It was the best of lines, it was the worst of lines.

One seldom encounters a single sentence of over one hundred words, but having previously discussed the first lines to Paul Clifford by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (“It was a dark and stormy night…”) and A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”), that weighed in at 58 and 119 words respectively, and having proved to myself that it is not as difficult as I first thought to produce such a lengthy sentence (though arguably ill-advised), I became curious about the longest first lines from modern novels familiar to me, believing without much doubt that Coover or Eco, Roth or Gardner, any of them really, could dash off a sentence of that length without even breaking a sweat and of course it turns out I was correct and was easily able to find the following three examples of opening sentences over one hundred words long.       [154]

First, though, let’s look back at Bulwer-Lytton’s purple prose and that overwrought continuation by Dickens to what could well have been one of the best first lines had he known when to stop:

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."       [58]

--Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, "Paul Clifford"

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.       [119]

--Charles Dickens, "A Tale of Two Cities"

On my shelves I found many examples of first lines exceeding fifty, sixty, even seventy words, some fairly familiar ones, too, including Holden Caulfield’s rant to open The Catcher in the Rye:

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.       [63]

--J. D. Salinger, “The Catcher in the Rye”

Sixty-plus words is not common, certainly, but exceeding one hundred words is extreme, yet I was able to find examples from both John Gardner and Robert Coover:

Sometimes the sordidness of his present existence, not to mention the stifling, clammy heat of the apartment his finances has forced him to take, on the third floor of an ugly old house on Binghamton’s West Side—“the nice part of town,” everybody said (God have mercy on those who had to live in the bad parts)—made Peter Mickelsson clench his square yellow teeth in anger and once, in a moment of rage and frustration greater than usual, bring down the heel of his fist on the heavy old Goodwill oak table where his typewriter, papers, and books were laid out, or rather strewn.       [105]

--John Gardner, “Mickelsson’s Ghosts”

On a winter evening of the year 19--, after arduous travels across two continents and as many centuries, pursued by harsh weather and threatened with worse, an aging emeritus professor from an American university, burdened with illness, jet lag, great misgivings, and an excess of luggage, eases himself and his encumbrances down from his carriage onto a railway platform in what many hold to be the most magical city in the world, experiencing not so much that hot terror which initiates are said to suffer when their eyes first light on an image of eternal beauty, as rather that cold chill that strikes lonely travelers who find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.       [117]

--Robert Coover, “Pinocchio in Venice”

But the surprise winner of my brief search was W. P. Kinsella in a novel called “Box Socials” which was his undistinguished follow-up to the outstanding “Shoeless Joe,” a novel too few have read, but almost everyone knows from the cinematic version, Field of Dreams, starring Kevin Costner. So until I spot something longer, here’s my current first place entry by Kinsella:

This is the story of how Truckbox Al McClintock almost got a tryout with the genuine St. Louis Cardinals of the National Baseball League, but instead ended up batting against Bob Feller, of Cleveland Indian fame, in Renfrew Park, down on the river flats, in Edmonton, Alberta, summer of 1945 or ’46, no one can remember which, though the date in question has brought on more than one disagreement, which turned first to a shoving match, then to an altercation, and finally a fist fight, though not a brouhaha, the general consensus in the Six Towns area being that it takes more than two people to staff a brouhaha, the fist fight though, usually resulting in bent cartilage of someone’s proboscis, and blood spots on a Sunday shirt.       [128]

--W. P. Kinsella, “Box Socials”

Just to give Mr. Kinsella his due, however, here is the much more praiseworthy opening line from Shoeless Joe:

My father said he saw him years later playing in a tenth-rate commercial league in a textile town in Carolina, wearing shoes and an assumed name.

--W. P. Kinsella, “Shoeless Joe”

[Note: to make this whole exercise nice and tidy and entwined with circular references, let me point out that the writer called Terrance Mann (a nod to Thomas, perhaps?) and played by James Earl Jones in the movie, in the novel is none other than “The Catcher in the Rye” author, J. D. Salinger.

And Ray Kinsella, the character played by Costner in the movie, was also the character name from a short story by Salinger called, “A Young Girl From 1941 With No Waist At All.” And Ray’s fictional brother Richard Kinsella, appears in “The Catcher in the Rye” on pages 183-4 as the student who is always guilty of digressions in his Oral Expression course, and isn’t there poetic justice in noting that?]

Courting Rejection

I just mailed my revised version of The Search for Plupreme to ten children’s book publishers. I know, I know, they frown on multiple submissions, but the thought of successive submittals with three to four months between form letter rejections is more than I can bear.

An unpublished writer of children’s picture books is lucky to have a junior editor or summer intern, wading through the slush pile of thousands of unsolicited manuscripts, bother to even open, let alone read a few paragraphs of their work, so I seriously doubt anyone is going to care about my multiple submissions.

A writing instructor once told us, “Poems are never finished. Eventually you need to submit your latest version and move on to writing something else.”

Good advice. I have revised and rewritten and messed with the approximately 750 word Plupreme manuscript for so long, I was struggling to make it sound fresh and finding myself reintroducing flaws I had corrected months ago. So I sent the umpty-umpth revision on its merry way. As the form letter rejections come in, I will post them here, not out of a sense of defeatism, but as a mark of progress.

After all the discussion of great first lines, I confess that I remain dissatisfied with the first line to The Search for Plupreme:

Ashley finished her rainbow painting and smiled.

It’s not Kevin Henkes, but it’s serviceable. Time to heed the poet’s advice.

I’m not through with plucky little Ashley, however. Her second tale is well underway, and this time I hope to have the completed manuscript, tentatively titled, Ashley and Shadow, submitted in a few weeks.

Here’s the working first line:

“Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?” Ashley’s father asked one night as he loaded the dishwasher.

Odds are it won’t even closely resemble that a week from now. Stay tuned.

Ish Kabbible

[From the Pointless Internet Search Files, Case #26118.]

I suppose we all have our Ish Kabibbles.

They are different for each of us, of course. Maybe yours is Foghorn Leghorn. Or Clem Kadiddlehopper. Clyde Crashcup. Fatty Arbuckle. Or Felix Mantilla. I've already mentioned another: Joe Blow from Kokomo.

Ish Kabibbles. They seem to turn up in the most unlikely places and when you least expect them. I recently encountered mine at McDonald's.

I was there with the boys when I noticed a man who was acting just strangely enough for me to keep an eye on him. He was loud, disheveled, and borderline disruptive; I overheard him attempting to initiate conversations with strangers several tables away. The boys didn't seem to pay any attention to him and eventually he settled down with his meal and a book.

