I will be leaving early Wednesday morning for Williamsburg VA, where my wife the geneologist is going to try to trace down some of her forbears. I will try to write something cohereent before I go, but, for the nonce, I simply have a question about a foreign language (British English). I received last night, in an Email, a reaction to one of my blog posts that included the statement
"I can see that you are not a total wanker, so********" I perceived from the context that the comment was intended to be at least partially complimentary, or at least a back handed compliment. I wonder if anyone here would like to explain to me what a "wanker" is. The only thought that came to me was so* * * off beat that it wouldn't even be a back-handed compiment. Is the definition something that I would wish to carry on my semi-dignified blog? Do I really want to know?? Help somebody, age is quivvering with excitement (or is that just a little palsey)

BYE BYE HARRIET

BYE BYE HARRIET

Well, it has happened.  Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination for Supreme Court Justice.   The harriers and harridans from the right  (Coulter and crew)  have won this round and can go share multitudinous libations with the senate paper shufflers and the snickering Halloween trick or treaters  from the left.  I don’t know what will be the result.  I read one blog this morning that stated the Miers nomination was a stealth move, that her withdrawal was designed to open the door for some Master Conservative Whatever.
I wish it were true, but I suspect that there are just some right wing game players who have done the deed with no coherent thought about the result.

I sadly fear that the proverbial chickens will come home to roost for both the right wing idealogs and the administration and that in four years Teddy Kennedy will waddle home with a big smile on his face.  Sigh.

GRANDMA AGREN
I guess when all else fails, I can go to history. I wrote this a long time ago, and it was published in a family journal (geneology freaks, all of us) but it is the truth of one of my earliest memories:

GRANDMA AGREN
Richard B. Johnson

I was born July 23, 1934, and I don't remember a thing about it. I have a number of really vague snippets of memory that seem to precede going to school, but may have happened almost any time between birth and eight or ten years old.
One really vivid memory is of my great-grandmother Agren. As a child, I didn't know very much about her except that my grandpa was dead, and that he had traveled back and forth to Cardston, Canada a lot because he had another wife there whose name was Aunt something but I couldn't remember her name, and that she was dead too.
The image that remains is of a gaunt figure, VERY old and frail in the eyes of a little boy, sitting in a rocking chair, brushing her long white hair. The flood of hair seemed to float from a slender crest to the broad floor, and as the image clears, it was my Grandma Shurtleff brushing her mother's hair because Grandma Agren was too frail to do it herself. In my vision her eyes are closed and her head tipped a little back and to one side. The skin of her face, translucent parchment with cheek bones struggling to break through into open air, glows with brittle energy. The closed eyes were trimmed with doilies of frail blue lace across the space between lash and brow. Her hair was about the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and as I reached out to touch it, she smiled and with almost transparent hands, guided my hand to her hair. Small fingers coursed, first hesitantly, then gloriously through the flood, then my cheek touched it, and I became conscious of the fragrance. It had a little bit of a strong smell, not clean and crisp like my Janet's hair when we dance together now, but it was a good smell, a rich pungent aroma and she let me hold it against my face for a long time. I don't know old I was when Grandma Agren died, but I must have been quite young because this is the only really clear memory I have of her. Sometimes, one memory may be enough, if it is a good one.

My first rehearsals for A Christmas Carol were not total disasters, so I herebye quit whining. I still have had trouble coming up with a decent blog entry so I have been traveling through the blogosphere making comments on the blogs of others. I almost got into a real pissing match with Eddie but withdrew before it got too bad (I respect too much of what he says to really get nasty.) Went through Polanco and nothing was there to raise my ire (disappointing from that point of view, but she is always interesting), and floated though a number of others making comments here and there. If you come by here and don't find anything interesting I guess you can go to the others and read the comments. Someday I am going to successfully link to some of the blogs I find interesting but not yet. That's why I bill my self as three score and ten or more. It is an excuse for ineptitude.

