The Rise and Fall of Luigi's

Back before Big Oil came to St. John's and gentrified the place, there were very few eateries whose main offerings were not deep-fried. One of these places was a fascinating dive down on Water Street called Napoli Pizzeria and Restaurant. The proprietors were a colorful old couple from Naples who came to Newfoundland for some undisclosed and wholly incomprehensible reason and opened the place years and years ago. He scowled at the world through a style of spectacles not in use since the fifties and possessed a kind of furtive hunch suggesting illicit knowledge, an apron which was never either notably clean or particularly dirty, and a tone of voice that seldom varied from a querulous trumpet. She, on the other hand was a jolly, rotund little thing, wreathed in smiles and black taffeta, usually wearing 3-inch heels which brought her brain pan maybe 4 ½ feet off the floor. She spoke virtually no English but could turn out a remarkably tasty meal with the best salad available in St. John's and a lovely chewy Italian bread she made in the pizza oven.

As near as we could make out her name was Mamma and he didn't have one. We referred to the place as Luigi's just because we knew what we meant, and went there from time to time because it was handy and cheap. Most of their patrons went there to get take-out pizza but there was an actual menu with spaghetti and ravioli and such on it and they were always excited when somebody ordered from it because it was more expensive than the pizzas and it looked more respectable having people sitting at the tables with plates and forks rather than just lounging at the counter waiting for the heavy-on-the-pepperoni.

After we had gone there a few times it got so they recognized us and Luigi would escort us solemnly to a table and trumpet something to Mamma in the kitchen. Then he would carefully unfold a couple of paper napkins and deploy them over the spots on the table, first in front of Jim and then me, then deposit a second pair of virgin paper napkins in front of each of us, as if he was preparing for surgery, and dump a heap of sticky cutlery on them. Then Mamma would waddle out beaming beatifically and chattering in some hybrid tongue incomprehensible to Anglophones and Italianophones alike. And we would beam back at her and pretend we knew what she was trying to say, which we almost never did. Then we would order something and wait for our salads to appear.

There was no shortage of visual distractions to while away the time and spur conversation. There was usually either wrestling or greed shows on the tiny black-and-white television which was thoughtfully placed so all the customers could share the entertainment. Or idiosyncratic floral arrangements which ran to a jelly jar full of plastic flowers with an occasional daisy tucked in for authenticity. And on the walls, which had not been washed since 1953 when Luigi got his glasses, there were great numbers of original paintings lovingly rendered by somebody's relative who was either very young at the time or almost entirely lacking in talent. Or we could squirm around in the chrome set chairs and pick at the clothes pins that held the construction plastic in place over the tablecloth.

For most of the nine endless years I spent in that dreary land Luigi had been engaged in a no doubt fragmented and certainly frustrating dialogue with City Hall concerning the acquisition of a liquor license. As you can imagine, it was a red letter day in the annals of Napoli Pizzeria and Restaurant when some minor functionary inadvertently allowed this application to slip through. Luigi responded gamely by immediately acquiring an artistically calligraphed sign, conspicuous by its absence of fly spots, announcing FULLY LICENSED, and propping it in the front window next to the menu. While it didn't draw tumultuous crowds as anticipated, it did cause a tiny flutter in the breasts of certain of us regulars, and on our next trip we plumbed the depths of this veiled promise and discovered that what “Fully Licensed” meant to Luigi was a bit of cheap scotch, a bottle of gin, three or four varieties of local beer and two kinds of Italian red wine. Having sampled both of the latter we settled on Chianti Classico and as soon as we walked in the door Luigi growled a greeting, very nearly smiled, and rushed off into the kitchen to fetch us a bottle.

Meanwhile Mamma effused and we looked at the menu and then for the sport of it, asked her what she thought we should have since we once discovered that there was a whole world of stuff which was not on the menu which was frequently better than what was, and furthermore what was on the menu was often not available. The menu was just a coded notice which said “We've got stuff that isn't pizza.” Encouraged by our interest, she launched into a very long and perfervid discussion involving clams and spaghetti and “shrimpa like dis” (indicating a point halfway up her forearm) and since she clearly wanted us to do this we ordered it with no clear idea what to expect. When it came, it proved to be one of the happiest surprises I've had at a restaurant. They charged us twice the price of anything else on the menu bringing it up to the price of an average meal anywhere else in town and it was worth every dime.

I think it was this meal that earned us Most Favored Diner status down at Luigi's. Be that as it may, the next time we went in there we got cotton napkins.

Then one momentous Valentine's Day we thought we should have a night out, and naturally thought of Luigi's. So we set out through the rain, drizzle, and fog thinking about all those nice surprises in Mamma's scrupulously tidy kitchen only to discover first, a big, red Closed sign, and second, and altogether unnerving, an accompanying For Sale sign right there next to FULLY LICENSED. We were dumbstruck. This was like selling Mount Rushmore.

A few days later I happened to be strolling down that way in the middle of the day and looked in. I was pleased to note that Luigi was there in his usual spot propping up the counter and watching the TV, so, consumed with curiosity and concern, I badgered Jim into going down there for dinner shortly thereafter to explore the mystery of the For Sale sign. All seemed as it should be: Luigi fetched out our Classico and Mamma came and told us what we should have, and then ensued a fractured conversation slotted between the arrival of the wine glasses, napkins (cotton), salad, and the unreasonable demands of Other Diners, the upshot of which was that they (i.e. Mamma) suddenly decided she had had enough and wanted to go home. So they put the place up for sale and were returning to Naples the following Tuesday. The catastrophe confirmed.

Then after we had finished our meal (a lovely bit of squid, unremarkable sausage, and world class salad), Mamma waddled up and planked herself down at our table, which she had never done before, and poured out their whole sad story. I think this is what she said.

She and Alfonso (not Luigi after all) had arrived in Canada donkeys years ago and had gone to Hamilton, Ontario, where there were lots and lots of Italians. Then 19 years ago they had decided to strike out on their own and open a restaurant in St. John, New Brunswick. Unfortunately there was some misunderstanding when they bought their tickets and they found themselves in St. John's, Newfoundland instead. One can only guess what ran through their minds when they discovered their mistake. But I guess they didn't have the price of return fare and one barbaric outpost was no worse than another so they stayed on. But now Mamma was 63 and Alfonso was 68 and they were unable to entice any relatives to come over from the old country to take on the restaurant, so they were throwing in the towel, which is the most sensible thing they could do, I suppose, but it left us bereft and uncertain about where we would find another source of shrimpa-like-dis.

With heavy hearts, Jim and I went down for dinner on their last day for one last culinary adventure. We took along a little going away trinket accompanied by a Farewell and Have a Lovely Retirement card (the range of greeting cards available these days takes my breath away). Mamma ordered us lobster tails (three apiece), which were delicious, the usual wonderful salad and chewy bread, and of course the Classico. When we were finished Mamma brought us a couple of glasses of Sambuca with a couple of coffee beans floating in it which you are supposed to suck on while you drink the stuff - not bad. Meanwhile Mama brought us a doggy bag with breadsticks and apples and butter packages and we finally broke away (the bill came to $60 Canadian, including 12% sales tax), shaking hands all around and turned our backs regretfully and forever on the legend that was Luigi's.

Laws

A while ago some blowhard on the radio proudly proclaimed that we are a nation of laws as if this was some praiseworthy feature unique to our culture.  Why this should be a point of pride is hard to understand, since laws are pretty widespread throughout our species.  Even the Taliban have laws, which largely seem to boil down to “Do what we say or we will shoot you.”
Long long ago and far far away, God himself handed over a list of all the laws he figured were important, and you could tell it was a Jewish god because right up there even before “No Killing” and “No Groping the Interns” was “Be nice to your Mom.” But the important thing is that there were only 10 of them.  They were easy to understand, and you could reasonably expect everybody to know what they were.  When you were told that you are not to steal, it was not felt necessary to explain in great detail what that meant. There was no talk of technicalities. If you were caught stealing, the townsfolk would gather and then they would cut off your hand or stone you to death or some other unmistakable deterrent to any others who might harbor notions of larceny.  I imagine theft was rare.
In stark contrast, let’s consider our legal underpinnings of which we are so proud.  That would be the United States Code, a monument to garrulous obfuscation by 250 years of congressional representatives with too much time on their hands. It is composed of not ten, not even 20, but of 50 sections or Titles, each of which contains hundreds if not thousands of pages of rules any one of which you break at your peril, bearing in mind that ignorance of the law is no excuse.
The main titles cover such diverse areas as Banking, Commerce, Patents, Indians, Agriculture and 45 others.  Nobody knows what is in all of these titles and very few people know what is in any of them.  Take Title 26, for example.  That’s the Federal Tax Code.  It turns out that a random sample of Republican congresspersons guessed that the tax code might be anything from 774,000 to 500 million words in length or somewhere between 2500 to 2,500,000 pages.  Many couched their guesses in terms of bible equivalents, that is something between 2 and 7 times the length of the bible which was clocked at 1291 pages.  I think a Republican’s estimate of the length of the bible may be considered reliable, but I would prefer a second opinion on anything else.
Fortunately, the Government Printing Office is available to backstop Our Elected Officials, and according to this credible source Title 26 runs to 3,387 pages of turgid, incomprehensible prose.  Of course that’s only the part Congress wrote.  In addition to that, there are the refinements that have been added by the Internal Revenue Service, and these run to an additional 13,458 pages.  (It is not clear if this includes the 721 forms involved in the lawful execution of their duties) That’s 13 bible equivalents and does not include such thoughts on the subject as the states may have codified.  In the end, it seems likely that various levels of government have covered something like 20,000 pages in rules that must be obeyed and the specification of punishment for those who fail to do so.
This would be Really Bad News if there was any chance that we might get caught not doing something, but fortunately the steely-eyed centurions with the hand-cuffs don’t know the rules any better than the rest of us, so their failure to apprehend civilians claiming ignorance of the law is a galling source of rage and frustration, sending dozens of them straight to the analyst’s couch.
But what we started out with, remember, were a few basic easy-to-handle felonies, and a quick scrutiny of the list of our 50 Titles suggests that the greater part of them have been lumped all together into Title 18 – Crimes and Criminal Procedure.  The first of the 5 sections of this 836-page Title lists the crimes that are sternly dealt with.  There are 123 listed, but some have subcategories, like number 113 (Stolen Property), 113A (Telemarketing Fraud), 113B (Terrorism), and 113C (Torture). Indians get their own number (#53), while Gambling and Genocide have to share #50.  And now, having studied this list carefully I am stunned by God’s lack of imagination in proscribed activities.  How could he have missed #9 Bankruptcy or #59 Liquor Traffic.  
Nevertheless, it is hard to argue that a culture that is governed by a succinct legal code that everybody knows and understands is inferior to a system of laws that is so vast and convoluted that a very extensive and expensive industry has grown and prospered whose practitioners justify their bloated fees by claiming, with some justice, that they, and only they, can guide the uninitiated through the tangled wreckage of our laws, of which we are so proud.