Nosey guy that I am, I was curious what book this guy was reading so as I rose to toss our trash I stood where I might glimpse the title. And that's when it struck me like an arrow from the past: "Ish Kabibble."

Ish Kabbibble?

Ish Forgodsakes Kabibble?

It echoed with familiarity while sounding both ludicrous and unlikely. Surely if I'd ever heard of an Ish Kabibble I'd still know who he was. But I didn't. I kept turning the name over in my head, reciting it like a mantra, one moment thinking I had it and the next losing it again.

So I used my cell phone to call home and leave myself a message on the answering machine. Ish Kabibble was too good to let slip back into the dim recesses of my brain. Sure enough, when I got home I Googled Ish (so to speak) and within moments I'd found him:

Ish Kabibble, it turns out, was the stage name for a cornet player named Merwyn Bogue who played for a band named Kay Kyser in the 40's. He derived his name from an old Yiddish song, "Isch Ga Bibble" which supposedly translates to "I should worry?" (It sounds like something from Afred E. Newkabibbleman, doesn't it?)

Of course none of this explains why I should ever have heard of Ish Kabibble in the first place (another question for mom). Or why some character in McDonald's (third generation Kabibble, maybe?) was reading an obscure book about him.

But thanks to the internet, at least I didn't have to stay up all night wondering who the heck he was.

Although I did ponder for a while which bit players from my past will become the Ish Kabibbles of my sons' future.

"Out of my league!"

OK, we've all heard that Microsoft hiring managers like to ask ponderous questions during interviews like: Why are manhole covers round? Is Dos dead? How many engineers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

But who really wants to work for Microsoft anyway? (OK, thousands do. I get it.)

Now Google, on the other hand. Don't we all wish we had gotten in there pre-IPO?

Well Google, I have confirmed, has a set of challenging questions of their own to help them find the best and brightest engineers. They love brainiacs and their halls are crawling with PhD's...screwing in light bulbs for all I know.

So the first question is on a billboard on Highway 101. The correct answer will lead you to a web site. Here's the puzzle:

{first 10-digit prime found in consecutive digits of e}.com

Get that answer correct, go to the appropriate web site, and you will find--another question, naturally.

Continue on from there solving their programming challenges and eventually, I'm told, you'll get to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: they'll ask you for your resume and you'll be light years ahead of all the other mere mortals hoping to get hired by Google.

From Google's own web site:

Last week we unveiled a billboard that's a bit unusual in that it promotes Google only to one very narrow constituency: engineers who are geeky enough to be annoyed at the very existence of a math problem they haven't solved, and smart enough to rectify the situation.

In other words, the billboard (which offers problem-solvers the URL to, sorry, a page containing an even harder problem), is a recruiting campaign. We've always worked hard to hire the smartest engineers we can find, and we thought this would be a cool way to find a few more. Perhaps including you. If you're a math or computer whiz who doesn't happen to live within shouting distance of Palo Alto -- good luck, and we're looking forward to hearing from you.

So give it a try. (It's beyond my rusty skills.) Let's have someone identify another question or two on the path to gainful employment at Google.

First Line Quiz--The Solution

OK, here are the results from last Friday's quiz:

1. The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
   --William Gibson, Neuromancer
   
2. Sooner or later, it was bound to happen.
   --Arthur C.Clarke, Rendezvous With Rama
   
3. My wife, Utchka (whose name I some time ago shortened to Utch), could teach patience to a time bomb.
   --John Irving, The 158-Pound Marriage
   
4. Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.
   --Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
   
5. The old ram stands looking down over rockslides, stupidly triumphant.
   --John Gardner, Grendel
   
6. What's it going to be then, eh?
   --Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange
   
7. All this happened, more or less.
   --Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughter-House Five
   
8. Once a guy stood all day shaking bugs from his hair.
   --Philip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly
   
9. It was love at first sight.
   --Joseph Heller, Catch 22
   
10. We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.
    --Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
    
11. --Totally naked, for God’s sake?
    --Anthony Burgess, M/F
    
12. They’re out there.
    --Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
    
13. She was so deeply imbedded in my consciousness that for the first year of school I seem to have believed that each of my teachers was my mother in disguise.
    --Philip Roth, Portnoy's Complaint
    
14. In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.
    --J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
    
15. My father lost me to The Beast at cards.
    --Angela Carter, The Tiger Bride
    
16. Call me Ishmael.
    --Herman Melville, Moby Dick
    
17. All nights should be so dark, all winter’s so warm, all headlights so dazzling.
    --Martin Cruz Smith, Gorky Park
    
18. This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.
    --William Goldman, The Princess Bride
    
19. In a sense, I am Jacob Horner.
    --John Barth, The End of the Road
    
20. Mother died today.
    --Albert Camus, The Stranger

Here's how to score yourself:

5 points for each correct title/author combination guessed without hints; or
3 points for each correct title/author combination after the hints; or
1 point for each correct title or author when you got only one right.

The maximum score = 100 points.

So how did you do?

<=10 points: These are my favorite books in all the world, though you have never read them.
11-20: We've read a few of the same books.
21-40: We've got some interesting connections.
41-60: Whoa, you've been pilfering my library.
61-80: OK, you're either my brother or my shrink.
81-90: Were we separated at birth?
91-100: In a sense, we are Jacob Horner.

"Juan's up on a dime."

That was to be my winning entry in this year's Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, barring three minor problems: namely, you have to actually send in your entry to win; I'd probably have to substantiate that "dime" is indeed prison slang for, among other things, a ten-year prison sentence; and enough people would have to share that knowledge for the pun to work.

Sounds a tad strained, I admit.

No matter, though, as the results are now in and you can read for yourself the entries from this year's winners and runners-up at the Bulwer-Lytton web site. 

For those too busy to surf, here's the winning entry:

She resolved to end the love affair with Ramon tonight . . . summarily, like Martha Stewart ripping the sand vein out of a shrimp's tail . . . though the term "love affair" now struck her as a ridiculous euphemism . . . not unlike "sand vein," which is after all an intestine, not a vein . . . and that tarry substance inside certainly isn't sand . . . and that brought her back to Ramon.

--Dave Zobel, Manhattan Beach, CA

They seem to consistently favor the entries with the parenthetically tongue-in-cheek elaborations.  I imagine that as long as those entries keep winning, many contestants will continue entering them.

Here are a few of my other favorites from this year's list:

The legend about Padre Castillo's gold being buried deep in the Blackwolf Hills had lain untold for centuries and will continue to do so for this story is not about hidden treasure, nor is it set in any mountainous terrain whatsoever.