New 70 + Deal

Over on my I. D. I list myself as an Actor, Director, Puppeteer, etc. Now, I consistently continue to make and perform with puppets, to either direct or teach directing, and even to teach acting, but this week I got myself into a situation where I am going to play the part of Scrooge in a local production of A Christmas Carol, on a live stage, in front of a live audience. I haven't acted in fifteen years (without a puppet in front of or above me.) I am going to act in a full length play, and I not only have not memorized lines in a looong time (I won't explain about puppets). This old coot is faced with memorizing an entire play, and I am lucky if I remember my own name three times in a row. People are going to actually pay to come in and see me speak the lines.

SH#@, D*%&, What is there about incipient senility that allows folks (especially me) get into situations that are going to eliminate sleep, get what's left of my nails chewed off and humiliate myself as well as one of my old colleagues who will be directing this thing. (What am I worried about him for? He cast me in this thing.) I better find something political to write about.
Mumble, mumble, mumble.

FLYING

FLYING
                                                           Richard B. Johnson                                                              

As a child, I had very active imagination.  I used to dream a very vivid dream. (actually, I still do once in awhile) That if I stood a certain way, and held my arms just right, and concentrated, I could levitate - - that’s right, just fly up in the air.  It was so real that I came to believe that I could really do it.  This had dangerous potential.    

Otis Randall, who was in my primary class at church, was bigger and faster than me and he was in the OTHER third grade class at school which made him a rival in every way (our classes were like that).

At recess one day, Otis was sitting beside the building with a GIRL.  They were actually holding hands.  For some reason this irritated me, and since I happened to be hold a paper cup full of water, I casually strolled past Otis and his friend, “tripped” and dumped the water on the two of them.  Of course I apologized, (with a small smirk) but Otis wasn’t fooled, and saying a couple of words that would have scandalized our primary teacher, he reached for me.

Being no fool, I took off running, (a salutary activity in such a situation but futile since I could never outrun ANYBODY).  Glancing behind me, I was surprised to see the girl hot on my trail as well, and somewhere as she crossed the playground, she appeared to have acquired a softball bat.  Things began to look bleak.

As they chased me, I suppose they were surprised when I stopped short, got into flying position and just stood there with an intense look of concentration on my face.  I was certainly surprised to remain bound to the ground n the face of their onslaught.  Otis came to a stop abruptly, as did the girl, and instead of hitting me (I think he was carrying something hard and threatening to hit me with, as well), he got this thoughtful look on his face and just, kind of, poked me with his finger.

“What’s wrong?” says he
“What’s going on?”  says the girl.
Otis: “I think he’s having some sort of a fit, or something”

Knowing what was good for me, I didn’t even blink, and tried not to breathe visibly, letting my breath in and out with great care, so as not to move, and just stood there in “flight” position and waited (still hoping to begin vertical motion).

“Is he Okay ?”
“Maybe we ought to call the principal?”

When the principal was mentioned, I knew I had little time to spare. I did not see Mr. Spriggs, our principal, often, but those experiences I did have tended to be unfriendly, if not acrimonious in nature.  I stood there, frozen, a few moments longer as they discussed my situation, then I twitched, suddenly blinked my eyes, and muttering “Wha, wha, what happened” staggered over to a nearby fence and slumped against it.
Otis, and “whatsername” rushed to me and supported me.

“Is everything okay”?
“Are you sick or something?”
“What’s the matter” Should we take you to the school nurse, or to the principal, or what?”

“I don’t, I don’t remember anything.  I was walking by the school with a cup of water, then suddenly here I am, off the school grounds, clear over here.  I don’t understand.”

“OH! Geez!” said Otis, “We’re gonna get caught off the school grounds during recess.” And with the other two helping me walk we went back onto the school grounds for the remainder of recess.
Whatsername scrounged up some tissues and wet them in the water fountain to hold against my forehead.

I instantly made three or four mental notes: One, I couldn’t really fly, at least not on a moment’s notice, or not near the school ground, or something like that.  Two, being helped across the school ground with your arm across the shoulders of a girl is a vaguely pleasant sensation.  Three, this was not the kind of thing I would want to happen again, or I would really get a weird reputation around the school. Four, sometimes I am a really lucky son of a gun.

I am not a military historian, nor even much of a military participant like
exMI, but I have just been watching the news, and the latest news is that a tv reporter from Australia is marketing a videotape that shows U.S. soldiers cremating a couple of Taliban soldiers who had been killed in a firefight, then taunting (with loudspeakers, if I understood correctly) other tribesmen to come down and try to get the remains.