How it Feels to Be the Earth

I think I know what the earth feels like, floating around weightless far away from anything else except of course its attendant moon always hovering around, never close enough to be interesting but always annoyingly there. I found this out one day when I was SCUBA diving along a cliff near Halifax, Nova Scotia.

We were on a noisy little trawler, 3 or 4 of us. There was much fuss and lungeing around as we struggled into our wetsuits on the tiny deck and sorted out our gear, checked our tanks and regulators, looked for lost straps and weights and sample bags, tripping over each other and interrupting, shouting questions and orders, and finally got our last minute instructions. Then one by one we flopped off the back of the boat into the water. Then there was the shock of the cold water invading the suit, the final adjustment of the face mask, and the splutter of clearing the mouthpiece of water. A few quick hissing gulps of bottled air to make sure everything was working and then with a flip and swirl I made the transition to the parallel universe under the meniscus.

Everything changes when you step through the looking glass. It is not that sound is gone, but rather that the emphasis is different. The clamor of the trawler’s engine is a distant thrum here, while the flick-flick-flick of the propellors cutting the water is distinct. The sloshing of waves against the hull is reduced to a rustle, while the sound of the rising bubbles is nearly deafening. And the barely-noticed background sounds of gulls and distant voices is replaced by clicks and squeaks of the creatures of this new realm.

I swam after our leader dragging my sample bag after me like a reluctant puppy. The sunlight rippled and dappled on the sand and stones and seaweed, occasionally igniting a cunner that had come to see what was happening. It was a good day. We were quickly done with what we needed to do, and still had a half hour of air left. We quickly dumped all the samples and pencils and other scientific clap-trap into the boat and then as quickly dispersed to follow our various fancies and interests.

I headed straight seaward toward the 50-foot dropoff just beyond our work site. I paddled along about an arm’s length above the flat seabed, with a small entourage of cunners, ever hopeful that I would break open a sea urchin for them, which I did once. Then suddenly the bottom vanished and I was suspended over the abyss, alone except for my attending cunners. I executed a slow roll and marveled that there was nothing visible anywhere except the rippling sun. I rolled over on my back and watched my bubbles fall into it for a while.

That is when I realized that this must be what the earth feels like, floating weightless somewhere between the sun and the darkness, watching the universe slowly expand, and listening to the click and snap of distant cosmic events, with its single cunner circling circling, hoping that its companion will relent one day and offer it some little celestial snack.

My Sporting Life

When I was 10, I enjoyed schoolyard games. We used to go outside at recess and play baseball and soccer and romps of our own devising. Of course we were pleased when our team won, which was why nobody was really thrilled to be stuck with Stanley on their team, but then usually the other team got Henrietta, so it all worked out. And anyway, win or lose, tomorrow was another day and who cared anyway? Soon after this we got uniforms so that we could play schoolyard games with other schools and the visiting parents and such could tell who was on which team. Then somebody said we should play extra hard because now we were playing for the school. This made no sense to me, so I shrugged, put on my ugly blue shorts and mismatched pinafore and went off in a station wagon to play schoolyard games with strangers in the next town anyway.

Then I went to boarding school where we had a very complicated sports uniform which was a green tunic – cotton for the summer, wool for the winter – which was to be worn no more than 3 inches above the knee over a white camp shirt. White ankle socks were to be worn in the summer, green or black knee socks in the winter. We were assigned to opposing teams inside the school for the purposes of intra-mural sports conflict, and given rousing speeches on school pride and team loyalty for the purposes of extra-mural sports conflict. Since sports were a required part of boarding school life, I played their little games and sang their stupid songs, but there was no longer any pleasure in it. I could see absolutely no reason why I should invite bodily harm at the hands of incomprehensible zealots set upon mutilating all comers in the name of the institution that was teaching them Latin. Needless to say I was not included on the first line teams.

Eventually I did find a modest refuge from these bloodsports in gentler activities such as tennis and badminton. These had the added benefit of offering no off campus venues, so it was possible to pass the required sports time paddling non-lethal projectiles back and forth across a net, while chatting about more interesting things. When it was made clear that we were supposed to be trying to beat one another, keep score, improve our tactics and so forth, we nodded solemnly and carried on as usual, but offered up scores when the instructor came to glare at us.

There was a sports requirement at college too, but only for two years. The first semester was occupied with a thing called “basic motor skills” where we were taught how to walk without slouching and carry a suitcase. I can’t think how this filled a semester, but I clearly remember that it did and that I actually received a passing grade. After that schoolyard games were available of course, but there were also harmless things like modern dance which I tried for a semester with as much success as a hippopotamus might have at ballet school, but it passed the time. Archery was my closest approach to an enjoyable sport and filled the two remaining required semesters and then I was clear of sports requirements, and slammed the door with pleasure on all pointless, sweaty activities done in support of meaningless social entities.

It was about this time that I took up mountain climbing. My boyfriend owned a rope, and one of his roommates owned some hardware, but mostly we just clambered up steep rocky places and drank beer at the top. I didn’t realize at the time that this was a sport, or I would probably not have enjoyed it so much. At one time or another I have tried SCUBA diving, bicycling, hiking, most of which I enjoyed right up until they became fashionable at which point further participation involved enormous expenditure on scientifically formulated clothing and gear, licenses, permits, classes, clubs, regulations, and other accoutrements of a society in which anything worth doing is worth doing to excess.

Then one day I had an epiphany. A booming bass voice rumbled out from the sky, frightening my cats right out of their tiny minds, saying “So why the devil did you do any of that stuff? Was it just to keep fit? Was it all in a fruitless attempt to return to size 10? Was it in hopes that some day a reporter on a really dull day would ask you why you took up bungee jumping at the age of 87? No? Well why then?” Then the world was suddenly silent again and I went inside, put a cold cloth on my face, and thought about this.

When I awoke, the cats had returned, and I went out and bought a kayak. I have lived happily ever after.

The Family as Granfalloon

One of the myriad religious movements in modern times that has received lamentably little attention is Bokononism, introduced by Kurt Vonnegut and closely studied by large numbers of undergraduates during the sixties.  Among other useful ideas embodied in this belief system is the notion of the karass, which is a group of people that may seem unrelated, and who may even be unknown to one another, but whose purpose is to work together toward some worthwhile end. A related entity is the granfalloon which is a group of people who imagine that they have a connection, but they don’t.  For example, Dodgers fans, graduates of University of Kentucky, or residents of Montana, all are granfalloons.  I would argue that families are another.
The idea that a few shared genes should bond people inextricably together, should compel obedience and assure allegiance smacks more of some stone age tribal custom than a biological imperative, or “blood is thicker than water,” which is the costume it wears in modern times.  This is one of the more crippling myths of society, that there is some intrinsic power or value in family.  The truth is that families are no more sacred or cohesive than any other random group of people.  If you chose random groups of, say, 12 people from some cosmic phone book and locked each group in a room together to get acquainted and learn to love one another you would get the same result as with today’s family units.  
There are 4 basic configurations that will appear in either family units or random assemblages of unrelated people.
The Type I family or group, the lucky group, contains members that actually like each other, they sing songs and encourage and support the younger members.  They smile and tolerate one anothers’ snoring, annoying laughs, and weight problems.  They have frequent happy reunions: birthdays, holidays, barbecues. They offer comfort and support in difficult times, and joyful congratulations in happy ones. These people are strongly bonded together, will defend their group and all its members from all comers, and live out their happy lives in close proximity. There are a very small number of Type I families or random groups.  
There is a considerably larger number of Type II groups in which members tolerate each other but without enthusiasm. Most members of these groups get along reasonably well with at least one other member of their group.  They will get together once or twice a year to drink too much, talk to the others they liked, act in a civil manner to those they don’t, and go back to their lives with no great need ever to do this again.  Their allegiances with chosen outsiders are just as strong as those of their group.
Then there is the Type III group, another large but mismatched group in which most or all of the members dislike all the other members of it.  There will probably be at least one member of this group who will reliably stamp out any signs of joy that might unexpectedly emerge, or would keep any hostilities alive and festering, or both. Any member of this group that can, will leave the nest at their earliest convenience, and gratefully stay away.  No birthday celebrations for this group.  No tearful reunion at the funeral of the beloved old auntie, because there won’t be one.  Their allegiances are almost entirely external to the group.
And finally there is the unenviable Type IV group, mercifully scant in number, in which all members hate the very guts of everybody else in the group.  This would be a hodge-podge collection of miserable, depressed, down-trodden victims and the narcissists, bullies, power freaks, or psychopaths that made them.  Mysterious deaths, housefires, and hospitalizations would be epidemic in this group.  They would probably feel no great loyalty to anybody.
Of course, all the refugees from the last three groupings are hoping, at some level to set up a Type I family – who wouldn’t want a sunny gathering of happy adults and well-balanced children? Unfortunately, because of the myth of the importance of family, a potential Type I can be poisoned at the outset by the toxic players of the dysfunction left behind, the nasty hypercritical grandmother, the drunken uncle, the kleptomaniacal cousin.  
But it can be done. There are documented instances of families whose members actually like each other.  Perhaps you have seen one.  There are several ways to get one:
1)  If you are lucky enough to have grown up in such a family, be sure to choose a mate who also comes from such a fortunate environment.
2)  It you are not so fortunate, find a compatible mate and move a long, long way away. Under no circumstances allow yourself to move back.
3)  Tell all your new friends you are an only child, recently orphaned.  Get a post office box and do not tell any of your relatives or acquaintances from back home where you live, as there is always some busybody who feels sorry for grandma and will spill the beans.
4)  Send a notice to your hometown newspaper announcing your tragic death in an airplane crash, shark attack, some military conflict, or a massive explosion. Anything that would discourage anybody from trying to collect your remains. Then marry into a group one family.
5)  Find a way to get into the witness protection program, with or without a companion. You are starting a new life. Don’t blow it.

