCK and Alicia were talking, and SQUERDLOCK complained to Alicia that she didn't have anyone who would give her a Valentine. So, Alicia said she would get Kenneth to do it. And faithful (yet often pestiferous) big brother Kenneth said he would.

And now, he wishes that the earth would open up and swallow him, because he has ZERO desire to cause SQUERDLOCK any emotional pain, yet he does not wish to enter into a relationship with her. The lad is in a dilemma.

Fortunately, he has Papa Pat on his side. And Papa Pat, what with having raised teenagers before, and what with having been a middle school counselor for 16+ years, knows a thing or two about extricating yourself from sticky situations. 

And my advice is this: Kenneth will write SQUERDLOCK a note. In this note, he will tell her that when little sister Alicia informed him that she had no one to give her a special Valentine, he knew that this was an injustice that must be remedied, especially since SQUERDLOCK is the most beautiful girl in town. He would like for them to be Sweet-hearts, which is not the same as Boyfriend and Girlfriend. Sweet-hearts are friends who do especially nice things for each other from time to time. Sweet-hearts don't date each other, but if you find yourself without an escort to the Important Event, you can call your Sweet-heart, and they will take you. Boyfriends and Girlfriends usually break up in one or two weeks, but Sweet-hearts last a life time. You can always count on a Sweet-heart...

...and something like that is what we are going to attempt. Kenneth drafted a BEAUTIFUL first draft, but I sent him back with some suggestions for improvement.

I'll let you know how it works out....

Peace be on your household (and on mine as well!)

The Value of Euphemisms

"Dog Bite It!"
That was something my grandmother used to say when she was mildly vexed. It came up mostly in circumstances where I had skinned my knee, bumped my head, etc,

"Je-HOS-a-phat!"
I have a very dim memory of hearing that as well, on occasions calling for an expression of dismay. Maybe it wasn't her saying it. Maybe  it was coming from the radio. Don't recall it that clearly.

"Muscle Shoals!"
That came from my grandfather, on occasions when 'neither "Dog Bite It" nor "Je-HOS-a-phat!" would work. I don't remember the particulars behind this utterance, but when I asked my grandmother about it, she said that there had been a big dam in Muscle Shoals. So, when circumstances arose that he wished to express his displeasure about, instead of saying, you know,  he determined to limit himself to 'Muscle Shoals."

"Tabby!" 

This is an expletive that I shared with my dear friend and co-counselor, Mrs. Catherine Reese Holman, when we encountered the worst situations of grief. As long-service middle school counselors, we spent a LOT of time working with students and families in some truly wretched circumstances. A tabby cat is  a Domestic Short Hair; the acronym is DSH, which also happens to be the acronym for three rude and crude words one hears from those suffering from a lack of vocabulary appropriate for the situation. Miz Catherine was Raised Right, a term perhaps not familiar to people outside the South; among other things, it means you don't use the lips you kiss your mama with, to spew vulgarity.
However, there were times when we were leaving a funeral service, or the house of a good and kind family struck by a fatal illness, or any one of a hundred things that will break the heart of anyone with a lick of compassion, and we NEEDED to have some mechanism to express our anger, grief, and helplessness. And it was on those occasions that we called on the Domestic Short Hair to rescue us: "TABBY!" It helped, a little.

There are a LOT of euphemisms being tossed around today, and I can tell from context that they give no relief at all to the user. They are tossed into conversation the way you toss salt on your grits, automatically, but with far less satisfaction at the result. You have some words which were initially meant to represent potty words; those I don't usually notice. The class I really find myself wincing at are the words used as substitutes for references to the Almighty. Unfortunately, except for geezers like myself, nobody appears to know that "Jeez!" is a euphemism for "Jesus"; that "Gee!" in all it's variations is a substitute for "God"; that "Dang" and "Darn" mean "Damn;" that "Heck" means "Hell." I suppose they have little incentive to learn the origin of the terms, since it's commonplace to find the original word in regular language, and even then, there is no importance attached to them. They have become sounds utterly devoid of content.