--Siew-Fong Yiap, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Detective Micky Blarke arrived on the scene at 2:14 am, and gave his cigarette such a severe pull that rookie Paul Simmons swore the insides of the detective's cheeks touched, but the judge indicated that that amount of detail was not necessary in his testimony, and instructed the jury to disregard that statement.

--Joe Polvino, Webster, NY

She was a tough one, all right, as tough as a marshmallow--not one of those soft sticky ones used in s'mores, cooked to a turn over a good campfire, or even like the stale chewy type covered in yellow sugar and found at the bottom of a three-week-old Easter basket--no, she was tough like a freeze-dried marshmallow in kid's cereal that despite being shaped like a little balloon and colored a friendly pink are so rock solid that they are responsible for the loss of more baby teeth than most older siblings.

--Bridget Lyle, Walworth, NY

I first saw her from across the crowded dance floor, cedar I think, (as if I can reference a specie of wood planks at a glance) I just know it wasn't that yellowish basketball court wood, the type with the glossy veneer (now THAT, I could recognize), anyway, she had the refined elegance and demure fragility of a really old Princess Leia.

--Scott McIlhany, Bellingham, WA

Hans sipped from his bottle of German Bru-hoff beer and idly read the label: "Bruhoff, a heady-nosed Rhine beer has a slightly briny pose, and if you've ever drawn it, you would like the way it flows, but all of the other Rhine beers, Dusen lagers, and thick ales, they never beat our Bru-hoff in the yearly Rhine beer games."

--Roger J. McNichols, Pearland, TX   [Now, that's a punster.]

The day dawned much like any other day, except that the date was different.

--Geoff Blackwell, Bundaberg , Queensland Australia

The thing that goes back and forth inside the old grandfather clock swung like a pendulum.

--John Brugliera, W. Lebanon, NH

Kaitlynn looked like a woman who'd been used by more guys than a porta potty at a burrito festival yet I loved her madly even if she wasn't the kind of girl you'd take home to meet mom unless mom was at her monthly garden club meeting and dad was home alone mowing the lawn or cleaning out the garage.

--Robert Salsbury, Spokane Valley, WA

Stamp, stack, stamp, stack, stamp, stack, Rodney was going insane from the monotony of the job and the cruel irony of being guest of the New Hampshire penal system forced to read the words over and over: "Live Free or Die," "Live Free or Die," "Live Free or Die."

--Denise Hendsbee, Santa Cruz, CA

Maynard Fimble was told that "you can't compare apples and oranges," but, he thought, they are both eatable, grow on trees, are about the same size, are good for you, have a peel, come in many varieties, and are approximately round in shape, thus, to his horror and guilt, he realized that he was comparing them and wondered what punishment awaited him and on whose order.

--Charles Jaworski, North Pole, AK

As Amy reached for the envelope her heart fluttered in anticipation like the wings of a fruit bat that has eaten a fermented peach, and even though she knew the statistic that you are more likely to be hit by a meteorite than to win the lottery, she was still quite surprised when opening the envelope to be hit by a meteorite.

--Tim Lafferty, HorsellWoking, U.K.

Keith's popularity as the first openly gay daredevil was rising quickly; in fact, it was said he ate danger for breakfast, followed by a light brunch of lemon scones, quiche, and the occasional Mimosa, and then he was back to eating danger.

--Nathan Murray, San Diego, CA

I woke up in Shirley's father's dog's house -- or at least most of me did, because the house was ranch style as near as I could figure it and Shirley's father's dog Tracey was one of those little terrier types with the sardonic overbite and the haunted eyes of a Flamenco dancer.

--Jim Waples, Wauwatosa, WI

I will tell you a tale of great adventure like in "Treasure Island," with some smiles and some tears like in "Lassie Come Home," some treachery and some heroism, again, like in "Treasure Island," some romance and some betrayal like in lots of Shakespeare ("Romeo and Juliet," for example), and even -- if the reader doesn't mind -- some philosophy, but like the Chicken Soup books not like Spinoza or Plato or anything.

--David Wyman, Goffstown, NH

Are you still reading?  It goes to show, among other things, that one can only stand so much of a bad thing.

Which leaves me to wonder how mind-numbingly tiresome it must quickly become to be one of the judges in this contest.

As well it may for almost any contest, now that I think about it. Who'd want to sit around for days judging heifers at a 4-H club or talent competitions at a beauty pageant? Or vice versa?

First Line Quiz--Multiple Choice

On Friday I gave a list of twenty great first lines from several of my favorite novels (and one short story--I cheated). Keep track of your original guesses as more points will be awarded for unassisted correct answers.

Here again are the first lines:

1. The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
   
2. Sooner or later, it was bound to happen.
   
3. My wife, Utchka (whose name I some time ago shortened to Utch), could teach patience to a time bomb.
   
4. Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.
   
5. The old ram stands looking down over rockslides, stupidly triumphant.
   
6. What's it going to be then, eh?
   
7. All this happened, more or less.
   
8. Once a guy stood all day shaking bugs from his hair.
   
9. It was love at first sight.
   
10. We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.
    
11. --Totally naked, for God’s sake?
    
12. They’re out there.
    
13. She was so deeply imbedded in my consciousness that for the first year of school I seem to have believed that each of my teachers was my mother in disguise.
    
14. In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.
    
15. My father lost me to The Beast at cards.
    
16. Call me Ishmael.
    
17. All nights should be so dark, all winter’s so warm, all headlights so dazzling.
    
18. This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.
    
19. In a sense, I am Jacob Horner.
    
20. Mother died today.

Now, here is a list of book titles to help you out.  (Note that not all titles are used.):

• The 158-Pound Marriage
  
• All the Pretty Horses
  
• The Black Dahlia
  
• Catch 22
  
• A Clockwork Orange
  
  
• The End of the Road
  
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
  
• Gerald’s Party
  
• Gorky Park
  
• Grendel
  
  
• The Hobbit
  
• M/F
  
• Moby Dick
  
• Motherless Brooklyn
  
• Neuromancer
  
  
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
  
• One Hundred Years of Solitude
  
• Portnoy's Complaint
  
• The Princess Bride
  
• Rendezvous With Rama
  
  
• A Scanner Darkly
  
• The Shadow of the Torturer
  
• Slaughter-House Five
  
• The Stranger
  
• The Tiger Bride

Next, here is a list of authors:

• Barth, John
  
• Boyle, T. C.
  
• Burgess, Anthony
  
• Camus, Albert
  
• Carter, Angela
  
  
• Clarke, Arthur C.
  
• Coover, Robert
  
• Dick, Philip K.
  