Personhood in Modern Times

There was news recently from the Great State of Mississippi, that roiling cauldron of progressive thought.  In a surprising setback for the Protectors of Morality, the citizens of that state have voted to reject an amendment to the state’s constitution stating that a fertilized egg is a full-fledged person and entitled to all the rights and privileges appertaining thereto, a notion that the governor voted for, and fully expected the rest of the state to follow his bold example.  The voting procedures will have to be fine tuned before the next such plebiscite is put to the citizens to assure a more satisfactory outcome. Nevertheless this unexpected turn of events has left the startled crusaders temporarily at a loose end, eyes darting speculatively from Louisiana to Texas to Oklahoma.
They probably got this bizarre idea after the Protectors of Private Industry came up with the similarly incomprehensible notion that a company is a person.  And they, in their turn, no doubt got their idea from a frat boy who had made a light-hearted bet of $10 with a colleague in the men’s toilet of the Raquet Club that he could ram this merry fiction through congress before Christmas.  The only winner in all this is the frat boy.
At a time when the news media are bulging with tidbits that our grandparents would dismiss as pure silliness, these two airy little pranks would vanish in the floodwaters of solemn reports of the exploits of starlets and sports figures and other persons of no importance, of significant breakthroughs in sneaker technology or power-driven spoons or coathangers or mailboxes.
But let us pause for a moment and consider the implications of this unbridled bestowal of personhood on entities that any fool knows are not persons.  All of us falling short of the most severe cognitive impairment understand that there is a qualitative and quantitative difference between ourselves and our cells, tissues, and organs, as well as between ourselves and any larger entity we are a part of, such as our species, solar system, or garden club.  This is why we do not send birthday cards to our kidneys or our select boards. They do not have birthdays. They are not persons.  
But now that the silly season seems to be picking up speed, there are people declaring, without so much as a blush, that a blastula deserves the right to vote and bear arms just the same as the rest of us folk, not to mention Pepsico, GlaxoSmithKline, Exxon Mobil, Aubuchon Hardware, Pratt’s General Store, and any other incorporated entity, large or small, regardless of foreign content.  This is bizarre enough on the face of it, but what if this is just the beginning.  What if the next lunatic fringe to wake up to the potential of personhood is, say, the Animal Rights League or Vegetarians of America.
Next time you are bouncing down some woodsy back road in the dark and a possum scampers under the wheels of your car, think of the repercussions.  This could be a full-blown person and you guilty of negligent homicide.  The legal costs, the tearful explanations, the sentence, and there you are doing your stretch in the state pen with all those other felons, the armed robbers, the rapists, the child molesters and drug dealers and desperados who had been found in possession of mouse traps.
But the complications do not stop there. Suppose your newly conceived person fails to implant?  Does this leave you in the soup for child neglect or reckless something or other? And as far as an institutional person goes, what if you change your mind on the way to file your articles of incorporation? Does that constitute abortion?  And in either of these cases, would it be necessary to name the dear departed? Register his/her/its tragic end? Bury the remains in a duly certified location?
And what if chickens suddenly morph into persons and object to being wrongfully detained in battery farms.  Or cattle start demanding their rights to an open range. Or dogs and cats refuse to be neutered until we go first.
Instead of playing out this scenario to its logical and chaotic end, our time might be better spent considering the personhood of beings that most of us could agree are indisputably persons. Beings such as women who, in certain places and families, are mere chattel slaves, with no more rights and privileges than a microwave oven.  Or children who are bought and sold like baskets of fruit. Or beings who are racially distinct from the dominant members of their world, who are therefore seen as merely props or conveniences for the greater glory of their self-styled superiors and are otherwise invisible.
I would argue, in the same vein as removing the beam from our own eye before removing the mote from another, that we would be best served by resolving these confusions regarding our own species before bestowing personhood on mitochondria or hardware stores.

Republicans: A User's Guide

It's all so confusing, so many compulsive, disturbed, yet well-dressed nut jobs, it is difficult to keep track of which candidate has jumped off which deep end, and how their various lunacies compare and contrast. So, as a public service, I have done extensive research on these undermedicated persons and am prepared to share my findings with those interested in learning something about these contenders, each of whom believes that they would be a better choice to lead the nation than President Obama, and one of whom may get a chance to try, a scarier prospect than any space alien scenario yet proposed.

Consider Mitt Romney. He stands out from most of his fellow zealots by not being quite Christian enough. (Try to imagine hearing a knock on your door some quiet afternoon and opening it to find the governor of Massachusetts standing there, perfect teeth flashing in the warm sun, telling you something about your immortal soul) He could be a pretty good candidate, since he didn't disgrace himself too badly as governor, and in fact launched a wildly popular health insurance program there that covered all residents and cut the price of insurance by nearly a half. So why has he spent the greater part of 2011 apologizing for it? He did and said other things that were moderate, nearly liberal, and at least reasonable, but that was back when he was young and foolish. But he has mended his ways and has fully embraced the Republican doctrine of Devil Take the Hindermost.

Jon Huntsman, the Other Mormon, is the only candidate so far who has referred to Mitt Romney as “a perfectly lubricated weather vane.” Apart from his linguistic skills, he closely follows the party line with regards to reducing the national debt by cutting taxes, and mitigating global warming, which he actually accepts as a reality, by doing nothing. He has expressed his appreciation of the overpopulation problem by fathering seven children.

Herman Cain, now, there's an entrepreneur of a different stripe. Former CEO of some midwestern pizza joints, and a talk show host in Atlanta, this proud American effectively torpedoed any health care reform during the Clinton administration. He further demonstrated his statesmanlike demeanor by trying to link the democrats to David Duke, because both opposed the Iraq invasion. Both of these projects are doubly impressive considering that Mr Cain seems incapable of making a simple declarative statement about anything. Rush Limbaugh has publicly announced that the recent sexual harassment fuss is all an invention of the democrats to make Mr. Cain look bad. Not clear that he needs help with this. Apparently he opposes abortion, but who knows?

Hard to know where to start with Michele Bachmann. Perhaps her greatest liability is that, unlike some of her colleagues, she makes clear statements with a clear meaning such as, “Gay marriage is probably the biggest issue that will impact our … nation in the last, at least, thirty years.” Not traffic deaths, not endless wars, not medical crises, or illegal immigration, or global warming, or gun control, or financial malfeasance, or drugs or drought or flood. On the up side she has a sure cure for unemployment. She must have very clever advisors. Her solution is to eliminate the minimum wage so that all those poor hard-pressed billionaires can afford to hire at, say $5 an hour, $2 an hour, 50¢, whatever works.

Newt Gingrich lacks the flash and theater of the revival tent preacher that so many of the others use to such good effect, but that is not to suggest that he is a reasonable grown-up. He is merely the archetypal politician with all the sleaze and chicanery, the mistresses and god-knows-what under the table, but in the end he is just as keen as any of the others to snoop, eavesdrop, invade, torture, protect the obscenely rich and execute the luckless, innocent poor, to strip women and gays of as many rights as possible, because, after all, he is a good Christian too. More than most, since he started off a baptist and has since embraced the Catholic Church, perhaps out of a feeling of kinship for all those priests, you know the ones.

Ron Paul may be the closest the Republicans have to a Thoughtful Candidate. Unfortunately, if there is anything the republicans can't stand it's a Thoughtful Candidate, so we probably won't see much more of him, in spite of his having assured the world at large that he is a born-again Christian with a deep and abiding faith. Not good enough for a heretic who opposed the Iraq war, is lukewarm on gay rights, and does not applaud the assassination of foreign persons in foreign countries whom we do not like.