Well, I will only do what I can do. I'm going to trot out my creativity, and dig up some phrases I used  way back when, and perhaps I will inspire my children and grandchildren to use words like Papa does:

I hope to kiss a duck!
Shoot me with a washtub!
Turn blue and wear a purple hat!
Dog livers!

Peace be on your household.

"Rain Dance:" after 47 years, it makes sense now. (Review block)

 

Greetings, friends, neighbors and family out there in Internet Land!

(The reason for that particular greeting: Old Timey radio preachers used to greet their audiences "out there in Radio Land." I'm just updating it.)

I'll get to the relevant part in a minute. But first, here's this:

One of the many songs that made a MINOR contribution to my messed up mind in 1971 was 'Rain Dance' by the Guess Who.

TODAY, I discovered that all the cryptic references in the song were all about local things in Winnipeg, Canada. In particular, the freakiest phrase to my addled mind, because it was spoken without music, was "Where'd you get the gun, John?" And it turns out that is a whimsical reference to John W Gunn Middle School in Winnipeg, named after a prominent local politician of prior years.

John W. Gunn Middle School, Winnipeg, Canada

And the 'rain dance' is all about the drought that hit Winnipeg, right after they had built a huge drainage project (The Red River Floodway) to protect them from floods. People were saying they needed a rain dance to get their money's worth.The Internet is wonderful. If I had access to it back then, I could have been just a little less psycho about this song, and a lot more psycho about the rest of the Internet. So, it all works out, I guess.

Here's the relevant part:

I'm still not reviewing.
I'm not dying, all of my relationships are completely operational, and I am experiencing the normal stress expected for a redneck biker of my age and station. I just can't write reviews.
But I decided, what the heck, you can READ, can't you?

So, I have read two books that I haven't been able to write reviews for: Mackey Chandler's "Been There, Done That," and Tom Rogneby's "Escort Duty."

I have absolutely ZERO wisdom on why I can't review Mackey's EXCELLENT book.
However, on my BEST day, I would have had a problem reviewing Tom's book.
First, it's a short collection of stories, which I love to read, but hate to review, and second; well, they are just STRANGE. I'd bet that at least one of them was written after Tom woke up from a dream, maybe a nightmare.
Don't get me wrong: I really liked the stories. A lot. And I'm gonna recommend that you read them.
But I hope to kiss a duck if I expected THIS stuff coming from Daddy Bear.
That ain't a criticism!

Peace be on your household.

Plundering the Egyptians (just for fun, no message)

Greetings, friends, neighbors, and family out there in Internet Land!

I just utterly misread / conflated two emails.

I'm not sure what was THERE, but what I SAW was the Bank of America offering me a free Bible if I opened up a savings account with them.

But that got me to thinking....WEIRD stuff.

Such as: if religious groups were also in the business of running financial institutions, would they do business with pagan/heathens or not?

Could you have a First Fellowship Savings and Loan of Sodom and Gomorrah?

The only precedent I could find for this:

The children of Israel borrowed gold from the Egyptians right before they bugged out.

Now the sons of Israel had done according to the word of Moses, for they had requested from the Egyptians articles of silver and articles of gold, and clothing; and the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have their request. Thus they plundered the Egyptians. (Exodus 12:35-36, NASB)

But then I remembered, it's DEFINITELY not intended as a regular course of action,. Mostly, you take stuff you ain't supposed to, and not only do YOU get smatched, all your people get smatched as well.

In Joshua 7, there's the story about a guy named Achan, who took some stuff he wasn't supposed to, and got away with it.

Until the army of the children of Israel got smatched by a smaller force. That was their first clue there was a problem.
The story ends with Achan being smatched: stoned to death, and then burned, along with the stuff he took, and his family, oxen, sheep, donkeys, tents and everything else he owned as well.

Upon re-reading about the Great Smatching of Achan and Company, I stumbled upon this notable fact: it doesn't appear that Achan looted the goods because he was poor; if he was, there would have been no talk of livestock.

Draw whatever conclusions you wish; I'm gonna eat a late lunch. And after a while, I will attempt to review Mackey Chandler's "Neither Here Nor There," which I have had for two months now.
(TIP: it's gonna be five stars.)

