The Passion of the Drunk

That is a smart-aleck title. I do not now nor have I ever liked Mel Gibson.

Mr. Gibson was recently arrested for drunk driving and behaved rather badly. Having in my lifetime been arrested for drunk driving and behaved badly, and recalling that Mr. Gibson made a movie, however flawed, about the Lord, who -- before His passion -- said to some men getting ready to stone a woman caught in adultery, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone" (Jn 7:53-8:11), I have nothing to add to the following:

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I give Mr. Gibson credit for renouncing his loathsome behavior, for owning that it was "despicable." If he is indeed anti-Semitic, as some discerning people seem to think, may he ask his Redeemer to remove that defect of his character from him. If he is, as he confesses, alcoholic, may he seek help. There is lots of it available. If he follows the Twelve-Step program, I hope the Jews are on his list of people he intends to make amends to.

Visit from Keith and Other Observations

I went walking a while ago in the beastly humidity. We have Basic Instinct on TV now, on a commercial channel -- an obnoxious movie with many obnoxious interruptions. Earlier, watched part of a taped Conan O'Brien, a show I haven't seen for perhaps a year. I suppose it was a rerun. At the beginning he did a satirical "State of the Show" address, and at the end a comic had a cartoon of a superhero called "Paleman," and both of those were pretty funny. I'd also taped Friday's Countdown, which showed a Letterman blurb (a tape of a tape, I guess) in which David commented on Ann Coulter's recent assertion that Bill Clinton is gay. Letterman showed Clinton's "rebuttal": Clinton had merely told Coulter he was gay so he wouldn't have to hit on her "bony ass." A caption below Ann's picture reads: "Clinton is gay only around evil crazy bitches." Keith Olbermann always shows the picture of Ann with her black eye-patch. Aarrgh!

Another Keith I like is my friend from northern Indiana, Keith McW. Keith graced us with a visit this afternoon, on his way home from Tennessee, where he'd been visiting with his parents and his "redneck brother." (He likes his brother very much and I think I would too.) Keith is so much the consummate gentleman that it is well nigh impossible to believe he has a redneck brother. (Keith was not too refined to send me the email about the poll of "total fucking morons.") We had lunch, caught up a little bit, and watched Uncommon Valor (1983). Keith said that Randall "Tex" Cobb, a Nam vet who kicks the crap out of Patrick Swayzee in this movie (some might like that) and then buys it in the raid on a Laos prison camp (Cobb was memorable as "Ben Dover" in a jail scene with Chevy Chase in Fletch), reminded him a great deal of his redneck brother.

Keith's older daughter Emily has come down with a chronic illness and I am sad for her and Keith's family. She is coping well and has in fact changed recently to a new, better job. Of course she cannot be discriminated against because of her illness and I know she is capable and a tough kid. Keith's wife, Mary Ann, has gotten a good job as an accountant at a liberal arts college. I look forward to our going to church with Keith and Mary Ann in the country again to hear Phil Gulley, the iconoclastic Christian clergyman who believes that God's grace doesn't exclude anybody. At all. And after church I hope we go back to that excellent cafeteria in Mooresville for Sunday dinner, and maybe their younger daughter, Molly, who works nearby, can join us. I'll save up for that meal. (Butterscotch pie!)

I will take a moment to rail against Las Vegas, which has passed an ordinance forbidding the feeding of the homeless in public parks there. I'll just say that our Christian nation might base its jurisprudence on the Ten Commandments, or brag that it does, but sure as hell not on the Sermon on the Mount. I wonder if the casinos might be taxed 1/20 of 1 percent to pay for feeding the homeless. Meanwhile, drug companies provide sumptuous lunches for doctors to entice them to prescribe their drugs. The House passed a law to raise the minimum wage by $2.10 (by 2009 -- don't want to wreck the economy by drastic upheavals!) with the proviso, of course, that the estate tax be reduced for the ultra-rich. Of course. And right away, right?

Saturday night, at almost the end of July. Beastly humidity, but the sun came out toward dusk. And thank God for a-c. We're having tomatoes and corn and green beans and peaches and other wonderful things for this time of year in good old Indiana. Ain't God good to Indianny? Ain't he though? (We have more than one kind of corn, sorry.)

We Will Win!