• Ellroy, James
  
• Gardner, John
  
  
• Gibson, William
  
• Goldman, William
  
• Heller, Joseph
  
• Irving, John
  
• Kesey, Ken
  
  
• Letham, Jonathan
  
• Marquez, Gabriel Garcia
  
• McCarthy, Cormac
  
• Melville, Herman
  
• Roth, Philip
  
  
• Smith, Martin Cruz
  
• Thompson, Hunter S.
  
• Tolkien, J. R. R.
  
• Vonnegut, Kurt
  
• Wolfe, Gene

Now see how well you do matching first lines with the correct titles and authors.  (Remember: not all titles and authors will be needed.)
 
I'll give the solution and scoring system later this week.  Good luck.

First Line Quiz

People collect all kinds of things: some collect coins or stamps; some collect autographs or vintage Barbie dolls. I once cleaned the house of a woman who collected jars of dirt from every place she'd ever traveled.  As a child, my sister collected discarded Popsicle®  sticks: go figure.

I collect first lines of books.

Not just any book nor any old first line will do. I collect those memorable first lines that once entranced me and placed me under a novelist's spell, those lines that still echo hauntingly in my head decades later.

Now with the internet it's easy to find sites that collect and enumerate first lines from the classics and many modern novels. They are fun to browse, but they don't mean as much to me as first lines from books I have read and treasured. So I leave those for others to collect.

Not all of my favorite novels begin with a harmonious opening line, by the way. Some begin with real clunkers (hell, some of my favorite novels took fifty pages or more before I felt comfortable in their company).

I've written about the Bulwer-Lytton Contest for terrible opening lines for imagined bad novels. Now here's a contest of my own: twenty terrific first lines from some of my favorite novels.

Scoring well on this quiz doesn't make you a genius and doing poorly doesn't mark you as illiterate. It's more of a compatibility test. If you do well, we undoubtedly have a lot in common and would have a great deal to talk about.  If not, there's always baseball or band camp.

Here are the first lines without any hints:

1. The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
   
2. Sooner or later, it was bound to happen.
   
3. My wife, Utchka (whose name I some time ago shortened to Utch), could teach patience to a time bomb.
   
4. Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.
   
5. The old ram stands looking down over rockslides, stupidly triumphant.
   
6. What's it going to be then, eh?
   
7. All this happened, more or less.
   
8. Once a guy stood all day shaking bugs from his hair.
   
9. It was love at first sight.
   
10. We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.
    
11. --Totally naked, for God’s sake?
    
12. They’re out there.
    
13. She was so deeply imbedded in my consciousness that for the first year of school I seem to have believed that each of my teachers was my mother in disguise.
    
14. In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.
    
15. My father lost me to The Beast at cards.
    
16. Call me Ishmael.
    
17. All nights should be so dark, all winter’s so warm, all headlights so dazzling.
    
18. This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.
    
19. In a sense, I am Jacob Horner.
    
20. Mother died today.

So for how many of those opening lines can you identify both the author and the title? No cheating by using the internet or pulling books off your shelves.

On Monday I'll give a few hints, and later in the week I'll give the answers as well my distinctly unconventional scoring system.

Random BS

[From the Pointless Internet Search Files, Case #25913

Warning: contains vulgarity and racial epithets, as well as silly and rare adjectival expressions. If you are offended by such language, please skip this posting.]

One day in 1974 a friend and I were wandering the mall bored out of our minds and decided to see a movie, any movie, whatever was playing. "Oh, look: a western." "Fine. Why not? Let's go." We didn't read the poster, notice who was in it, care about who directed it, or bother to watch the opening credits.

Moments later we were in painful tears of laughter. Welcome to Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles." To this day I believe that it was the unexpectedness of the experience as much as it was Brooks' scatological grade school humor appealing to our teenage sensibilities that made the movie so painfully funny to us. Whatever it was the movie became, for a time, a personal favorite and one I saw again and again.

Soon I knew and could imitate almost every line in the movie, save one. Somewhere early on there was a nonsensical line that I was certain I was mishearing--something about a chicken getting caught in a tractor's nuts.

Years later, welcome to the internet and another pointless use of technology. I went in search of the Blazing Saddles screenplay, but what I found was so much more. I did discover to my delight that many of the screenplays to my all-time favorite movies are available for free downloading; that, to a bibliophile and a movie fan, is pure gold. But I also found the answer to my question. The quote that had puzzled me for so many years is, in fact:

"We'll make Rock Ridge think it’s a chicken that got caught in a tractor’s nuts."

So what the heck is that gobbledygook supposed to mean?

Luckily, the site I serendipitously navigated to explained it. In fact, it went through the entire screenplay line by line and decoded every joke, colloquialism, and racial slur. I had found a site maintained by an ESL (English as a Second Language) instructor who had devoted his energies to contextualizing American screenplays to individuals for whom English was a second language and who might be confused by dialog in American movies as well as by day-to-day conversational English.

What a novel idea. But "Blazing Saddles," for heaven's sake?? It certainly resulted in a few hilarious moments for me, reading exactly how this individual chose to explain American slang, idioms, and mores.

Here are a few of my favorites:

"We’ll make Rock Ridge think it’s a chicken that got caught in a tractor’s nuts."

A “tractor” is a truck with huge wheels that is used for pulling farm equipment across a field. “Nuts” is a slang word for testicles (or balls), and thus this sentence is totally ridiculous and makes no sense. --So now I know.

"What in the wide world of sports is going on here?"

“The Wide World of Sports” was a popular TV show in the 1970s. This sentence is ridiculous, though people do ask “What in the world is going on here?” when they want to add emotion to this basic question.

"Sheriff murdered, crops burned, stores looted, people stampeded and cattle raped."

“Crops” are the foods that farmers grow, such as wheat and corn. A store that has been “looted” has been attacked by a violent group of people that steal everything in it. A “stampede” is a large group of running animals, such as “cattle,” which is a plural word for cows.

"No sidewinder, bushwhacking, hornswoggling cracker crocker is going to ruin my biscuit cutter."

More useless nonsense words, though you should know that “to ruin” means to destroy and that a “biscuit” is a type of cookie or cracker. --Actually, you should just use this quote whenever possible, like PTA meetings and in-law gatherings.

"This is 1874; You’ll be able to sue her."

“To sue” a person is to file a legal claim against them in a court of law, usually for money. Suing people is a popular American hobby. --I think he's editorializing here.

"We’ve got to protect our phony-baloney jobs."

“Phony” means fake or not real, and “baloney” is a type of processed meat. A silly and rare adjectival expression.