Peace be on your household.

QUARANTINED for Fall Break!

Greetings, to all of you out there in Internet Land!

Now that I have been busted (umm, literally, as in 'busted upside the head by a projectile'), I can reveal the Practical Joke, which concluded yesterday.

 On Thursday, Auntie Tobhiyah had to pick up 12 year old Alicia Ann at cheerleading practice; bless her 12 year old heart, she was running a fever. Her fever responded to ibuprofen, and bed rest, and popsicles; but I kept her out of school on Friday anyway. I emailed her teachers to let them know why she was out, and one of them replied that this wasn't the way her Fall Break should start.

Well, I had forgotten that Fall Break was happening, and that's what gave me the idea.

I thought maybe my gift-from-God, happily-ever-after trophy wife Vanessa, the elegant, foxy, praying black grandmother of Woodstock, GA, had forgotten about Fall Break as well, and I could use this as an opportunity to play a practical joke on her, what with being an Evil Genius.

I was wrong about her forgetfulness, but what we did worked anyway:

Alicia, and her older brother Kenneth, and I conspired together!

I found a couple of ‘QUARANTINE / Medical Warning’ documents online, and with appropriate changes made up our very own QUARANTINE posters. Kenneth taped one to the mailbox, and the other to the front door, with pink Day-Glo duct tape, exactly the same kind of tape that the Health Department uses (I'm sure).

My judicious use of large orange type and medical / legal jargon, as in:

"Cherokee County Sheriff has been granted a waiver of habeas corpus in this case, until pathology, immunohistochemistry records and specimens; radiology records and films including ..." (blah blah blah), 

amplified the message that "minor child ALICIA ANN EMIOHE is not permitted to return to school until September 24, 2018. "

Which happens to be true.... because FALL BREAK! Get it? 

It was a GREAT practical joke, of the kind where I could make certain TRUE statements to support the hoax. Such as:

• "I wasn't able to get her to the doctor, but there are these helpline numbers you can call and talk to a nurse." 
• "She absolutely cannot return to school until September 24!" 
• "No, I PROMISE you I did not put those notices on the mailbox and on the door!" (That WAS true; Kenneth put them there, not me!) 

It worked long enough to take Vanessa out of her end-of-the-workweek routine. That was an added benefit, as her office has been an aggravating place recently.

I believe comic relief is always appreciated; sometimes, the appreciation just takes longer to manifest. In this case, I'm guessing appreciation manifests maybe by the time Alicia graduates. From her Ph.D. program.

And, here is the evidence; the reason the document in the top picture is rumpled is because the picture was taken after she had wadded up the sign and hit me in the head with it.

The MAILBOX poster

The FRONT DOOR poster

And we are all happy now, because, after all IT's FALL BREAK!!!

Peace be on your household.

Doctor Cedar Sanderson is Awarded Third Nobel Prize!

Apologies to our colleague Cedar Sanderson for taking a comment of hers and teasing it until it threatened me.
To find her much more rational post, click : HER blog.

She is NOT responsible for What Follows, which  is the ravings of a MASSIVELY sleep deprived mind. I haven't slept for two nights in a row, for no particular reason, and somehow have not been able to nap, either.  FAKE NEWS STARTS NOW:

"FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Stockholm, December 11, 2038. "

Sanderson receives third Nobel Prize, for Peace.
The Right Reverend Doctor Cedar Sanderson, a well-known anti-chemophobic paleomicrobiologist, accepted her third Nobel Prize, this time for Peace, in Stockholm yesterday. The Awards Committee granted Sanderson the honor by acclamation, for her solution of what will, in the future , be known as Cedar's Equation. This calculation has conclusively been shown to differentiate between public policy makers who are dishonest, and those who are merely bumbling fools, by analysis of a small writing sample on any one of five global concerns. Those not falling into either of these categories, are thereby certified as ALRC ("At Least Reasonably Competent").