This morning on the way home from rehab I heard one of the authors of One Party Country: The Republican Plan for Dominance in the 21st Century by Peter Wallsten and Tom Hamburger being interviewed on NPR. From the publisher: "... the Bush administration's primary governing focus is cementing GOP dominance for decades to come and eviscerating the Democrats' New Deal coalition. ... Guiding this quest is Karl Rove, a man who exercises unprecedented power as he marshals all branches of government in service of the ultimate goal. This book shows Rove manipulating the most obscure federal activities and reveals how his actions shape local races and help the GOP lure the Democrats' most loyal supporters: Jews, African Americans, and Latinos. The authors detail how Republicans have turned corporate America into a wing of the party, and how their audacious, carefully crafted plan may yet unravel in a swirl of scandal in the nation's capital."

I guess I was feeling vulnerable at the moment for one reason or another and I just really felt depressed for a while. Indefinite dominance by the Republican Party means we will never have universal health care, decent wages for workers, equitable distribution of the tax burden, honest people running the government instead of the likes of Rove, Mehlman, Cheney, Gonzales, DeLay, James Dobson, and Abramoff.

Well, hell, as I read in this review just a few minutes ago, their "plan may yet unravel in a swirl of scandal." Sometimes I half-heartedly believe that a loving, merciful God will at last liberate us from these cynical, merciless thugs who have hijacked what was once an honorable government and hoodwinked so many good people and taken all the spoils.

Many of us want to believe in an apocalypse in which a just God will vanquish our oppressors. I think that what will eventually happen is the Rovers and Mehlmanians et al will "fall of their own weight," that they carry the seeds of their own destruction within them, that their greed and graft and conceit will bring them down with a great crash.

I don't know what God has to do with that, actually, but I pray that He will bring them down. I know that we suffered through the Third Reich and that hideous cabal eventually destroyed itself. (I add the footnote that our mongrel draftee dogfaces whipped the Kraut's asses fair and square, bitching all the while, no matter how committed and smart and tough and purebred the Krauts thought they were.) I still want to believe that God had a plan for the good forces in the world to prevail, and that God still does.

Amen.

Great Weekend; Magic Moments

Early Sunday evening, back home in quiet little Madison. Spent part of yesterday and today in Chicago with my three kids, Amanda, Natalie, and John, and John's girlfriend, Cheryl. Our time together was of great quality. We had only a few moments together but moments are what my life is made up of and what I remember. We talked about the Tank, the fantastic car we got for $600, put 150,000 miles on, and then traded in for $1,500 for a new Toyota. I reminisced about the moment when we were driving down Burlington Avenue in Logansport with Natalie, a newly licensed driver, at the wheel of the Tank and her parents, sister, and twin brother riding with her. It was deep dusk and all cars should have had their headlights on by then. Sure enough, one car we met was without lights. Natalie said, "Oh, here comes some asshole without his headlights on." After an interval of exactly one third of a second, the other four of us, in perfect unison, cried out, "TURN ON YOUR LIGHTS, ASSHOLE!" That is a moment I will always remember. I hope I will remember some moments from this weekend: Amanda deftly (and swiftly!) driving us in and out of the city; meeting Cheryl for the first time and hugging her as we left; John and I watching Pride and Prejudice together after the women fell asleep or otherwise lost interest, and then John really kicking ass and taking names in helping me work my New York Times Sunday crossword puzzles; Natalie cooking us fantastic Belgian waffles; Monty from the other end of the apartment bringing me a bag of Ricola cough drops in his mouth and sitting there bonding with me as I praised him; Natalie talking with Jerry on her cell phone on the darkened neighborhood street as we walked and as the CTA el passed by and above it a jet flew into O'Hare; a lady in the common across the street preaching a sermon with a megaphone while the kids were downtown; brunching at Cafe Lula and eating Mexican at nine o'clock that night. It was a good weekend, a great weekend. Thanks to family and HP.

All That Jazz

Which is the title of a song in Chicago. I would have loved to have seen the Broadway version, which had Bebe Neuwerth ("Lilith," ex- of "Dr. Frazier Crane."), who, for some strange reason, really dings my bell. Anyhow, looking forward to going to Chicago tomorrow to be with all three of my kids and Cheryl. Amanda and I are driving. It's been two years since I've seen Johnnie!

Do You Know the Lord?

With regard to my state of grace, or anybody else's, I would like to refer readers of this blog to words attributed to Jesus in Matthew 7:1. Look it up. And if the shoe fits, wear it. And while you're at it, read all of the Sermon on the Mount. It's a pretty good synopsis of Christianity. If we'd all put it into practice, what a wonderful world this would be. Seems I recall there's a lot in there about not judging others, not making a public show of your religion, and forgiving others. And having compassion for the poor, by the way. (What minimum wage would Jesus pay?)