"Excuse me, while I slip into something a little more comfortable."

A classic line that women say when they want to put on clothes that men would consider very sexy. --Now he's providing helpful dating information regarding the elusive American female.

"I want rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggers, bushwhackers, hornswagglers, train robbers, shit kickers and Methodists."

Perhaps the greatest list of bad people in the history of film! Among those that you should know:
Rustlers...People who steals cows
Cut throats...People who are willing to do anything to win.
Bounty hunters...People who try to capture wanted criminals.
Mugs, pugs, thugs...Aggressive and dangerous people.
Nitwits, halfwits, dimwits...Stupid people.
Vipers...Snakes.
Con men...People who trick others in order to get their money.
Muggers...People who physically attack others to get money.
Methodists...A denomination (or division) in the Christian church.

"Ah prairie shit, everybody..."

“Prairie shit” is an interesting variation of horseshit or bullshit.

"Somebody has got to go back and get a shitload of dimes."

A “shitload” is a huge amount, and “dimes” are ten cent coins. --Right; another useful line to know when dealing with confusing American barter systems.

"Blazing Saddles" is not the only screenplay this fellow has kindly synopsized. Check out his site and you'll see he also has synopses for "American Pie," "Animal House," "Dumb and Dumber," "Legally Blonde," "Shrek," "When Harry Met Sally" (which I certainly found inscrutable), and dozens more.

Educating Justin

Last week at the rodeo Justin handed me the program and, showing me a cartoon, asked me, "Daddy what does this say?"

I was distracted, so I didn't look closely at the picture, but at some unconscious level it registered that it was Tonto and The Lone Ranger. I read Tonto's words to Justin, "Kemosabe, Silver has Yellow Tail."

"What does that mean?"

I looked more closely at the drawing of Tonto displaying Silver's tail for The Lone Ranger's inspection and discovered that Justin had found an ad for Hi-Ho Silver, a product intended to address the problem of mares getting urine-stained tails, a problem, I dare say, that until that moment neither Justin nor I had ever considered before.

Then last weekend Justin went shopping with his mom. Among their stops was a trip to the lawn and garden supply store to see whether they could find any products to get rid of the moles that are tearing up the lawn. (I hadn't suggested calling Dog-Gone.) They found Shake Away Powder, which, it turns out, is a granular form of fox and bobcat urine, the notion being that moles will be driven off effectively by the scent of their natural predators.

It's not clear why Kathy didn't buy any Shake-Away Powder, but when she got home and again saw the mole holes she had another idea. She must have assumed that Justin was also a natural predator to moles because she offered to let him relieve himself on the mole hole.

Of course, he giggled with delight at the thought, but doubted her sincerity. But sure enough, she told him to go right ahead, and with a little bit of reassurance he did. Kevin discovered something unusual was going on so he went out to discover what it was and Justin eagerly explained it to him. So of course Kevin had to join in. And before long Andrew as well.

I don't think my family's little experiment worked, but I did warn the boys not to be surprised if the moles retaliated by urinating on their soccer and basketballs if they leave them out.

Three Degrees of Separation

I don't know anyone who can find the shortest path of acquaintances separating her from a stranger as quickly as Kathy can. It's a work of art. It's like watching a safe-cracker in action; I observe in amazement as Kathy fires off questions that seem random and bizarre to me: "Do you have an older brother who went to school in Pomona? Did you have a sister on swim team who once tried out for the Olympics? Did you ever work for a startup that made software for obstetricians? Did you used to go to the hair stylist in Madrid across the street from the parrot shop?"

Who would even think to ask such questions? But sure enough the tumblers click into place and before long she and the stranger have found a connection and begun chatting like former sorority sisters. But her most recent example yielded a surprise connection even Kathy didn't see coming.

It began with a woman who works at a company Kathy had just begun consulting for. It's a small company so Kathy is quickly getting to know the employees. The other day she got chatting with a well dressed African-American woman she sees daily who reminded her of a close friend. The woman seemed distracted about something and Kathy learned she was working on a church brochure and was getting increasingly frustrated by the changing amateur requests from the various volunteer groups. Kathy empathized and eventually asked which church.

"Oh, I know some people who belong to that church..." Kathy said, tumblers already beginning to click. "Do you know a woman named Dee?" I can see Kathy searching for the last name, the dial spinning on the combination lock. "She worked for us for years. In fact, her niece Jeanne was our nanny for a while, and so was Jeanne's daughter, Shirlyn."

"Wait a minute...do you have triplets?" the woman asked.

And then she made the connection: but not, "I know Dee," or "I know Jeanne," or "Shirlyn." Instead:

"I've been to your house. I know your boys!"

What??

"Your boys are so cute. They are adorable. And so friendly. They'd let anybody hold them. I used to see them at Bible study all the time."

Remarkable! Even when they were toddlers our boys were making friends we didn't know about.

I couldn't resist teasing Kathy, "Unbelievable! This time when you found the shortest connection to someone you just met, it turned out to be your own sons."

Badgers? We don't need no stinkin' badgers!

A few years ago I heard a strange news piece about a man who had a vision that he could catch prairie dogs by vacuuming them out of their burrows. According to the story, he converted sewer trucks into an ingenious device for sucking prairie dogs right out of their burrows and into a padded truck to be safely relocated. Ri-ight! It was just the kind of nutty story that gets media coverage and eventually is revealed to be an Urban Legend.

I was reminded of the story recently when moles began ripping up our back lawn. Alas, our standup Oreck vacuum cleaner isn't even the model advertised to pick up bowling balls and it certainly seems insufficient for sucking up burrowing lawn vermin, although I'm confident the sight of me attempting to do so would greatly amuse the neighbors.

It got me wondering, though, whether the prairie dog control folks were still in business. Once again, time for another pointless yet entertaining web search, which shortly yielded some very dated hits about a company called Dog-Gone, including the unforgettable video clip that I recalled from years ago.

OK, so am I the only one who, upon hearing about entrepreneurs who use converted sewer trucks to "humanely" suck prairie dogs, gophers, and other burrowing undesirables from their holes, wonders about their business model?

Maybe that's because I recently saw my boys in a Pied Piper of Hamlin performance at school, and it isn't much of a stretch of the imagination to envision the good folks at Dog-Gone ridding one community of their gopher problem, collecting favorable referrals, then moving on to the next town for a humane release of the relocated critters, and soon beginning an effective advertising campaign with sincere testimonials.

Or maybe I just think too much like The Fix-it-Up Chappie in "The Sneetches," by Dr. Seuss who uses his Star-On and Star-Off machines until he cleans out the town. I can easily envision the Fix-it-Up Chappie with an elaborate Rube Goldberg device for shuttling gophers back and forth between two towns.