Cedar's Equation Introduction. 
Sanderson released the equation during the question and answer session, following a panel discussion  at this year's Dragon Con 51, held in Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, and North Carolina (with a special satellite campus in Sauk Rapids, Minnesota). The session was the third largest this year in terms of attendance, with 17,561,1142 bracelets presenting valid registrations.  The second largest session by a slight margin was "Preserving an Independent Viewpoint for Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers, Now that the Aliens and the Fey Have Shown up to Borrow Money," with 18,021,4273 in attendance.  The top attendance at all sessions, for the sixth year in a row (ever since this program was first offered in 2032) was "I Won't Be In This One: Barefoot Johnny, G R R R R  R R vaRRRM, The Flatcat Thief, and China Mike," with 42,862,030 registrations. Fortunately, that session could be held in any location that was guaranteed to be free of  the four panelists, so overflow seating was not anticipated; however, with South Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama continuing to petition to become cohosts of DragonCon, some additional venue expansions might be necessary.

'Cedar's Equation' can be downloaded as a free app from most reputable app stores, and is also available as a macro run by Apache OpenOffice Writer 42.3.2.  Bloodless revolutions which have taken place in at least 3 townships in Canada, as well as in  the entire country of Lichtenstein, show signs of Cedar's Equation being applied.  In other polities, crowds of murmuring citizens have been observed gathering in bathrooms and Waffle House parking lots, staring intently at what appears to be a communication device of some sort. Nearly 1 million copies have been downloaded since the Dragon Con roll-out; this reporter expects that number to continue to grow, and was able to get a reaction early this morning from  from Sanderson, who also apparently expects that number to continue to grow, stating:

"I expect that number to continue to grow."

The Peace Prize will be the third Nobel Price, but the first in the Peace category, to find a place on the mantle above the Reverend Doctor's walk-in fireplace.

Sanderson's 2020 Nobel Prize for Literature. 
Her first Nobel Prize, the 2020 Nobel Prize for Literature, was awarded by a once- deadlocked selection committee.  A reliable source with private knowledge of the process has confided that after 42 secret ballots, it appeared that the members of the committee might really be incapable of picking a winner for this category. In desperation, the chairperson felt compelled to take the unprecedented step of sequestering the members of the committee to give them time to read the books under consideration. After a fairly short amount of time of being denied access to food, water, and plumbing facilities, the committee came back together for a vote. No one expected the result, however, after such a lengthy deadlock: a unanimous ballot on the first vote!  Sources close to the selection committee have said that once the actual reading got started, it was obvious that none of the other nominees had even the most basic tools needed to write a story.

ETWYRT 2024 Nobel Prize Shocker. 
The Reverend Doctor Sanderson's follow-up, the 2024 Nobel Prize  for Physiology, was a shock to the global community of health care professionals, and even more of a shock to the recipient herself. As a bit of a hobby, she had been contacting authors who had recently published books, and asking them for a favorite meal selection. She would then prepare the dish, and review the book, and post a column on both of the experiences (With LOTS of pictures!), which she entitled "Eat This While You Read That" (ETWYRT).

The discovery that this combination of  eating food and reading books had SIGNIFICANT health benefits came about by accident. A researcher at Ohio State University's Office of Food Science and Technology had contacted her for permission to use this approach as the control group in a study she was conducting on aspects of meal preparation which might possibly produce health benefits, Since the idea for each ETWYRT meal was provided by a different person, there was no collusion possible, and no apparent correlation  between components of the various meals on the plan. For the purposes of the study, therefore,  it appeared the ETWYRT meals met all the established criteria for a highly varied control diet.

After the third week of recording diet elements, along with weight, blood sugar, blood pressure, and other outcomes, researchers were disturbed when the test data for the control group began to show radically different results than the expected stability. In addition, participants in the study who had been selected randomly for assignment to an experimental group refused, stating that this was the best food they had ever eaten, and they felt better than they ever had before.