We went to a visitation of a family member back in about February, in North Vernon. We had to park on the side of the street opposite the funeral parlor, and an amiable gentleman with a hand-held stop sign of the kind held by school-crossing guards saw us across. I hope the kind man didn't mug the old lady crossing-guard down the street for the sign, because he said the crossing was dangerous but he wasn't worried for himself because, he said, "I know the Lord."

What is it about such comments that piss me off? I wanted to say to him, "Yes, but does the Lord know you?" (I didn't, and I didn't confront the preacher who gave the two sermons promising damnation the other day.) It's that certainty that leads to judgment of others' grace, I believe, and if you're the Present Occupant in the Oval Office with all that power, judgment of others'right to live (fetuses excepted, of course). Never was there somebody so certain who is so wrong.

As for anonymous comments on my blog: all comments are welcome -- well, acceptable. I defend your right to speak your mind. I refer you to the First Amendment to the Constitution, which we are all experts on, of course. I do prefer that you identify yourself, especially if you are going to take an accusatory tone. That notion comes from the Constitution too, to wit, the Sixth Amendment, in which the right of the accused to face the accuser is guaranteed. Seems that people who hide -- whether they are wearing a black ski mask and carrying an Uzi, or concealing themselves behind white sheets as they burn crosses -- are all too often terrorists.

Hell: Hot or Cold?

We're havin' a heatwave right now. Heat index is >100 right now. Always makes me think of The Seven-Year Itch starring Marilyn Monroe and Tom Ewell. I love that movie, with Marilyn standing over the subway grating (no need to describe all -- every redblooded male in America knows it well) and Tom's fantasies of her (he in a housecoat and ascot) while Rachmaninoff's piano concerto thunders on the soundtrack. I remember an old friend, Al St. Paul, ex-master sergeant from WWII days. He is one of those whose association I wished had extended back to the days when we were both practicing drunks so we could have drunk together. (Right now, watching The World's Fastest Indian --thanks, son, for a great recommend -- I recall that Anthony Hopkins is a recovering alcoholic and I would have loved to drink with him but I digress.) Anyhow, Al speculated that, if Eskimos had written the Bible rather than the people of the hot Holy Land, then we would have the depiction of hell as cold rather than hot.

Call from Johnnie

John called on his cell phone from Georgia, en route to Augusta to see Adam. J's on vacation. Looking forward to seeing him (and Nat Sue and Mandy) next weekend. John woke me from a nap. We went to a funeral in Seymour on this hot, humid day (and I froze in the church's a-c). It was Rozz's cousin Bekki, who was 41, killed in a car accident in Colorado last week. Uncle Eddie and his family are good people and their girl's death broke their hearts. I recall Bekki coming to visit Rosie's dad at the Columbus hospital twice and I thought she didn't have to do that. But she was a sweet, thoughtful girl. We went in a funeral procession from Seymour to Vernon and there wasn't room enough under that tent they put up for graveside ceremonies and I stood in the blazing sun while the preacher delivered his second sermon telling us that if we didn't have Jesus in our lives we wouldn't spend eternity with Bekki in heaven. When he finally shut up Rosie and I got away and drove on a county road out of Vernon, trying to bypass North Vernon. We were going to go back to a dinner at the church. I made a wrong turn or two but we had fun. Then I was really so lost that we ended up back in Seymour too late for the dinner. We were both very hungry so we ate at Cracker Barrel -- chicken and rice, and Rosie had raspberry iced tea, which she loves. I said it was a good thing I didn't make it back to the church because I might have told the preacher that I think his theology is a bunch of cruel horse shit and if anybody is right about grace, it would be Phil Gulley and Jim Mulholland, co-authors of If Grace Is True: Why God Will Save Every Person. Rosie said, Well, today wouldn't be a good day to tangle with him and I agreed.

Chicken Hawks, Fight This

From 07.12.2006 www.sojo.net

America’s Hammer Habit
by Jim Wallis

The best line I heard in the period leading up to the war in Iraq was, "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." It was quoted by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, when we were on a panel together in England about the best response to terrorism.

The premise of the panel was that the threat of terrorism is real, that there are real dangers prowling about in our world, and that the problem of evil is a very serious one. The question we were addressing was what the best response to real threats should be.