The Uber-Zealot, Rick Santorum is a Catholic lawyer and former Senator from Pennsylvania, breeding ground of so many colorful political creatures, who believes that Christianity is grievously threatened by muslims, jews, hindus, communists, Iranians, democrats, homosexuals, evolutionists, illegal immigrants, and the National Weather Service. But he loves puppies and wants to save them.

Then there's That Other Texas Governor, Rick Perry, friend of the Tea Party, whatever they may be, and proponent of the secession of the Great State of Texas, and who could object to that? He strongly opposes abortion, of course, but equally strongly supports the death penalty, apparently oblivious of any conflict between these two positions. His approach to dealing with the poor is to suggest that they move to California. He did not extrapolate this policy to cover his proposed dealings with America's poor should he become president. It is not clear that Canada would want them. He would no doubt pray on it and send them wherever The Voices told him to send them. His greatest asset is his willingness to repay significant campaign contributors with useful government positions.

Chris Christie says he's not interested in running, but he is the clear first choice of billionaires everywhere for his brilliant theory, shared with Jon Huntsman, that we can reduce the deficit by cutting taxes, but unlike Huntsman, he is a nice safe Catholic. Since billionaires almost always get what they want, and are in a position to provide Mr. Christie with inducements of all types, we may yet see him heaving his ample bulk up on the nation's podiums. And who's to say a magician isn't just what the nation needs?

And finally there is the ever-perky Ms. Palin, another who has denied any interest in shooting for the moon. She has not yet clearly explained why she was tearing around the country in a bus, but then she hasn't clearly explained anything else either; however she is not campaigning, nope. Her followers still think she's a dream come true and they drag their knuckles up to her bus and vocalize excitedly to show this. For those who think it matters which flavor of religious extremity their candidate subscribes to, well, Ms. Palin is whatever you want her to be. It would be a mistake to eliminate her from the Republican possibles list.

So to recap, come the actual campaign, Obama against some Republican, the potential opponents boil down to the past or current governor of Massachusetts, New Jersey, Texas, Utah, or Alaska. Or you can choose from Catholic, Baptist, Evangelical, Mormon, or Sarah Palin. They all believe in the sanctity of the conventional marriage, the military budget, and the obscenely rich. They loudly believe in freedom of religion, provided it is their own, and want the government out of our lives except for the parts that give us other people's money.

This post did not receive funding or encouragement from Re-elect Obama or any other Democratic PAC.

Valery Cooks

I stumbled upon an article in the New York Times recently illustrated with a photograph of a plate of noodles upon which were artistically arranged three locusts and what might have been three moths. The first sentence read “David Gracer eats bugs.” After my gag reflex had relaxed a bit, I thought about why it is that eating a grasshopper seems so nasty while I would be happy to bury my face in a plate of shrimp. And then I thought I have eaten some pretty revolting things that are well within the realm of Conventional Food.

For example, I once enjoyed a long visit by a Russian glaciologist during which we wrote a paper about snow compaction and loafed around in front of the fire eating fatty foods and drinking cheap wine. After a few weeks, our life settled into a routine in which we worked in the morning, took walks in the afternoon, then I cooked, and he washed the dishes.

Then one dreary day, I was quietly messing around on my computer - nearly happy hour – when in comes Valery and asks would I like a drink.

Of course, I reply.

The usual? He asks, which is gin.

We had discussed tortellini earlier, with leftover spaghetti sauce for dinner. I thought a bit of cabernet would go down nicely. I verbalized this notion.

I’ve got started on dinner, says he.

What, the tortellini?

A pause. You can looking.

In the kitchen Valery had laid 2 carrots next to the stove, an eggplant beside them, a plastic bag containing leftover turkey from Thanksgiving 2 weeks ago, and an onion.

We have this, he explained, indicating the ill-assorted group.

Together? I asked.

Yes, of course, he replied.

Did you have some particular end product in mind?

You could fry this, he suggested.

I could fry this? I exclaimed in some alarm.

Yes, of course.

After some discussion, during which I had my glass of gin, it was decided that Valery would cook. I sat down to watch and record this historical preparation.

Get a 5” frying pan out of the cupboard and put it on the stove next to the ingredients that are about 12 times the contained volume. On suggestion of observers, put it back and get a pan out of the oven where it has been stored so that the cats won’t get tongue prints on the sausage fat contained therein.

Put it on the stove. Turn the stove on to high against recommendations of observers.

With the knife on its side, scrape the carrots in the general vicinity of the compost bucket such that SOME of the orange residue gets in. Ignore protests of observers and offer of vegetable peeler.

Cut carrots into many slices and put into hot sausage fat, splashing fat over much of the stove.

Using a vegetable peeler at last, peel the eggplant, grumbling loudly about wasting the best part, which is then placed in the compost bucket along with 20% of the carrot peelings.

Pour half a glass of $2/liter box wine into the carrots, the other half into the cook. Back away from the stove until the steam disperses a little. Turn the stove down a notch as if you had just thought of it.

Rattle around among the cookie sheets and strainers, humming tunelessly. When observers begin to squirm anxiously, admit you are looking for a bowl. Get one out of the cupboard across the kitchen that is almost big enough.

Cut the eggplant into large chunks and demand the whereabouts of the flour.

Go through every drawer in the kitchen except the one with the spoons and then loudly complain that there are no spoons. Once you have found them, get several.

By now, smoke is rising from the frying pan. Push the rapidly blackening carrots around with a spoon. Pour another blast of $2 wine into the pan to dislodge the carbon deposits that are forming and turn the stove down another notch under cover of the steam cloud, so as not to reveal to the observers that they had a worthwhile idea.

Place eggplant chunks in the nearly-big-enough bowl and spoon a generous quantity of flour into it in a single wad. Then, with 2 of the other spoons, one in each hand, reach down to the bottom of the bowl, first with the right-hand spoon, and then with the left-hand one, and churn the contents vigorously. The purpose of this ambidextrous technique is to assure that the eggplant and flour that escape the bowl will be distributed widely on all sides of the bowl rather than in one big heap. Do this until the escaped material pretty much covers the table.

Now cut the onion into big, random chunks and place them in the pan with the carbonized carrots. This at least will mask the smell of the burning sausage fat and distressed carrots.

The elderly turkey is already picked off the bones, so it is a simple matter to subdivide the larger chunks. Add this to the carrots and onions and stir it all around while the observers find a sponge and clean up the flour and eggplant that has found its way onto the floor and is already spreading.

And now the final step in the preparation, adding the eggplant. This is done by inverting the nearly-big-enough bowl over the other ingredients, producing much hissing, steam, and an impressive cloud of unattached flour. Now, using any two spoons, and a technique similar to the flouring of the eggplant, the mixture is churned until all ingredients are uniformly distributed and small escaped fragments that have found their way onto the burner are releasing smoke and smells, at which point the observers belatedly turn on the exhaust fan.

This is followed by another foray into the cupboards, accompanied by much clattering and muttering, yielding, at length, a domed cover which serendipitously fits the pan. And a lucky thing that it is domed, since the ingredients still in the pan form a pile a good deal higher than the lip. Lid in place, this memorable Russian meal is left to cook, while both cook and observers retreat to a less sticky room and imbibe $2 wine for a while.

When the smell of something burning can no longer be ignored, it is time to check progress, which is that the eggplant has rendered itself down to a grey slime matrix in which are imbedded largely brown carrots with splashes of black and orange, long fibrous bits of the same color as the eggplant, which represent turkey, and short textured bits that could be onion, or maybe more turkey. The base layer, which is the primary source of the smell, is a ¼” layer of charcoal.

Now we can eat, declares Valery, scooping great blobs of this onto plates.

Now this may not be the most disgusting meal that was ever put before me, although I can’t offhand recall one to beat it, but I will say that had there been a choice between this and a plate full of locusts, with or without noodles, I would have had the locusts in a flash.

Fox Dreams

I saw a fox once at a game park designed to instruct folk on the habits and lifestyles of the wildlife that used to be there before the highway came through. The fox was in a large cage with an illustrated placard in front describing what it ate and what it did in the winter. There were some beavers nearby with their own placards, and caribou and a black bear. All these creatures were separated from each other by a chain link fence, and from the viewing public by a moat. There were a few trees in the cage and bushes and rocks and a den carefully designed by a wildlife biologist to simulate a home the fox might once have chosen for itself. It had even been given a companion to share the den with. Everything was provided.

The fox was at the back of the cage when I saw her, pacing along the chain link fence on a well-worn path as she must once have done in some woodland, stopping from time to time to sniff at a rabbit run or scratch under a fallen tree that might yield a plump vole. Always wary, watchful for the many dangers she shared her home with, lynx, wolves, dogs, hunters.

She would scamper along a hedgerow today on the lookout for nests of partridges or pheasants that might harbor an egg or a chick for supper. At the end of the hedgerow is an open field. The fox hunkers down, hidden by brambles, and surveys the vista for a while, sampling the perfumed summer air with its freight of damp grass and fallen leaves. Finding nothing amiss she lopes off across it to a copse beyond, where there is a stream. Safe again in the undergrowth, she slows her pace, stops for a drink, and finally seeks out the cool, musty darkness beneath a familiar stump to rest. Tomorrow she will go up the wooded hill on the other side of the valley.