At this point, the doctoral adviser to the primary researcher recommended abandoning the project, and discarding the entire data set. Fortunately, that advice wasn't followed, although it did require an appeal the the Faculty Senate Committee on Research Ethics. The researcher completed her dissertation, and was awarded her doctorate. She is now a full Professor of Food Science at the University of Pennsylvania, and is the Chair of the Cocoa, Chocolate, and Confectionery Research Group. She is the senior technical member of the team which continues to research the ETWYRT health benefits. She and Dr. Sanderson are reported to be in negotiations for a book describing their experiences.

Her Future? Whether her streak will continue (FOUR Nobel Prizes?), no one knows for certain. We sent a team to interview her at her semi-secluded farmhouse estate, but were not able to find her at home.We met an unidentified gentleman at the door to the home (he was wearing a T-shirt labelled "First Reader;' we have not been able to determine the significance of this phrase). When we asked for a convenient time to meet with Dr. Sanderson, he appeared to consult his memory, then explained:

GET OFF OF MY LAWN.

Not wishing to disturb him further, we complied immediately.

AND THAT IS THE END OF THE FAKE STUFF.

Closing comments. As far as I can tell, I got all of this down without starting to speak Martian,

Note: I just wen through this, after I slept most of the night and some of the day. I still feel goofy, though. I did correct a couple of typos, and I also added some links to Cedar's work.

That said, It's likely funnier to me than it is to you, although I DO hope I have brought a smile to your face. I HOPE, also, that you will take advantage of this goofy little bit of work to try your hand at critiquing. There is enough left of my functional brain ( I think) that I didn't miss any chances to write something absurd. However, if I did, would you mind pointing that out? For example, if this would have hit an entirely new level if I had just waited to add the anecdote about the yodeling veterinarian of the Alps, then feel free to bring that to my attention.

It's just about noon; I have been without sleep for two days now, but if I DON'T get something to eat, I'll be getting up every so often to conduct another Snaktrek. so I hope I will be able to recognize something edible in the kitchen.

Peace be on your household.

My Entry in an Old Baen Contest

 

Dearest internet friends:

Despite giving you TWO clickable links, this blog post will contain no book reviews in the body of the post, although the review links are provided;  you may read (and vote for) my Amazon review of 'The Many Deaths of Joe Buckley' here, and read (and vote for) my Amazon review of 'One Jump Ahead' here.

Instead of including sections of my book reviews, what follows is my entry in a some-time-ago Baen Contest, which they run on a regular basis because they are delightful people. The current one allows you to make your case before the Council of Aliens about why we should be allowed to the stars.

Alas, I must give the BRIEFEST of background information, or this story will not amuse.

First, the literary hobby called Killing Joe Buckley. 
Joe Buckley is a real person with many skills and delightful characteristics. One of those skills was his ability to proof-read manuscripts for authors. The way I understand the story, then-unpublished author John Ringo was sending Buckley chapters of his new novel as it was being written, and Buckley was was returning them with corrections. However, one day he accidently sent Ringo the entire file, instead of the most recent corrections, and Ringo thought he had re-worked his entire novel.
So, he killed him.
On paper, as one of his characters, that is.
And from there, it caught on. Before long, LOTS of people, most of whom had never met Joe Buckley, were cheerfully killing him off with abandon, in the most grisly way possible.

Now, I doubt I was the first, and I CERTAINLY wasn't the only, but I DID make the suggestion in that den of iniquity known as Baen's Bar that all of the Buckley death's be collected into a single volume, and it happened. And ALL of the profits from the sale of this book are donated to charity, either to provide ebooks and readers to the military, or to give access to the Baen catalog to disabled readers.

Second, the John and Lobo series. In 2007, Mark L. Van Name erupted on the scene with a new series which combined hard science fiction with the best of the exploding-spaceships genre. The two main characters are Jon, a human, and Lobo, a space-to-ground assault craft. What makes Jon different is that he was horribly tortured for science as a child, leaving him deeply emotionally scarred, and with the hidden ability to communicate with machine intelligences. What makes Lobo different is that due to 'irregularities' in his construction, he has developed self-awareness. And just as Jon kept his ability to communicate with machines hidden, so as not to undergo further scientific tortures, Lobo has kept his awareness a secret, for fear he will be similarly disassembled. When they meet, it's a matter of a perfect complementary relationship. They set out to seek certain lost elements of their past, BUT, because each bears such trauma from their background, every time they encounter a helpless victim of oppression, they HAVE to rescue them.

