Merkin

Very solid, and skilfully building a "real" storyline out of its basis in cliche. There are interesting possibilities as to outcome. You also can catch it on IOMFAtS.

I'll stop laughing long enough to pass this on: If you tie your tomato plant to its stake with string it is likely that you will eventually sever the plant because its weight will continue to increase. We always tied any plant to its stake with wide (say one inch) bands of soft cloth ripped from old sheets, etc. Tie the bands with a bow so you can loosen and reposition as necessary as the plant grows. As for your baby green tomato, surely your grandmother had a recipe for fried green tomatoes? Bon appetit James

I think Pecman is very accurate in his analysis. My own recollection, admittedly fragmentary, of school and bullying is that the victims, including myself, were most apt to hunker down and hide and withdraw until you could resume some sort of a public "face". The last thing you ever wanted was for other kids to see how much you were affected and hurting. My school was small enough that sensitive and caring teachers were the ones most likely to spot that a kid was in trouble and usually were the ones whose private questions and behind-the-scene interventions were the saving grace for many of us. I know that I credit such a teacher with my own ability as a kid to regain confidence and direction. If I were to propose a generalization based on my own experiences, I'd have to urge us to limit both class and institutional size in education, find a way to recruit and hold devoted teachers, and somehow restore a sense of community to our society. I fear that these aims are impossible to achieve in the world as we know it today. James

In case you're wondering, Paul. Luggie likes to be first to comment. That's what that was all about. He takes his Court Jester title seriously. I envy the rich texture of your quilt-stitched family and friends. And Abner is a story-maker who just keeps on giving. Wonderful stuff. James

The victim is the symptom; the compulsion to bully is the disease. For the sake of public health we must focus on finding a treatment for the disease.

I don't know if anyone remembers Paul Anka, but he could routinely knock off dozens of young Canadian girls just by stepping out of a car.

That's fabulous. I never thought I'd see an ad from a mainstream retailer featuring a gay male parenting couple playing with their happy kids. That's just remarkable.

Awww. What a great story. And what a great way for brothers to bond. James

A person with a typical full blond head of hair will have about 120,000 hairs on their head; brunets and brunettes average about 100,000 hairs on their heads while red heads and redde heads generally only average around 80,000 hairs. Old guys have about ten.

What better place to practice free speech than the village green?

Around Boston we always referred to flavored soda in a bottle as 'tonic'. Don't get me started on 'milkshake' vs. 'frappe' vs 'cabinet'...

Cole, the bun will have salt content, the ketchup will have salt, the mustard will have salt, and the relish will have salt. If you put cheese on your burger it too will contain sodium. Bacon, ditto. If you still need more salt the salt shaker on the table stands ready to assist you. J

This one works for me: Basic Burgers 1lb/500g ground beef 1 half onion grated or finely chopped 4 pinches ground coriander 4 pinches paprika powder a little pepper, fresh ground is better 1 handful of fresh bread crumbs 1 egg lightly beaten 1 quarter beef bouillon/stock cube dissolved in 2 to 3 tablespoons water Mix well, form into patties, wrap in foil, and refrigerate at least an hour so ingredients will meld. Cole may substitute a red table wine for the boullion. James

Good call, Lug. I've been following it for years, and I've certainly learned a lot about Canada!

Eliminate hamburgers?! Jeez! The next thing you know someone will try to tax pasties...

Brilliant story. You've captured every bit of this boy's determination and distress. I hope there's a sequel. James

In this great nation if you are a member of the white "majority" you can slip and slide through the rules and regulations. You can drive over the speed limit, you can go through the intersection even as the light turns red, you can jaywalk across the middle of the block to save the longer walk. You can go to school late or not at all. BUT if you are a member of a minority you had better obey every jot and tittle of every regulation, and maybe even go slower than the speed limit in your car. Maybe even show up for school ten minutes early...and better not schedule any of those doctor appointments during school hours, so you won't be seen on the streets while school is in session. Need to work to support your family? Only on your own time, citizen. Never mind that the white boy next door gets excused from last period study hall to go to his job.

Hey, thanks Nathan. I've been drumming my fingers waiting for each chapter of Oh, Radio, Tell Me Everything You Know. Now I'll have something else to read while I wait. I hope it is just as satisfyingly breezy and amusingly self-aware. Oh, Radio has been the best spin on teen angst I've come across in a long time. James

I'm not familiar with the Fluteaphone. Did you play it sidewise like a flute? We started out in grade 3 with Tonettes, a plastic gizmo with fingerholes and shaped, oddly, like something you might keep in your bedside table (hem). They emitted either a high pitch squeal or a tone much like a foghorn. Then we "graduated" to plastic recorders in grade Four. Needless to say, any nascent interest for music in performance was severely impaired. James

OMG, I've totally repressed playing the recorder! What a terrible experience! Luckily, we all had to drag our chairs up to the blackboard so we could put our recorder music books in the chalk trough, thus none of us had to face the others. Oh, exquisite torture!

:accordion[1]: :accordion[1]: :accordion[1]: Good one. That's worth six accordions.

You'll note that some people are walking by the accordian players with teeth clenched. Hardly a mob. Sigh. I grew up in a region where accordians at wedding receptions and other celebrations were the norm. I miss them. I suppose it's an acquired taste, like bagpipes.

Sex? That's sweet of you, Cole, but no thanks. I don't have time for the Mile High Club, I'm too busy reading.

You ninny, I have the book with me when I sit down. My hands are not filled with fish tacos and raspberry iced tea or whatever you Californians carry onto airplanes. I sit and read my book. When I reach a place where I want to put the book down in order to, say, buy one of those miniature bottles of scotch from the nice flight attendant, then I will grasp the portion of the book I have already read--perhaps fifty pages, perhaps less--and deftly rip it from its cheap glue binding. These pages I will deposit into the flight attendent's cute plastic bag along with my now empty miniature bottle, plastic glass, napkin, and empty peanut bag.

I completely agree that good books are worth keeping. But I am not a book collector, I am a book user. Sure, I've got piles and piles of good books I've amassed over the course of a long lifetime, but my sign of a good book is when I view it edge-on and see that the majority of the pages are folded over at the corner--dogeared--to mark places I want to visit again, and where I would encourage others to stop and have a look. No way to treat a book, you say? I freely admit that such an attitude does go against all we've been taught by an endless row of teachers and librarians. But whyever buy a book in the first place if not to use it up and profit from it? Books are food for the mind, to be chewed and digested, to be consumed in the hope of growing stronger. Books are tools, to be wielded with whatever skill we may acquire to build our own secure shelters from ignorance and incompetence and to advance our own causes. Books are building blocks for the soul. I like to have long conversations with my books, marking them up with my reactions, filling the margins with the ideas that reading the text has sparked within me. When I return a book to the shelf I am storing a warehouse that I plan to return to, and I intend to use it again and again to replenish my own internal inventory of thought and motivation. I count on a book to serve a continuing usefulness, and if I start to look into a some newly acquired volume and discover it has nothing new or interesting to offer, I discard it quickly and without ceremony. I'll usually pass it on to someone whose mind might be more attuned to its message, because I recognize that everyone is a different reader, and what suits one person's use for a book may not suit another. However, in keeping with my view that a book is a tool, I buy used paperback books from the paperback exchange down the street solely for use when I travel, and I handle them and treat them as I've described without a moment's worth of guilt or uneasiness. If the book turns out to be a great read, I'll buy a decent new copy of it when I return home. So I can turn down the page corners and mark up the margins and generally use it until it falls apart. James