I now call this the American hammer habit. If we don't know how to solve a problem, we just fight. Diplomacy has become a weak word to those who run our foreign policy and, in the House debate on Iraq in June, Republicans made numerous references to those who are "afraid to fight." Right on cue, Fox News Sunday's Brit Hume accused Democrats of being a party that just doesn't like to fight. And according to the neo-conservatives masquerading as journalists, such as Hume and William Kristol, continuous fighting is the only foreign policy that makes any sense.

Even more frightening is how much their friends such as Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have the same strong preference for fighting over talking. If they had their way, we would have fought or would still be fighting several wars by now - all at the same time - in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Iran at least, and probably against North Korea, too, if they thought we could win the war. They act as if talking and negotiating with potential adversaries is just a waste of time. It is truly astonishing and even shocking how people who simply question the efficacy and morality of the continuing American occupation in Iraq - including long-time military supporters such as Rep. John Murtha - are so quickly and viciously accused of "cutting and running" or not having the "courage" to fight.

This spring, the hostile rhetoric toward our adversaries that we heard before the war against Iraq turned toward Iran. I was in Australia during the war of words in March between Washington and Tehran, and I was interviewed on one of Australia's top political shows. I was asked whether a stand-off between the "two fundamentalists" (meaning Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and U.S. President George Bush), with nuclear weapons in the balance, should concern the world. I said yes.

Again, there was a real threat: The possibility of the Iranian regime obtaining usable nuclear weapons is a very reasonable concern for the region and for the whole world. Yet again, the question becomes what the most appropriate and effective response should be.

Cheney and others quickly raised the prospect of military action - even nuclear attack - against Iran, threatening "meaningful consequences" and saying that "the United States is keeping all options on the table." (In April, The Washington Post reported that "Pentagon planners are studying how to penetrate eight-foot-deep targets and are contemplating tactical nuclear devices.") A bipartisan list of retired generals and other military experts pointed out that mere air strikes would be relatively ineffective in removing Iran's nuclear threat, and that only a full scale war, invasion, and occupation could guarantee an end to Iran's nuclear program - a solution almost nobody thinks is realistic or prudent. At the same time, the potential disastrous consequences for the region and the world of a U.S. or Israeli military strike against Iran were reiterated by both military and foreign policy elites outside the Bush administration.

Since the early spring saber-rattling, a more reasonable course has emerged, backed by the Europeans, the Russians, and others who are concerned about Iran's nuclear threat but who are also opposed to a military response. And to its credit, the Bush administration is, at least for the moment, supporting this approach which combines incentives with the threat of sanctions. That is good news indeed.

I hope this is a sincere effort, and not one intended to simply expose the "unreasonableness" of the Iranians and then use that to justify a military response, or even to manipulate a national security issue in hopes of discrediting Democrats and helping Republicans avoid a devastating mid-term election defeat. It would not be the first time such things were done in U.S. politics.

Three groups of Americans are now making strong statements against military action in Iran and lifting up instead the better alternatives of incentives, pressures, and sanctions. They are religious leaders, former military leaders, and former foreign policy and national security officials.

If America can resist its hammer habit with Iran, the world may be spared a nuclearized Iran and the disastrous consequences of another misguided military confrontation. The clear witness of America's religious community and our wisest military and foreign policy leaders may be essential to prevent those twin disasters.

Vive le France!

Today is Bastille Day, July 14, the French National Holiday. It commemorates Parisians storming the Bastille, which had been turned into a political prison. I think I'll go over to McDonald's and order some FRENCH fries -- not "freedom fries." Today at noon on WUOL Carol honored the French in her noon-hour program and started with the Marsellaise, the French national anthem. I happened to be at the courthouse corner downtown and I turned the radio up nice and loud. (Nobody noticed -- they had their air-conditioners turned up full blast in their SUVs -- but I felt better.) I get teary when they sing the Marsellaise in Rick's Cafe in Casablanca, drowning out the Nazis. Vive le France! I am a Francophile. If the Bushies had heeded their opposition to going to Iraq we wouldn't be in the mess we are in today. Ben Franklin had sense enough to charm the French, our first allies, but we don't have Ben Franklin anymore, do we?

Rehab: World of Its Own

Rehab at King's Daughters' Hospital has become an important part of my life. Three times a week I drive down the hill to have my weight and blood pressure recorded, have electrodes pasted on my chest, and do exercises, which include riding a stationary bike, walking a treadmill, and working out on a "recumbent stepper" (recumbent means lying down, especially in a position of comfort or rest; reclining) -- which means I sit on a bicycle seat and pull and push handlebars while pedaling at the same time, I guess, which is what I do. (The position reminds me a little bit of Hot Wheels or perhaps a Harley chopper.)