It's a beautiful thing, really.

So, maybe five to ten years ago, as van Name was presenting a new book in the series, Baen's monthly contest was to write a story to tell what you would do, if you had the intelligent and deadly war machine, Lobo, at your service for a day.

This was my entry. It didn't win.

Habakkuk's Choice

I won a day's ownership of Lobo from Jon in a poker game.

Short-term, it added to the self-hate Jon crucified himself with constantly. That was knowledge I would rather not have, but the slight empathic powers I possess made it impossible for me not to see the consequences.

Jon had never taken advantage of the sybaritic pleasures Lobo could offer; indeed, he had never even been able to completely be open with the closest analogue of a friend he would allow himself to have.

He had made the decision to devote his life to liberate children from the hands of those who exploited them, and that meant he had to pay the emotional cost of inflicting death on the evil-doers. Whether that was the result of unleashing the hellish power of Lobo's weapon systems, or by using his own nanites to bring death to the perpetrators, the emotional cost was the same.

It was obvious that his chosen life was taking a toll on him. After all, what else but some form of temporary insanity would drive Jon to play so amateurishly in a high-stakes poker game? Particularly when short-term chattel slavery of a friend was the consequence?

I suppose you could chalk it up to his childhood as a mental defective gnawing rats, or to survivor's guilt from living through missions that had taken his teammates. Regardless of the cause, it was, in fact, the way that Jon acted. I cared for him, but I was not responsible for him. He had, on many occasions, refused my offers to provide safe haven and counsel.

With respect to Lobo himself, I knew intuitively that he yearned to be more than a destroyer; that he craved an outlet for what would be described in a flesh and blood person as affection, even love. That Lobo was a person, I had no doubt; that his circumstances forced him to show NOTHING to outsiders, and only sarcasm and competent mayhem to Jon, was equally clear to me.

And, just as Jon's personal demons drove him to seek to set captive children free, mine drove me to seek to heal the spiritually sickened. Thus, when Jon failed to fill his inside straight against my three kings, and I knew Lobo was mine for a day, my plans were already half-formed.

For some time, I had my eye on the shell-shocked victim of countless cruel tortures. Driven from humanity to live in a hovel on the outskirts of a squalid spaceport, this pathetic creature spent his days pawing through garbage for bits of dry bread and wilted vegetables. I had only been able to approach him once, and that by making a silent approach as he distracted himself by scratching at his vermin-ridden beard. I left a small package of personal cleaners and ration bars behind, hoping to make contact again later.

With only a day to work with, my healing tasks seemed impossible. However, Lobo could experience much more in 24 hours than human people could. If I could persuade him to offer care for another, I should be able to break through his prickly facade, and reach his innate compassion. Treating a poor creature, in much worse condition than he, with compassion instead of bombs and lasers, would begin to work healing in Lobo.

And then, Lobo in turn would have the many years ahead to work on Jon.

When I explained my plan to Lobo, that I wished to use his power to help a poor wretch recover from misery, he was at first reticent. Then, I asked him to come up with suggestions as to how he could use his facilities to bring a life-changing experience to this pitiful human, and almost instantly, his entire persona began to change. Slowly at first, then gushing forth, came his ideas of soothing music, bubble baths, massage, wonderfully nurturing holographic experiences, and I knew Lobo had caught my vision of healing.

I do not like to use my empathic gifts to overwhelm the will of others, but I could see no alternative; I had to get the pitiful survivor out of his hovel, and into Lobo's living quarters. I spoke soothing words, but the poor man was still trembling with fear as he emerged from his hut. He cast one last look at his garbage pile, as he tottered into the warm and glowing interior of Lobo's shell.

Lobo smoothly and swiftly arose miles into the sky, and then ejected the wretch from the airlock.

In shock, I cried,"Lobo! Why have you done this?"

"I don't know, Habakkuk," he replied. There's just something about Joe Buckley that pisses me off."

Peace be on your household.