I never did find a current web site for the folks at Dog-Gone, so I figured they were long gone themselves, only the data lingering on in cyberspace.

But hey, not so: I tracked down their new phone number and called them. They don't have any trucks servicing California, and they specialize, I was told, in removing "pocket gophers," not moles. They regretted they couldn't help me, but they recommended that I try using those high-frequency, battery-operated devices that emit sounds that might drive the moles away (presumably to some neighbor's yard where they could watch old Hogan's Heroes reruns). They said that method was effective at one of their most recent client sites, a federal penitentiary.

I forgot to ask whether they were called out to vacuum pocket gophers or tunneling inmates.

[Note: for those who see no humor in promoting the gopher-sucking bastards at Dog-Gone, be assured no animals were harmed during the writing and editing of this weblog.]

"You look just like your Daddy."

The debate continues. Since birth friends, family, acquaintances, hell, even strangers on the street, have enjoyed pronouncing which parent each of our boys most resembles.

There is seldom disagreement about Andrew: his deep brown eyes are inarguably his mother's; his hair is also dark like hers (though less noticeably during the summer); and he has her brothers' sturdy build and solid limbs. He also has tremendous bear paws that I covet; they remind me of my dad's, but they could be like his maternal uncles', who knows? No one draws any conclusions about who he resembles based upon his hands, of course; I just happen to admire those salmon-snatching, baseball-dwarfing cather's mitts when comparing them to my own slender, pianist hands.

Then there is Kevin. More often than not, people look at Kevin and beam, "Oh, he looks just like his Daddy." Especially as he has gotten older. And that's how it feels to me, too. But it's deceptive for me because I still feel blonde, blue-eyed, and slim when I'm with Kevin and I am none of the above (let's admit to being gray-eyed, silver-haired, and carrying a spare tire). But the resemblance I feel is as much an intangible, indescribable connection as it is our appearance. It's a wave-length thing. Kevin often feels like he is tuned to the same station, like he reads my mind. Even back to infancy, I can recall those "sixth sense" moments such as holding him propped on my right hip, leaning towards Justin's crib to fetch something, and sensing Kevin echoing my movements, and then turning slowly, simultaneously to face one another like two Marx Brothers faking a mirrored reflection in a doorway, at which point we would burst into simultaneous grins then giggles. I can't explain it other than to claim it goes beyond looks, so that if I am honest, when I stand beside him facing the mirror, I can deny that he "looks just like his Daddy," but still feel there is some unseen similarity that people intuitively detect.

It's when you throw Justin into the mix that things get most interesting. Here on the west coast, almost everyone says he favors Kathy. But my family on the east coast is not so quick to concur. They have said he resembles me as a child (unlike Kevin presumably, who others believe resembles me now). So how do I explain the times when we're all out and people who've never met me, but grew up with Kathy's family, take one look at Justin and exclaim, "Oh my goodness, it's Danny!"--her brother.

Until recently I only had handy one picture of me as a child to use for comparison purposes. It's a sepia-toned 8x11 of me sitting on Santa's lap as a two-year-old. Apparently I don't look like Kevin in that photo. I have even had close friends go so far as to challenge the veracity of my Mom's authority and insist it has to be my brother Bill, even when faced with the inarguable date on the back of the photo!

But now Uncle Tom has added further documentation to fuel the debate. He sent me a CD with jpeg images made from old family slides. Now we can pull up images of me as a baby, a two-year-old, and a five-year-old and compare them to pictures of the boys at the same age.

And guess what? The consensus so far, and I'm still soliciting opinions, is that you wouldn't mistake my baby pictures for Kevin's, but many see a resemblance to Justin.

And I don't think any of the boys hope to resemble my twenty-year-old photo. Andrew said if my shirt were green, I'd look just like Shaggy.

Who the hell is Joe Blow from Kokomo, anyway?

[From the Pointless Internet Search Files, Case #25615]

When we were kids, if the kitchen door happened to swing open on its own, Mom always said it was "Joe Blow from Kokomo."

[When we left our closet door open, on the other hand, Dad chastised us for "letting a draft in," which I misheard as "letting a giraffe in," and the fear of some eighteen-foot ungulate extricating itself from my closet while I slept was nightmare-inducing.]

I recently caught myself tempted to pass the "Joe Blow from Kokomo" reference along to my boys when I wondered, for once, just who was Joe Blow anyway and how had Mom heard of him? I suppose I could just ask Mom, but with the worldwide web ever at my fingertips, I thought I'd do some quick and pointless research.

After many frustrating misses I discovered, thanks to a William Safire article, that terms for the average person have evolved over time, often as John (notably "John Doe," "John Hancock," and "John Q. Public"), but also as Joe:

The average Joe appeared as Joe Blow (1867), Joe Doakes (1926), Joe College (1932), GI Joe (1943) and, in Britain, Joe Bloggs (1969). Though Joe Zilch (1925, probably a play on zero) and Joe Schmo (1950, rhyming with hometown Kokomo) are derisive, Joe Cool (1949) gets respect.

Joe Everyman continues to evolve, now making more frequent appearances as "Joe Six-Pack."

But in our house, in the interest of preserving meaningless and inscrutable mystery, I now attribute self-opening doors to Joe Blow from Kokomo, a memetic nod to my mother, and a taunting bit of trivia for my grandchildren should the name successfully propagate to yet another generation.

"The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman and MJ"

Could that actually have been the title suggested for "Spiderman 2?" OK, I confess that it is only speculation on my part once I learned that Michael Chabon shared one of the writing credits for the sequel. For all I know, he may have just been a figurehead: I can hear some cigar-smoking producer barking in J. Jonah Jameson style, "We need some credibility on this picture or the clowns at The Post won't take us seriously. Find some brainiac! Get me a Pulitzer Prize winner! What about that annoying Chabon character whose always hanging around the set in a Spiderman mask trying to steal a kiss from Kirsten? He likes comics. Get Kirsten to meet him for lunch and maybe he'll agree to let us use his name."

I noticed, by the way, that "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" is now listed as being in pre-production. If it ever does make it to the screen one wonders, as one often does with a favorite book, how well it will turn out even with Chabon's participation.

Meanwhile, I spotted several other interesting items during the credits. Sam Raimi, of course, is back as director. I'm impressed at how the man behind "Evil Dead" and "Evil Dead 2," arguably two of the most outrageously grotesque, yet funny B-movies from the 80's, has so successfully gone mainstream. I think I actually enjoyed the edge-of-your-seat comic horror of "Evil Dead 2" more than the predictable and forgettable "Spiderman 2" which is now breaking all sorts of box office records.