In fact the recumbent stepper is the most taxing of the three: Rita told me to slow down this morning because my heart rate was too high. Come to think of it, I dove into it like a black lab into a pond on a hot day. I slowed down and the rate was soon cool.

The room is windowless, which I usually don't like, although today it was fine because it's one of those dreary, drippy days we sometimes have in the summer; it rains a lot but you can hardly tell because it's so humid. The a-c was deeply appreciated today. We have fans too to help us stay cool. I work up a pretty good sweat. The room is cheery enough, with lots of fluorescent lights. The social atmosphere is great most of the time, with lots of joking and laughing. Rita likes to tease and she's fun.

Paige, who is on vacation right now, is a little more businesslike -- less mischievous, I suppose -- but she's not above a laugh and Rita catalyzes her. Paige also happens to be a looker. She was telling somebody that she didn't mind turning thirty and I had to say to her, "It's not so bad to turn thirty when you're a ten." She liked that and I don't think she thought I was an old lech for saying it.

The TV is a bit of a bane -- it's either Fox News or The Price Is Right. I'd rather watch the Hallmark Channel --the a.m. fare is either the Waltons or Little House on the Prairie. Fortunately, Brit Hume and John Gibson (Hannity, O'Reilly, Coulter) are not on in the a.m. and often as not there's some "alert" in which they show footage of the same site of some adverse event over and over and keep trying and seldom succeeding to make genuine news of it. Bob Barker and the old dolls who compete for prizes are much more to my liking. If Bob has a political axe to grind you'd never know it. I think the old boy has charisma.

I'm about as entertained by the commercials as anything -- the Geico Gecko is about my favorite, with his Cockney accent talking of "pie and chips" (I suppose that's steak and kidney pie -- maybe a little mutton). I liked the one where the Taco Bell chihuahua, trotting by, sees the gecko and says, "Oh no! A talking gecko!" but that one was whisked away because Gidget had already been condemned for being p.i. (That was before "The Mind of Mencia.")

Anyhow, we work out and sweat and watch the boob tube and joke and shoot the breeze and laugh. Opal is 85, cute as a wink, and Rita teases her and Opal gives as good as she gets, coming back with some semi-ribald ripostes. Caroline is the wife of Don, who was on the Madison High 1949 runner-ups for state basketball champs, and I was surprised to learn she was the daughter of a man my dad worked with as a fireman at Jefferson Proving Ground in WWII. She is therefore a half-sister of my first sweetheart (we were about six, and I couldn't cross the street to visit her). A pleasant chap from Vevay, a retired banker, is good company. Paige told me I was an "overachiever" one day and that made me feel good.

I feel really exhilarated when I complete the exercises. I cool down a bit and have a cup of cold cranberry juice. It's not a bad routine three times a week.

Le Petit Riens

That was the title of music by Mozart. It means "the little nothings," I think. The lovely wife is still abed at half-past nine. It's raining gently and I have the front door ajar and can hear the mercy dropping down. Rudy is in the other chair, white socks extended, muzzle on them, eyes closed, breathing heavily in sleep, the soul of serenity. It's 9:39 and all's well.

Senior Dream Team 2008

My slate for 2008, on a Democratic or Independent ticket: President, George McGovern; Vice President, Birch Bayh SENIOR. (Not Evan, his turncoat plastic son who has the conceit that he will run for president. Hmpfh.) McGovern should appoint Jimmy Carter as Secretary of State and Lee Hamilton as Ambassador to the UN. Secretary of Defense, Wesley Clark. Attorney General, Ramsey Clark. Secretary of the Treasury, Paul Krugman (he's pretty young, I guess). These people would be better than anybody serving in government right now. Excellence and integrity.

A Wedding and a Funeral

Sad news for Rosalie's Uncle Eddie and Aunt Rose: they lost their daughter, Bekki, in a car accident in eastern Colorado on July 6. Bekki's daughter Amanda was in the car but survived. Eddie and Rose, and Bekki's two daughters, Amanda and Elise, live in Indiana (Columbus and Seymour). The family had gathered in Denver where the oldest daughter (of four) was just married. Amanda graduated from high school and will be going away to college, but Elise, who is eight, will need a home, and they are praying it won't be with her father, who is said to be mentally unstable. Ed is the most likely prospect of the fathering person but he is now 70. They are all anxious and of course sad. Then there are the details, like transporting Bekki back to Indiana, planning and paying for her burial, etc. It's a mess, and a big loss for them.