Then that terrifying day, a moment’s inattention or a single wrong decision, and the trap was sprung. Struggling and snapping in the net, strong hands bundled her into a truck. Terrified and confused by the sharp smells, loud noises, she crouched in her dark cell until she was brought at last to this place where she can live a long comfortable life with her assigned companion without danger, worries, or care. Raw meat and vitamin supplements arrive on schedule twice a day and fresh clean water dribbles constantly into the concrete basin near her warm, dry den where her companion is sleeping.

Such a lucky fox. So why does she spend her days pacing back and forth along the chain link fence and her nights dreaming of voles?

Stream of Consciousness

There was a small Post-It on the ground next to my car in the parking lot.  I nearly stepped on it when I got out of my car.  It was a bit dirty because somebody else had stepped on it before I got there.  I leaned over so I could see what it said.  “You are awesome,” it said.  If somebody had given me a PostIt telling me I was awesome I would have it cast in Lucite and stuck to the fridge with a magnet.  Or at the very least enshrined in my wallet where I could bathe in its glory two or three times a day.  Who could so carelessly throw such a priceless artifact on the ground for strangers to step on?
Maybe the doting parent of some child who had received 80% on a spelling test had rewarded the unwilling scholar with this little yellow attaboy and was even now inside the grocery story buying sweets to reinforce this appreciation.
It was an odd day anyway, full of surprises, starting early in the morning when I heard a tumult out in the pond and discovered that the source was a family of otters that was guzzling down fishes at a great rate. This explained two observations that had piqued my curiosity: first that the muskrats that had been much in evidence all summer had suddenly vanished, and second that I had never seen a fish in the pond larger than a credit card.  I stood out there in the dewy grass in my pajamas watching my visitors porpoising through the cattails and squabbling with each other behind the shrubbery until they finally oozed off over the far bank and vanished down toward the creek.
On the other hand, it might have been the child who left this little billet doux for its mother, stuck to the coffee pot, say, or the bathroom mirror.  Someplace where she was sure to find it before she got into the car and discovered that this same child had left a half gallon of butterscotch ripple ice cream on its side on the back seat of the car two or three days ago under a towel and forgotten it and now it had melted and escaped its cardboard confines and what had not been absorbed by the foam padding of the seat had bonded to the velour upholstery in a rapidly discoloring pad about the size of any bottom that might ever seek to reside there, an error that the child just discovered this morning when it went out to look for its bicycle helmet and noticed the smell.  That would explain why the note had been thrown to the ground right next to the rear door of some vehicle.  It might also explain why it had been stepped on.
Then on the way home I passed by that place at the top of Audet’s hill where they used to sell really nice corn, but I hadn’t seen their corn sign up in years.  They seemed to have given up edibles entirely in favor of chrysanthemums which I have no great need of.  But now there was the corn sign again, so I stopped in and got some.  And some beets since I was there. And then on my way out through the thousand chrysanthemums I noticed an enclave of peonies.  Always on the lookout for peonies that are not pink I had a quick look to see what there was and by miraculous good fortune there were several Karl Rosenfelds described on the internet (which does not lie) as “deep crimson.” So in one serendipitous visit I got 2 fine, red peonies and a compelling reason to clear the nettles out of the far end of the flower bed.  Not to mention a plate of corn, which, to be honest, was a bit disappointing.
But then it might have been delivered with a smirk by somebody who had carefully noted the progress of another family member through an entropy storm during which the participant had tripped over the dog, flinging spaghetti over one whole quadrant of the kitchen, then slipping on a meatball and falling into the table causing a cascade of tossed salad, chocolate milk, and merlot along with a scatter of small items like action figures, Tabasco bottles, spoons and such, then while windmilling for balance, still with a firm grip on the once full plate of spaghetti, depositing tomato sauce in colorful streaks on the ceiling, fridge, and remaining walls before finally regaining a solid upright position.  Surely such a performance would deserve at least a PostIt note.
And when I finally did get home and got a chance to look through the great wodge of mail that had been stuffed into my mailbox with such force that I had to winkle it out one envelope at a time until there was finally enough slack to move a catalog, there was an actual letter.  While it is certainly true that my memory is not what it once was, I can clearly remember those distant times when getting a letter was, if not routine, then at least unremarkable.  Yet there I was down there in the Shoreham Post Office lobby with a slithering armload of catalogs and demands for money from a dozen or two non-profits looking down in astonishment at an actual letter that some distant person had actually written to me and then put into an envelope and paid 44¢ to mail.  It gave me an odd feeling of time travel.
I like to think, though, that this was a note left by somebody for their lover, stuck to the wrapping of a small box or a nice plant and that this little scrap fell off while they were giggling together there in the parking lot, their arms around each other right there on the painted stripe between the cars.

Why I Write

The therapeutic value of writing takes several forms.

First there is the actual connection of a pen with paper. A fountain pen is best for this, and a nice smooth heavy vellum. You can lose yourself in this process, the troubles of the world falling away as the ink flows onto the paper and finally forms the loops and squiggles that convey “Worcestershire Sauce.” For best effect the W should be a tangle of swirls and eddies with a trailing banner that extends halfway across the line. It is a proud concept and should be rendered with elegance and dignity. It should lift the spirits.

For commonplace things such as “eggs” and “shoelaces,” simple script will do, but done slowly, feeling the almost imperceptible hiss of the pen as it forms the uprights and descenders. A short letter to your old auntie who barely knows what email is, bless her, should occupy about a third of your mind with thinking of things to say about the weather and your cousins, and the rest of it with the sensual pleasure of covering a nice piece of mauve paper with pleasing patterns of spikes and loops. It is a Zen-like process and a tonic to the soul.

Second there is the purgative effect of loosing a well-deserved blast of scathing ill-humor at the phone company, or the newspaper, about unsatisfactory service or the moronic or unscrupulous actions of some public servant. A really good head of steam can be developed if both can be demonstrated. Such compositions can have a number of positive effects. It is a good idea somewhere in your letter to make some reference to Myrmidons or Horatio at the bridge or the Augean Stables so as to let the buggers know that you are a person to be reckoned with. You will therefore probably have to brush up on your classics in preparation for the project and this in itself will broaden your mind. In rare cases you may even achieve redress for your grievances, but don’t count on it unless you have solid grounds for legal action and have made this clear in your letter. In any case simply putting a stamp on such a document and dropping it in the mail is a proven way to lower your blood pressure up to 20 points.

Third, writing things down enforces a rigor of thought and logic that is often lacking in speech. For example, in 1994 the Appalling Mr. Bush spoke thus: “Mars is essentially in the same orbit...Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe.” Would the Pretender to the Throne actually have said this if he were writing it all down? Surely not, not even He, who later correctly observed, “Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.”

And finally there is the alchemical property of writing that can transform your personal crises into comic opera featuring airborne cream pies, hilarious pratfalls, and tumbling clowns. You may start your piece overwhelmed by the tragedy of your life, tears coursing down your wrinkled cheeks, steeped in the knowledge that your life is effectively over and nothing remains but this, your suicide note.

So you set the cup of hemlock down on your desk, blow your nose and start to compose your final jeremiad. By the time you get to the part where a family of skunks had moved into your wrecked car before the tow truck could even get there, a wry smile has crept across your puffy red face.

And when you reach the part about how your faithless lover nearly brained himself by tripping over his damned stereo system and falling face down in a heap of his precious bloody Guy Lombardo disks, breaking a good half of them, and his reptilian nose to boot, you are beginning to feel downright perky. And before you know it you notice you are aching for a cup of tea, so you pour the hemlock into a potted fern, go out for a quart of milk and by the time you get back you realize you needed a new car anyway, and what could you possibly have seen in that jerk? And you should have fixed that step last year. So you stow your tearstained outpouring under a pile of magazines and check what’s playing at the CinePlex.

How to End a Conversation

Back in the golden era of travel, back before lateral movement on the planet became a nightmare of lost luggage, missed connections, and creepy security goons, I had the great good fortune to take a train from British Columbia to Montreal. This was a respectably long trip involving several days of sitting, interspersed by trips to the dining car, where you sat anywhere there was space and had a pleasant meal on nice plates with strangers who were on no hurry, as well as to the bar car, which opened early in the day.

It was at this civilized convenience where I found myself seated one afternoon next to an old fellow with an amiable face and a weakly bubbling drink. We exchanged the obligatory where-are-you-going-where-have-you-come-from remarks and then quickly discovered that we had nothing else to say of any remote interest to one another.

Just when I spotted somebody coming into the place whom I had enjoyed talking to the previous day he declared “I have 14 grandchildren.” I smiled vaguely. “Six of them live in Halifax.” He reached for his wallet. My heart sank. Visions sprang to mind of blurry snapshots of sticky moppets or family photos where one cousin was indistinguishable from the next. Imagine my surprise when at last he found what he was looking for and showed it to me with some pride. It was a page ripped out of a small notebook with a list of names on it. He gave this to me and while I was looking at it he explained where each one lived. “See, Tom and Mary and Patrick, they're my daughter Eleanor's children. They live in Halifax. And here, Hugh and Sally...” and so we made our slow way down the list.

Finally I managed to give back his list and was formulating an exit strategy when he started in on a detailed biography of each one, their favorite sports, their school projects, their piano lessons and funny sayings, their summer camps and Christmas pageants, their ailments and triumphs and food preferences. I was frantic to get away, but couldn't think of a credible excuse: phone call? Don't think so. Someone at the door? Nope. Late for an appointment? Nope. Finally I really did have to go to the bathroom so I broke in on the biography of the hockey buff from Manitoba, excused myself and fled.