Also back in the credits: Raimi's brother, Ted, who seems to get cast in most of Sam's movies; Bruce Campbell, who got his start in the Evil Dead series; and Stan Lee, ducking some debris we're told, but maybe I'll wait for the DVD to confirm.

Tobey Maguire, back as Spiderman, also starred in "Wonder Boys," one of Chabon's earlier novels, so we gotta assume he'll be considered for Kavalier & Clay.

And Kirsten Dunst: cute as she is, I didn't feel the sparks she generated in the first film, and looking at those imperfect incisors one can't help considering how much more interesting she was in "Interview with the Vampire," hissing out her unforgettable bloodthirsty line, "I want some more."

Fahrenheit 1822

That, at least, was my sarcastic labeling of the movie "Fahrenheit 9/11" when a friend announced he had seen it twice. At the time, I was baiting a political conversation among friends at a BBQ, knowing my friend admires Michael Moore and loves arguing politics. So all I had to do was ask him in front of others whether he had yet seen the movie, saying little more than I did not intend to pay money to do so myself, and then politely stepping back, having ignited the predictable fireworks.

My only other contribution before the conversation approached an incendiary level was a bit of trivia I had recently read about the origin of Ray Bradbury's novel, "Fahrenheit 451." It was Bradbury's first novel, written over fifty years ago during a time when he struggled to make a living cranking out stories for one or two cents per word.

While wandering the halls of a library at UCLA he heard the sound of typewriters clacking away from a room in the basement. He discovered that it contained typewriters one could rent for ten cents per half hour by dropping a dime into a slot. So during the next nine days, shuttling upstairs into the library for quotes and inspiration, and again downstairs to type furiously, he produced a first draft of the now classic "Fahrenheit 451" for $9.80.

Such a deal.

Mama, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys

"Dad, I blend right in, don't I?" Justin asked rhetorically on Sunday as we made our way amongst the cowboys to the main arena of the Woodside Junior Rodeo. He was wearing a too small, kitschy Ponderosa Ranch cowboy hat and had asked me to roll his blue jeans into small cuffs above his tennis shoes. (Why would we own cowboy boots?) Andrew and Kevin were both in shorts, with Andrew also wearing my straw hat (yes, it almost fits him) and Kevin wearing a neon green T-shirt with a faded maroon Stanford Cardinal baseball cap. Quite the family of cowpokes.

"That's right, Justin. You look like you've been going to rodeos your whole life, even though this is your first one." But this was Woodside, after all: horse country, yes, but hardly Lubbock, Texas, so he in fact was not the sole greenhorn among all the equestrians in well-worn western apparel.

I had facetiously warned the boys on the way in that we were here to watch the rodeo, not to join it, despite the heroics of some of our bedtime stories with bull riding and outlaw roping. So the joke was on me when within ten minutes of our arrival we learned that signups were underway for the "Pig Scramble" which would begin in fifteen minutes.

Later at Armadillo Willy's we would agree that the barrel racing was fun, the team roping was great, and the steer and bull riding looked dangerous, but exciting. But the highlight was the Pig Scramble, and luckily so, as Kathy and I each realized during signup that it had the potential to make or break the afternoon.

They grouped the kids into three age categories, our boys entering the youngest group of kids "six and under." When the huge livestock truck drove into the arena and the pig wranglers began wrestling the squealing pigs across the dry dusty grounds, it became apparent that there were advantages and disadvantages to the youngest group going last. It gave the eager youngsters a chance to study a winning strategy and the more timid kids a chance to grow increasingly scared. Kathy and I naturally took the stereotypical parenting roles with her warning the boys to watch out for the pigs' mouths so they wouldn't get bit, and me warning the other dads to stay out of it and let the kids compete on their own merits. (Besides, how could I help all three boys?)

The idea was to release the pigs on the opposite side of the arena, then let the children chase them, catch them, and haul them back by their hind legs to the starting point. Ribbons would be awarded to all participants, but only one trophy would be awarded for each successfully captured pig.

All seemed fine to me until they announced, "Parents, please stand back. We ask you not to run out and catch a pig for your child. But if you do have a youngster who needs a little help, it's okay to help them hang on to the pig." Well, duh! The first two sentences were sufficient, but the final equivocation as much as translated, for many dads, into the words, "Do whatever you like: throw elbows, body check, maim and break limbs; whatever is necessary for your child to get a trophy and not go home disappointed is perfectly okay."

There had to be about fifty kids and nearly as many dads lined up to chase about a dozen pigs. Like most of the kids, Andrew and Justin stood in line half unsure about what to do, but Kevin looked like a sprinter getting into position in the starting block. They blew the whistle and Kevin raced off while the rest of the kids began stampeding en masse through the dust, dividing into groups flowing left and right as they chased the squealing pigs. With all the adults--pig wranglers and dads--and charging kids, I quickly lost track of the boys. I scanned for them to make sure they weren't getting trampled, and after spotting both Justin and Andrew, I turned to locate Kevin again.

We never saw Kevin catch his pig, nor was he himself able to articulate his pig-snatching technique, but he was easy to spot: he was already twenty yards from the finish line in his bright neon shirt, methodically reverse-wheelbarrowing (to coin a phrase) a squealing pig two-thirds his weight back across the arena. The angry pink pig kicked and tussled, but Kevin had decided upon a trophy and there was no chance he was letting go.

Meanwhile, Justin had somehow charmed some grizzled old cowboy into hauling a pig by one leg for him while he hung onto the other, occasionally dropping it and picking it up again. "He just did a big belly-flop on it," Justin would later tell us, "and helped me bring it back."

And unlucky Andrew, flowed with the crowds, moving from group to group, politely asking a bunch of oblivious kids whether they needed his help. He spotted Kevin all by himself about to be the first winner across the finish line, but Kevin was having nothing to do with offers of help. He spotted Justin and Grizzly Adams, but when he tried holding onto a pig foot, he would as quickly drop it again when the pig tried wrestling free.

So Kevin left with a Pig Scrambling trophy to add to his soccer and swim, basketball and T-ball, chess and gymnastics collection. Justin and Andrew agreed to share a second trophy and the ribbon. It took Andrew a short time to contain his disappointment, but he bounces back quickly and we let him know it was very kind of him to offer his assistance to so many kids.

All in all, it was a terrific and memorable rodeo.

And, next year: bull-riding.