They Always Manage Somehow

Ken Lay -- Bush’s buddy, Ken-Boy -- crooked CEO of Enron -- died last night of a heart attack. He was 64. He had been convicted of fraud or whatever and had yet to be sentenced. I am reminded of Hermann Goering's cheating the hangman with a cyanide capsule after conviction at the Nuremburg war crimes trials.

I doubt if Lay ever saw the inside of a jail. I guess I wouldn’t care if the man never went to jail if he would only have made restitution to all the people he deprived of a livelihood. I’m sure his family will have a rich inheritance. Nobody will touch that fortune, be assured. And Ken-Boy can go to his grave with the world knowing he screwed everybody but himself.

Happy Fourth

Outside last night people were shooting off firecrackers. This is the eve of the Fourth, the holiday celebrating this nation’s declaration of independence from Britain in 1776. The founding of what became the United States of America is truly a wonderful and remarkable achievement, and a blessing on its citizens. We are far from perfect. What a lot of our detractors say is true, and I have been one of our most vituperative critics.

I guess what has put me off about patriotism is that it has been hijacked by a bunch of simplistic, my-country-right-or-wrong, America-love it-or-leave-it, gunboat diplomacy, greedy, grabby men. Patriotism means love of country, and loving your country means wanting what’s best for it, and fighting for that -- fighting for your country to do the right thing, the noble, the charitable, the honorable thing.

We are not supposed to be bullies, ruling by might and force and violence. We are supposed to be internationalists, humbly recognizing our place as just one of the sovereign countries on this planet. We certainly should not be saying, "the UN is irrelevant." That's O'Reilly talk.

We are supposed to share our wealth with those less fortunate than we are. We are supposed to address the problems of the world, like poverty, and famine, and disease. We are supposed to make our own country a utopia as much as we can for all of our people so that no one is hungry or sick or poor or uneducated. We are supposed to believe in and fight fiercely for our freedom of speech and the press and religion.

When I think lovingly of the wonderful United States of America, I think of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin -- not George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. I think of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights -- not the Patriot Act and executive branch secrecy and government eavesdropping, and officially condemning the press (whatever in hell that means). I think of the Peace Corps -- not the Marine Corps. I think of diplomacy that includes diplomats who even speak the language of the country -- not freedom fries and laws making English the official language.

In writing this and posting it on the worldwide web, I am fighting for my country. I am a patriot. God bless the USA and all the people of the world. God have mercy on the USA and all the people of the world.

Regatta Tragedy, 2 July 2006

Most people know by now that a youngster drove a car down to the river at a high speed, crashed through the barricade set up for the Madison Regatta, and injured a dozen people. Mirabile dictu, only a dozen or so people were injured and no one was killed, although several people were hurt badly. At least that is the word so far. The car became airborne and landed in the river. The police are quite interested in obtaining the results of blood tests from the driver of the car. When I first heard of the event, I speculated that this might be the nihilistic behavior of the likes of the boys who shot up Columbine. I'll be interested to hear about further developments.

The Land of Heart's Desire

I'm wandering into the smarmy world of nostalgic musings typically reserved for George Miller and Phil Cole (Madison Courier columnists) when I bring this up, but it came up when Rosie heard me saying, "This is the land of heart's desire. One may do as one wishes." She asked me where the saying originated.

"Doc" Rothert, the Madison schools music teacher, used to give "tea parties" after school, to detain us when we misbehaved in his classes. He was being sarcastic when he would say that, over and over, as part of a performance he would do for us. Kid that I was, I was kind of amused by it, but the more mature girls in our class hated it, quickly concluding that it was tiresome and not making the mistake of repeating an infraction of class deportment that would result in an "invitation" to a tea party. I would actually forgive him and hang around after a tea party to get him to play classical music (Ravel's Bolero comes to mind) on a nifty phonograph he had. The records were 78's in those days.

Doc was kind of a dandy for Madison, having a couple of music degrees, and, it is said, having studied some in a Paris conservatory. He was single all the years I had dealings with him (I was in the high school choir), but late in life he married the French teacher at Hanover College. This dispelled certain suspicions about his practice of taking us young bucks skinny-dipping at night in the crik up at Manville.

For choral pronunciation he taught us what he called "general American diction" and, having somewhat of a flair and a keen interest in language and elocution and having a horror of being regarded as a hillbilly or hick, I paid close attention to his instruction, forever after changed my speech, and as a result I have people still ask me, "Are you from around here?"

This is an installment of my memoirs, I guess. I have a lot more to say about Doc and will some day.