Since then I have made a study of breakaway lines and techniques. As a public service I offer up my findings here so that others may be spared:

1. Cough a lot. Then say the doctor said it’s probably not contagious.

2. Break in with a desperate expression and ask where the nearest toilet might be.

3. Stare fixedly at a point just above the person’s left ear. Back away slowly.

4. Start stroking their upper arm while moving your face closer to theirs in rapt attention.

5. Ask, “Do you like spiders?” while reaching for your purse.

6. Look over their shoulder towards, say, a door, and shout “Oh, my God! They’ve found me!” Then dash off in the other direction.

7. Pick your nose thoughtfully.

8. Laugh at inappropriate times.

9. Whenever possible, return the conversation to the subject of your aunt’s skin problems.

10. Pull out a comb choked with cat fur and start to rearrange their hair.

11. Reach inside your clothes and scratch, murmuring, “Pesky critters!”

12. If you have not said anything yet, at your first opportunity say something in a foreign language. Make one up, if necessary.

13. Pull out your wallet containing at least 20 photos of your pets. Starting with the first, describe all its habits and illnesses in minute detail.

14. Ask how much money they make. If they should, inexplicably, tell you, then ask about their husband’s/wife’s income. Then move on to their children, uncles, and so forth.

15. Smile vaguely, point to a window and make a long statement in a foreign language. Russian is good.

16. Look deep into their eyes, lean forward and solemnly ask "Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your savior?"

17. Belch long and loud. Do not smile.

18. Gaze searchingly, longingly at your oppressor for a count of ten. Then say "You are so beautiful - may I give you a tattoo?"

19. Launch into an extremely detailed account of something like a bit of computer code or anything else that interests you. Explain everything. Don't stop for breath.

Using these suggestions as a starting point, develop other deterrent methods suitable to the circumstances. Be careful not to use a method that might attract the interest of your assa ilant. Do not, for example, use #16 with somebody with a stack of Watchtowers under their arm, or #18 with a Hell's Angel.

The Fact and Fantasy of Growing Old

We are surrounded by perkiness, apparently an affliction primarily of girls, but a lesser number of older women as well as men of all ages. It manifests as a chirpy tone of voice, a vacuous smile and an unshakable conviction that its practitioner is a fascinating conversationalist. It is also associated with the lamentable delusion that those lacking these symptoms are in some way infirm if not clinically depressed, and need to be snapped out of it one way or another.

I dread my biannual trip to the dentist, not out of fear of dentistry in general or my dentist in particular but rather because the first phase of any such visit is half an hour at the mercy of a perky young thing, whose name might be Tiffany, wearing a smock with puppies on it who is apparently unable to spend a single moment free of light-hearted commentary on food, dogs, her children, other people's children, the weather, today's political scandal, something that happened on American Idol, amusing anecdotes involving almost anybody, the shocking price of gasoline, and any of a hundred other topics that crash through her mind like a trapped Dragonfly in a doomed search for the exit.

I tried once just to file the tumult away as mere background racket, like bad music in another room, a meaningless annoyance that could just be ignored. It worked pretty well until, after a few blessed moments of indulging in my own thoughts, I noticed that all sound and motion had ceased. Then I noticed that Tiffany was giving me a good hard look. Clearly I had missed something, something that required a response, and now Tiffany was annoyed. I tried to look cheerful and attentive and vocalized something that I hoped was sufficiently vague that she could read into it whatever she wanted. Unconvinced, she went back to work with greater than average energy and thoroughness with one of those diabolical hooked things they use to clean the plaque out of the very marrow of your bones. Which is how I discovered that it was necessary to listen to these monologues at least well enough to respond appropriately as needed.

In another memorable instance, my ancient cousin, Chrissie, and I went to a chop house in Burlington with the idea of eating, perhaps, a steak and a salad and discussing this and that. A quiet evening for a couple of old dolls with bad eyesight to reminisce and gently gossip. So imagine our dismay when an eager associate (I believe they are now called) with a metal thing through her eyebrow and a skirt barely long enough to cover her pubic hair slid onto the bench right next to us and, with a kilowatt smile through perfect teeth announced, “HI, MY NAME IS CAROLINE AND I WILL BE YOUR SERVER THIS EVENING!” Then she slid a couple of menus to us as if they were secret messages from Chinese intelligence. Then she propped her elbows on our table and counted off the day's specials on her long, blood-red nails. “CAN I BRING YOU A DRINK WHILE YOU'RE DECIDING?” she trilled. And here she counted off all the beers they had on tap on her lurid claws. Being the bolder of the two of us, and having heard of none of the beers on the list, I ordered something completely at random, Chrissie had the same, and we were briefly left in peace.

When our beers came we instinctively moved closer together for safety, but the Lioness merely flashed us another kilowatt and left us. Then we picked out our food and waited. And waited and waited, wondering whether our lioness had been devoured by some larger predator, but finally she came, we ordered, our food arrived, and we were eating it as old farts often do, slowly, methodically, with many rest periods filled with conversation. Our Associate had an uncanny knack for sensing when we had hit a really interesting place in some story and she would materialize at that moment, crouch down so as to be at eye level and inquire “IS EVERYTHING ALL RIGHT? DO YOU NEED ANYTHING? HOW'S YOUR SALAD? OOH GOOD!”

She did this at least twice, apparently not having considered the notion that we might have called her over if we had found a Band-Aid under the steak or a spider in the salad.

It was never made clear whether she thought that, old and decrepit as we clearly were, we were also stone deaf, although how she thought we were communicating is hard to guess, or whether she always trumpeted like that to everybody. In any case, the volume of her remarks was not so much the issue as the delivery, which took the form of the sort of relentless cheerfulness often espoused by well-meaning nurses aids conveying information of any sort to one of their elderly charges. A jolly, happy Mickey Mouse voice announcing “Time for our bowel movement, Millie,” or “Your daughter was crushed under the wheels of a train this morning so she won't be in today, Mitch” or “I'm sorry you seem to have run out of money, so we have to throw you out into the street now, Maud.”

Here's what worries me: I imagine that time has passed, I am feeble and half-blind and evil-tempered and installed in some place that employs nurses aids. And one day one of these moppets rustles up to me there in my wheel chair and snatches away the Dorothy Sayers with the torn front cover I am reading for the third time. Then she loses my place and bleats for the tenth time that week “C'mon, Debby, you don't want to read that gloomy thing again – let's go down to the common area and play bingo.” And then I imagine gathering up the last dregs of strength left in my porous old bones, and springing up out of the wheel chair and grabbing the miserable wretch by the throat and choking the bumptious life out of her.

This is where my fantasy ends as I lose interest after this happy ending. But if there is any lesson to be taken from this story it is this: Do not tell me what kind of day to have.

My New Life

An open letter to all my dear friends, old and new, valued colleagues, classmates, co-workers, neighbors:

The month of July has been overwhelming to say the least.  I couldn’t believe my good fortune when I received an email on Independence Day from Mr. Ulf Van Anderson from the Cyber Lottery in the Netherlands.  As Mr. Anderson explained it, “The online electronic-raffle draws was conducted from an exclusive list of 250,000 international emails accounts picked by our Electronic Random Selection System (ERSS) from an exclusive list  However, no tickets were sold. After the automated computer ballot collection, your E-mail address emerged as a winner category ‘A’…” This means that I won €1,000,000!  That’s something like $1,450,000!  Exchange rates are very variable, of course, but that is a whole lot of money, and all I had to do was tell them my name, address, phone number and a few other trivial details. I could get a new lawnmower! The check hasn’t arrived yet, but these things take time.
Then the very next day I got an email from FedEx saying that they had a parcel for me which was being held up owing to some little procedural detail.  They didn’t explain why the email message came from Oman, but they did mention that the parcel contained a bank draft for $2,100,000 and a letter from my colleague in Ghana where the parcel was waiting for me. All I needed to do was contact them by phone in Ghana or by email, and give them a few personal details and a handling fee amounting to $210, and they would have the parcel in my hands within 24 hours.  I confess I did not respond quickly to this as I do not know anybody in Ghana or even anybody who has been there, or anybody who has $2,100,000 to give me, but then I figured, what the heck.  That’s a pretty good return on $210.  I expect the check to arrive any day now and I guess I should give some thought to what private island to buy.
At about the same time I got this sad email: “My name is Muhammed Azeem, Am the CEO of Al Muhad Contracting Co., in United Arab Emirate. I have been diagnosed with Esophageal cancer and i have less than two months to live. I have been sick for almost a year now it has gotten worse. I want you to assist me to dispatch my wealth to a charity organizations. For helping me, you will receive 30% of the money.” Maybe he got my email address from the FedEx people in Oman.  He didn’t say how much money we are talking about here, but he is bound to be rich as Croesus.  He said to respond to a Japanese email address, so I guess he is getting treatment there, and is probably too sick to deal with this sort of thing, poor man.
And then the next morning I got a message from the Obama Foundation offering me $500,000 just as soon as I supply the usual details.  Well, this surely must be a trustworthy offer since President Obama wouldn’t dare lend his name to anything that wasn’t on the up and up.  It is a bit worrying though that he would be using a bank in the UK rather than one here.  Are our banks headed for the cliff again?
Then, within 24 hours of this I got two more tempting offers:
From Hong Kong: “Hello Friend, I am Mr. Si-Wan Park, manager on deposit and remittance in Woori Bank,Hong Kong.; I have a sensitive, confidential brief from Hong Kong and I am asking for your partnership in re- profiling funds ($15,557,210.00 USD).
What I require from you is your honest co-operation and I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you and I from any breach of the law. Please accept my apologies, if I have encroached on your privacy without prior notice, keep my confidence and disregard this email if you do not appreciate this proposition I have offered you.
All confirmable documents to back up this fund shall be made available to you, as soon as I receive your reply via my private email (parksiwan01@hotmail.com.hk ), I shall let you know what is required of you.