All That Jazz

Anticipating our 4th of July plans, I knew it was going to be difficult to top the recent Memorial Day fireworks display that followed an exciting Stanford baseball game. That night marked one of the first times the boys were able to witness fireworks close at hand rather than from the over-crowded periphery of some event we hadn't even attended. We first enjoyed the game and then got to stay in our seats and watch the display over the centerfield fence and the boys loved every minute of it.

Who doesn't cherish memories of those magical nights when you got to stay up late and watch the pyrotechnics that would become synonymous with summer (or remember the pain of being deemed "too young" and left behind until next year)? It is a treat to take the kids to events that I hope will one day be among their earliest and fondest memories: from ballgames and carnivals to ice shows and parades. Or simply those special nights when we go to a friend's house and the combination of rowdy kids, ice cream, sparklers, older siblings, convivial adults, and no mention of bedtime, makes for one of the highlights of the season.

So this 4th (Friday night the 2nd actually) we got tickets to a concert at Stanford's Frost Amphitheater. Usually this event features the San Jose or San Francisco Symphony, but this year the main attraction was the Preservation Hall Jazz Band with the promise of their brand of traditional New Orleans jazz that I favor. We had no doubt the boys were eager and ready; we just couldn't predict how patient they'd be sitting through an entire jazz concert.

We arrived late enough to find ourselves high atop the hill at the back of the amphitheater with several thousand other concertgoers sprawled before us. But we set the kids up on their own blankets with the adults not far behind and then broke out the food and wine...and juice boxes. It all went great: we weren't so close that we had to worry about disturbing anyone who only wanted to enjoy the music, and the freedom the kids enjoyed picnicking together made the concert exciting rather than something to tolerate.

About halfway through the performance the kids wanted to head down to check out the band and the dancers. So several of us trooped down with a half dozen kids. Predictably they took several minutes to size up the situation before deciding what was cool and how to fit in. Kevin soon planted himself at the edge of the stage, literally six feet away from the band where he could closely monitor their performance. Justin and Andrew wandered in among the bigger kids, the college crowd, and festive adults, and soon began to dance. Andrew worked up a quick sweat and Justin informed me that he was dancing so fast his feet were a blur. The music was energizing and celebratory, the night warm, and the joy contagious as the band played right on through their scheduled intermission.

When the band began parading through the crowd New Orleans street festival style, the kids reveled with the music. Then when Justin heard the first few notes of "When the Saints Go Marching In," which he has been practicing on the piano, he broke into a grin Dennis Quaid would envy. And when that was followed by the first loud explosion and the sky lit up with cascading green lights marking the beginning of the fireworks display, I thought he was surely going to levitate from excitement.

We quickly danced them back up the hill, settled them in to watch the partially obscured show with nary a complaint regarding our seats below the trees, and let the conclusion to the night's magic wash over them. I'm sure they thought life couldn't get any better.

Little did they know their mom had learned of a local rodeo that was in Woodside on Sunday.

Imponderables

Kids ask the greatest questions. So for a while I recorded many of the stumpers posed by Kevin, Andrew, and Justin. Here are some of my favorites from when they were three-and-a-half to five-years-old:

Daddy, when you were a little boy who took care of us?
How does the pee-pee get inside us?
Is the sky hard?
How do our arms work?
How do birds get to sleep?
Does God have blood?

Daddy, when you were four, what did you look like?
Why do our eyes move when we can just turn our heads?
Does an octopus have eyebrows?
Does chicken pox come from chickens?
Is it hard taking care of three boys?
Does God have a temper?

Does Daddy get to do anything he wants?
How did our eyes get inside our heads?
If the police take you and put you in jail, do they give you food?
Does it snow in China?
Does Santa sleep during the day?
Can God hear me when I whisper?


Ok, ok, since there are always those who insist upon knowing, here's how I may or may not have replied:

Good question, who takes care of your children now?; Don't worry, it's not how you think; Nope, only hard to imagine; Like a crane...but completely different; By counting peeps; Ask your mother.

Pretty much like Kevin, or Justin, depending upon whom you ask; So we can cheat on tests; Only in cartoons; No, nuggets come from chickens; You bet, look at my gray, um, blondish hair; Hell yes, read the Old Testament.

Hell no, not anymore; Through meditation; Yes, but it tastes like mud; Yes, but not in hell; No, he can't afford to; Yes, that's called prayer.

The Note

Yesterday I came home to find on my pillow a folded, pastel green note trimmed with decorative-edge scissors. Believing for unclear reasons that it was from Justin, I thought, "Justin, how sweet."

Then I read the message:

   I Love DAd
   b cas you
   R the Best
   DAD In The
     WhoLe
     WorLd
   Love Kevin

It was both a gentle reminder to be careful not to typecast the boys and a delightful surprise to get an affectionate note from Kevin who seldom draws and usually bypasses the art supply bins.

Kevin's clinging hugs with those long spider-monkey arms of his are the greatest, but now I have a new bookmark to remind me of him when he's unavailable--and that earned me a shy but proud smile when I showed it to him.

Bookworms--The Solution

Recall Monday's brain teaser:

Imagine you have a twelve volume set of books sitting in order on the bookshelf. Each 400 page volume is exactly the same size: the covers are each .25" thick and 400 pages is .75" thick.

So if a bookworm begins eating on page one of volume one and, following a straight line, continues eating until she reaches the last page of the final volume, how far has she traveled?

Yesterday's discussion revealed several common wrong answers: viz., 15", 12" and 14.5" are all incorrect.

The real clue was in the discussion of blogs and document review.

The correct answer is 13".

To get the right answer you have to observe that when the books are properly shelved, each volume has page 400 on the left and page 1 on the right. Inspect a book placed vertically on a shelf and convince yourself this is true: the back cover is on the left, the front cover is to the right.

If the books were stacked on the floor with volume one on top and volume 12 on the bottom, then our bookworm would indeed proceed linearly from Volume 1, page 1 through Volume 12, page 400 and travel 14.5"

But notice when we shelve the books, we don't pick them up and shelve them with Volume 12 on the left; we rearrange them. Now the pages would go from 400 to 1, followed by 800 to 401, 1200 to 801, etc. (assuming for illustration purposes, they continued numbering the pages progressively from volume to volume).

So when our bookworm begins on page 1 of volume one and ends on page 400 of volume 12, she does not eat through the 400 pages of volumes one or twelve, saving herself two covers plus two sets of pages or 2 inches. So she only has to eat through the rest, a distance of 13 inches.

But you knew that already.

[Note: speaking of multiple volumes, J. K. Rowling recently announced the title of Book 6: "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince." And she revealed that the prince is neither Harry nor Voldemort.]