Regards
Si-Wan Park“
While it’s true I have no idea what Mr. Park is suggesting, still $15,557,210 is a pretty enticing lure – how could you go wrong just finding out? And then there was the second one, again from Ghana: “On behalf of the United Nations Organization, We wish to inform you that the payment Committee in-conjunction with the Overseas Credit Commission has been mandated to compensate all the outstanding  Foreign Investors in the West African Region this quarter of the fiscal year 2011, your email and Particulars were discovered as next on the list (Category "A") due for payment of US$14,500,000.00 {Fourteen Million Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars} Only.”  So I guess this must have something to do with my mysterious benefactor who gave a $2,100,000 check to FedEx for which I needed to supply name and address and so forth.  And here they were, asking for all that information yet again.
Unfortunately it seems possible that something might be wrong with this latest remittance, as I soon received yet another message from Ghana:
“There is information I think might interest you. First kindly confirm if you are the owner of this email address.
I am Mr. Ken Solomon, I work with foreign remittance department with a bank here in Ghana. I do not know if  am talking to the right person, But I will like you to confirm if you are the owner of this email ID. But somehow I am not comfortable and too sure that I am communicating with the right owner of this email.
If you can prove that you are the owner of this email ID, then I will furnish you with the information that I have for you, when I am convinced than I am talking to the right person and will proceed with you.
I am taking this preventive measure because I do not want to talk to the wrong person because of the sensitivity of the information regarding the issue.
Other details will be forwarded to you as soon as I am convinced that I am communicating with the right person,”
While I was mulling this over, I received a message from Moammar Gaddafi’s second wife who got my email address from Moammar’s address book.  I can only imagine he got it from Muhammed Azeem, that poor wretch with esophageal cancer being treated in Japan.  Anyway, Mrs. Gaddafi proposes that she send me $40,000,000 that she has stashed away in an Asian bank somewhere.  Then I will see to its investment in sound businesses in exchange for 30% of it.  That would be $12,000,000.  Fair recompense for an afternoon’s work, I say.  By and by her son Alaa will come over and I am to help him set up a business.  And all she needs to get this moving is the same information that I have been handing out to anybody that asks from all over West Africa and the middle east.
In similar offers, both humanitarian and commercial, I have been offered

·     £3,000,000 which amounts to something like $4,800,000 by a pathetic Greek woman who said: “I have decided to donate this fund to you and want you to use this gift which comes from my husbands effort to fund the upkeep of widows, widowers, orphans, destitute, the down-trodden, physically challenged children, barren-women and persons who prove to be genuinely handicapped financially.”

·     30% of $19,500,000 by Mr. Song Lile, a credit officer at the Hang Seng Bank in Hong Kong to “effect a transaction”

·     $15,000,000 by Mr. Chu-yu Soong, a retired operations manager of the Bank of China, Malaysia to pretend to be next-of-kin for a dormant account

·     $2,500,000,000 by a Finance Director of some bank in Lagos who says that it is there in my name and somebody name Newman Lazarus is trying to get it and whoever comes up with the $185 processing fee will be the lucky winner

·     Some substantial slice of $70,000,000,000 by Hashim al-Adly, brother of the former Interior Minister of Egypt under Hosni Mubarak who pilfered every dime and squirreled it away all over Europe.  My role would be to receive the stolen goods and launder it.

·     £12,400,000 ($20,000,000, more or less) by Mr Roy Hill to provide respectability for a scheme which boils down to robbing the estate of somebody who died intestate and 35% of whose assets are offered to me.  This is very similar to the above-mentioned proposal of Mr. Chu-yu Soong, leading me to wonder what Asian estate laws look like.

·     And finally, a stirring proposal by yet another Pitiful Rich Person, Sister Mrs. Melina Komol from Comoros Island who is circling the drain and wants to give me $4,500,000 “for the help of orphanages home, christian schools, widows, the less privilages and churches for propagating the word of God, according to my desire and my late husband before his death.”

To make a long story short, during the month of July I have been offered, by numerous people I don’t know, in various capacities, in places I have never been, something like $2,596,256,815, offset by $395 in fees.  This does not include the philanthropic and cancerous Mr Azeem from whom I am expecting numerous millions or the larcenous Mr. al-Adley whose munificence I am expecting in the billions.  I’ll be worth more than a drug cartel.
And so, when this gush of money starts pouring in, which should be any day now, I will have to put my old life behind me, buy new clothes, spend a month at a fat farm, do something with my hair, learn how to behave on a yacht, and how to address heads of state.

I’ll miss you guys.

Polls

Every time I hear some solemn commentator proclaim that 57% of Americans prefer apple juice to green tea, say, or would prefer to take a bus to work rather than travel by horse-back or whatever other choices could conceivably appear in our daily lives, I hark back to those terrible days before I ponied up $5.95 per month for caller ID. Back in that time of dashed hopes and indignation when the phone rang, I would drop whatever I was doing and dash for the nearest phone, hoping that the next voice I heard might be somebody I might actually want to talk to. Occasionally my prayers were answered. But way too many were telemarketers of one sort or another with a liberal sprinkling of people wanting to explore my preferences in men's clothing, confectionery, travel destinations and other goods and services on which I have a very weak and changeable opinion or no views at all. By the time I had disengaged from these interruptions, I had completely lost my train of thought on whatever I had been doing and as a consequence had no choice but to shout at the cats or split wood.

One memorable poll concerned M&Ms. I had come tearing up from the basement to answer this call, so when the annoying young thing asked if I could spare a couple of minutes I agreed since I was all sweaty and out of breath anyway. Then she explained in breathtaking detail that the M&M Corporation manufactured M&Ms with which I was no doubt familiar, and that up until now the colors of these things were yellow and orange and red and brown, but now they wanted to modernize and upgrade their image by adding new colors. Now that she had talked herself out and I had caught my breath and was ready to hang up she got down to the nut of the problem.

“How often do you enjoy M&Ms?” she asked. “Every day? Once a week? Once a month? 4 times a year? Never?”

“I dunno,” I replied, “every now and then I guess.”

“Would that be Every day? Once a week? Once a month? 4 times a year?” She was not to be put off. I cast my mind back over my M&M-eating history and calculated that the last time I ate M&Ms was last Halloween, so I guessed “Twice a year.”

“What color would you like to see in your next bag of M&Ms, Blue? Purple? Green? Or Beige?”

“I like the colors the way they are.”

“But if there were another color, which would you like best – Blue? Purple? Green? Or Beige?”

“I don't care. Anything would be fine.”

“But which would you like best - Blue? Purple? Green? Or Beige?”

“Blue!” I told her, since that was the first on her list, and it just popped into my mind.

Then we moved on to my second favorite color, after which we changed our focus to what brands of jeans I had heard of and then some other matter every bit as trivial as these.

By the time I finally was allowed to hang up, I had taken a begrudging interest in the proceedings. I was amazed that somebody out there was prepared to pay no doubt big money to find out if I had ever heard of Dockers, and what color Halloween candies I might like. And I was imagining some grotesquely overpaid flunky giving his M&Ms presentation up in the executive suite and concluding with “And we polled more than a thousand people and found that 73% prefer blue M&Ms, and so, gentlemen, we suggest that you retool the Atlanta plant to include blue M&Ms, a million dollar investment well worth the expense.” Based on the choices of people just like me, who were trapped into committing to something they couldn't care less about, at a time when the chops were just beginning to smoke or the resident toddler was just about to get the lid off the Drano.

Then of course there are the polls that come in the mail. They are mostly political in nature and on the last page you are encouraged to contribute $20, $25, $35, $55, or Other to the organization asking the attached vague unanswerable questions. The multiple choice questions run to such deep and thoughtful matters as Do you think that the United States Congress is composed primarily of self-serving idiots? Answer: Yes, No, Other.

And of course the ever-popular issues-based questions such as Do you think it is wise to squander another trillion dollars we will have to borrow from China to invade yet another distant oil-bearing nation nobody can spell? Or Do you want to see an army of godless bloodthirsty heathens sweep across Our Great Nation, raping our daughters and peeing in our flower beds? Both of these questions are gathering numbers for the same thing, of course, but now one side will declare that a clear 80% majority is against it while the other side will present its 80% in favor statistics. Then they will glare at one another, a vote will be taken and whichever side can promise the largest profits for some large industry will win.

So next time you hear some congress person or political commentator saying that 76% of the nation wants [insert issue du jour here] ask yourself where did they get that number.

Meanwhile, remember that 68% of American citizens east of the Mississippi River, believe that Caller ID is the greatest technological achievement of the 21^st century.

Winter Project

Suddenly one cold day I discovered a pressing need for all my iceberg stuff. All those reports and books and references and photographs. The proposals and outlines diligently prepared all those years ago. I looked in my main filing cabinet. I knew there was nothing there of interest, but it was close and easy. Nope, nothing there.

With slightly greater optimism I tried my backup filing cabinets, drawer by drawer, and actually did find one or two vaguely relevant things tucked in between the computer parts and lawnmower manuals, but nothing close to the mountain of material I knew was somewhere under that roof. Of course, I knew all along where it was, but hoping for a miracle is an essential part of the human condition. Days passed, and I glanced at the door to the attic every time I went upstairs, quickly looking away. Too cold today. Too dark right now. Pressed for time.

Finally I ran out of excuses that were good enough even for me. I took a deep, tired breath and opened the door. I picked up a huge empty box directly in front of the door and threw it on top of that pile of beds. Sidled past the kerosene heater and stepped over the pile of posters and maps on the floor. They had been all neatly rolled up in an inconspicuous corner last fall, but I unrolled them and weighted them down with books, and now that they are flat again, I realize I have no place to put them, so they will be there forever.

I tripped over a box full of skates and kicked a path through the suitcases and finally stood in full view of all those relict boxes that have been right where they currently stand since 1987 when I moved down from Canada.

I spot one under a table and pick my way over for a look. Bingo! It contains K through P of my iceberg files from Newfoundland. But it’s behind a lot of heavy stuff, so I decide to leave it there, knowing where at least one stash is. I turn carefully and scan other boxes. I open one and find what appears to be a 50-lb. collection of my father’s most useless files. Why are they here, I wonder. I pick up another box and put it on top of them, clearing a precious 2 square feet of floor space. Dust rises around me as I open the flaps. Two sketch books, barely used. A solar energy guide and a bunch of far back issues of the Journal of Irreproducible Results. Assorted detritus from British Columbia, circa 1974-9.

The next box contains a set of The Harvard Classics. I sit on it and look into the box next to it. Promising. Stuff from Newfoundland. Files, photographs, resumés. After 2 or 3 good sneezes I pick up this trove and head for the door, being careful not to step on the poster pile, but triggering a box slide on my way out. There is only one clear flat surface downstairs that is also relatively free of cats. It is the floor on the way to the bathroom.

I drop the box in front of a chair and start sorting through its contents. There is a fat photocopy of an obsolete software manual. Out. There are many many notices of seminars and memos describing administrative procedures and changes from a place I left in 1986. Why are they here? There are letters about all kinds of things. I read them and relive the joys and frustrations of long-dead undertakings. There are jokes I had taped to the door of my office, and letters from a lunatic who thought I was going to become a Lutheran and go live with him in the Yukon. There is actually some iceberg stuff.

When I am done, the box is empty and I am surrounded with piles. One of the larger piles is about 2 inches of empty file folders that were interspersed among the other stuff. Why did I keep a 2-inch pile of empty file folders? Now there is no clear flat surface in the house. The iceberg pile is small, but pithy. I square it up and leave it there. I move the memos and the computer manual into the recycling pile. It is suppertime. Maybe I’ll bring down another box tomorrow.

The Black Folk of Buckingham

I recently read Kathryn Stockett’s extraordinary book, The Help, set in Jackson, Mississippi, in the early days of the civil rights upheavals. The primary protagonists are some black domestics and their white employers. As the story unfolded I kept flashing back to the distant untroubled years of my childhood in Buckingham, Pennsylvania, just 50 easy miles from the Mason-Dixon Line. Any resemblance to Jackson was thin at best. We did not have lynchings and everybody used the same toilets and buses as far as I know. However, there was a black community, although I don’t recall seeing many of them except for a very small number, some of whom played starring roles in my early maintenance and instruction.

Howard Blackstone, for example, who worked across the road for my grandfather on a small, diverse farm. His primary skill was blacksmithing and he made a wide variety of things like horse shoes and hinges and cart wheels and such. But it was a small farm with limited needs for blacksmith products, so Howard did other things as well.

One late fall day in, perhaps, 1938 or so my father, a young man at the time, and Howard were sent to Brown Brothers auction to look for something or other for the farm. It was the sort of auction where just about anything might turn up – shovels and tractors and poultry and tedders and yokes and plows and watering troughs, a wide variety of stuff that some farmer somewhere in the county discovered that they didn’t need anymore. They wandered back and forth along row after row of rusty implements and anxious goats until they got right to the back where the small items were displayed, or dumped, depending on your aesthetic sense, and there they found a great chain, a large, robust chain suitable for pulling stumps and freeing mired tractors. Their bid was successful and so by and by they returned to the distant reaches of the auction yard to collect their prize. My father took one end of it and Howard took the other and they started winding their way back to the parking lot. It was not long before my father noticed that their little parade was attracting attention. Gaping stares, in fact. When he turned around to look he discovered that Howard had wrapped his end of the chain around his neck and was staggering tragically along, arms raised to heaven.

Some years later when I was very small we had a sleigh, and a horse to go with it and enough snow in the winter that Howard could take us kiddies out for a toot around the neighborhood. There were bells attached to some part of the harness and we jangled along just like something out of a Bing Crosby movie. I don't remember where we went but photographic evidence still exists that we went somewhere. Mostly I remember just starting out from the barn leaving brown streaks in the snow until the rust was cleaned off the runners.

It was about this time that Nancy came to us. She lived in the room over the kitchen, a large spacious affair that she referred to as her house, as in “Don't you come into my house before you wash your hands!” She previously worked for the neighbors across the street who always resentfully accused us of poaching her away from them, but I once got a look at the broomcloset she lived in there and can't imagine that it was a difficult negociation.

She was a Jehovah's Witness, a strike against her which I think caused some parental discomfort, but she was made to understand that the children were to be washed and fed, not converted. And so it was that our religious instruction or lack of it was left up to my parents and the Buckingham Friends School. However, she did take us with her when she went around peddling Watchtowers and I have always wondered what her customers thought when this young black woman turned up at their doors with two little white tykes in tow.

I think she was secretly appalled by the bad habits my parents lavishly indulged in like drinking and smoking, but she had the good sense never to say anything about them. The only hint came one morning after the annual traditional cocktail party the parents always held for the neighborhood during which all their respectable friends, doctors and bankers and stockbrokers and such came and drank themselves blind and then wobbled and swerved on home in the great swaying behemoths issued by Detroit in those days. The residue after these extravaganzas was an unimaginable number of bottles. My father was struggling out to the end of the driveway with great clattering sacks of these one day when Nancy appeared on some errand.

My father boyishly observed “If anybody were to look into our trash, they'd think we were a bunch of lushes.”

“They got no business looking in your trash!” replied Nancy indignantly.

At one point she fell afoul of the IRS. It couldn't have been a catastrophe on an absolute scale since she didn't have the assets for it. But it was a catastrophe in her eyes and she was nearly undone when she finally asked my father to help with it. It took a while for him to understand what the problem was partly because of her non-linear and barely comprehensible account of the matter and partly because all IRS personnel involved were referred to as “the man at the post office,” which apparently stood in for any functionary she had been in touch with. The matter, whatever it was, was finally resolved after a few more conversations with the Man at the Post Office, and ever after that I think she considered my father to fall somewhere between saint and genius and slayer of dragons.

Nancy was a city girl. She lived in Philadelphia when she wasn't with us. She also had a son. That was a long story I didn't hear until half a century had passed. She had relatives in Philadelphia who looked after this child while Nancy was with us, during the week. Then she would return to the city on the weekends. In the summer she would take along armloads of vegetables which my father grew in abundance, including a row of okra grown especially for her since none of the rest of us would touch it. In fact the only cruel thing she did to us during our long association was to make us eat that stuff, and, to her credit, she only did it once.

We also had animals, some sheep, a couple of steers, a couple of horses. These were, for the most part well-behaved creatures. They stayed within the boundaries alloted to them except on those rare occasions when a fencepost fell down or a gate was left open on which occasions they would taste the heady brew of liberty and other peoples flower beds and steps would have to be taken to get them back. In a clear demonstration of the existence of cosmic pranks, these daring escapes most often took place 2 or 3 days after my parents left on a 3 week trip to the back side of the moon, leaving Nancy in charge of our small world with the promise of help from my grandfather, if necessary and available. It was a monument to her courage that she was prepared to face down these large creatures that terrified her with the implacable dignity of a Masai queen, armed only with her faithful broom, her weapon of choice in the face of all perils.

I went to visit her once in South Carolina where she was living in retirement near her brother. Her house was small, cluttered and cleaned to within an inch of its life. There were framed photographs here and there of various events and family members, and I was surprised to discover that during the time she spent with us she was drop dead gorgeous. Why hadn't I noticed this at the time?

It was during that visit that she told me about her failed marriage. She was married at the age of 19 or 20 soon after completing her nursing training. Her husband was in some sort of business that took him and his new bride to Toronto. They got a small house in the sort of place where the back fence is about 10 feet from the kitchen window and she was left in it to wash the dishes and dust the furniture while he went off into the Great World to ply his trade. She hated it. It was cold, grey, and she didn't know anybody. Soon she was pregnant. Then one gloomy day she was standing at the sink looking out the window at the neighbor's trash cans over the back fence and realized that now she was Absolutely Stuck. She would be bound to this dreadful place by her husband and soon her child and then no doubt other children and she would never see her childhood friends again, never feel the intense summer sun of South Carolina on the back of her neck, never experience the joy of her church back in Philadelphia. And so it was that one day she packed up her clothes and returned to Philadelphia where she was taken in by her many friends and relatives. How she came to work out Beyond the 'Burbs I never did learn.

In any case, Nancy and Howard and a small number of others, casually met, represented all black people to me. So when the race riots and civil rights upheavals hit the headlines I was mystified. I could not imagine why anybody would want to exclude these people from the country's mainstream. At the same time, I have come to understand that I actually know nothing about the reality of these people I thought I was so close to – where did they go to school, what were their prospects, how did they come to live the lives they did. Were they happy?