I find my self angry on two levels: First, soldiers should be smart enough and ethical enough not to do actions that are in opposition to U.S. and joint command policy, as well as, probably, against the Geneva convention. Second, (and I am even more angry about this) that U.S. soldiers are stupid enough to do such actions in the presence of someone who is carrying a videocamera and shooting pictures. This action (and there is the possibility, from the pictures I saw on TV that the pictures could be of someone barbecuing a goat) if it happened as described, had to involve, at least, junior officers in the unit.

Officers, especially, should know better than to break policy, at all, and should certainly know better than to break it on camera. I have been pretty sanguin about the results of the Abu Graive (sp.?) investigations and the results that concluded with the conclusion (I know, redundant) that most of the problems were the results of the actions of lower grade, relatively inexperienced soldiers because an experienced solder, especially since every soldier has been told that you are not even allowed to photograph prisoners at all, would be smart enough not to take incriminating pictures and email them to their friends. The actions of the troops and their leaders in this recent report make you wonder. My basic though probably futile hope is that the thing goes back to the barbecuing a goat theory.

THE INHERENT BIGOTRY IN OUR DIVISIONS

THE INHERENT BIGOTRY IN OUR DIVISIONS

I am at a partial loss to really say what I want to say. I was surfing the blogosphere yesterday and came across a post which talked about Bill Maher and the success he was having in punching holes in hypocrisy, with some supporting posts supporting Jon Stewart and his work on the air. I am only at a loss because, after cruising through the sites where I thought I had read this material, I have been unable to locate it. That leaves me in the position of generalizing from memory. (a notoriously dangerous process for one who is three score and ten plus some years old, and has already written about his own memory failures.)

Now I don’t have any argument against anyone listening to an entertainer or commentator and being pleased with/or irritated with the results. I occasionally listen to Jon Stewart myself. He is an equal opportunity attack dog who will go for the jugular of anyone in power. Bill Maher, on the other hand is a mean, petty little bigot. Bigot??? Bigot?? How can Bill Maher be called a bigot? A bigot is anyone who considers someone unlike him or herself inferior or dangerous. This certainly is a clear description of Bill Maher. Of course the description doesn’t only fit him, or those with his political or social viewpoint. It certainly fits Ann Coulter, Michael Savage of the Savage Nation, and the vapid creator of such literary gems as Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot.

I find it unremarkable that such people have successfully attained fame and fortune through the expression of pure bigotry. It has been a source of power throughout time. The use of bigoted thought has been the basis of pogroms against the Jews, Crusades against Muslims, the rise of Nazism during the past century, the riders of the Klan, the enslavement lynching of black people, particularly during the early part of this century , and is the basis of the hatred radical Muslims feel for our society.

The bigotry of Bill Maher and that of the participants (on both sides, I am afraid) in the recent riots in Toledo varies only in the degree of hatred and disdain shown for the “others”. Maher made a living for quite awhile hosting a program called Politically Incorrect in which politically correct thought was promulgated and the only really “politically incorrect” element was the manner in which Maher gave himself permission to be rude to and viciously attack anyone who was one of the ”other”, or who was not in the larger sense “like him”

My biggest complaint is that bigotry begets bigotry, and until we can begin to accept the possibility that those who disagree with us can be intelligent and honorable and have as much right to disagree with us as we with them, and until we begin to listen to the content of opposing argument and argue against it with evidence and logic rather than sarcasm and loaded language, we are going to continue down a road of social disaster.

For instance, Abortion and the right to have it or stop it is one of the greatest dividers in our society. There is a part of me that believes that if our nation ever really splits, it will be in collision with the rock of abortion. The reason for this is that, no matter how the advocates on each side rant about it, there are very good and powerful and legitimate arguments for both sides. What abortion rights advocates tell about the evils of the days of coat hanger abortions for the poor and hidden abortions for the rich are true. Depending on one’s perceptual set and the feelings about “my body” have validity. On the other hand if one has the perception (and it has as much validity as the ”my body” concept) that life begins with conception, an embryo is a living person, the repugnant thought of child murder is also valid. There is so little room for negotiation or even minimal appreciation of the argument from each side that I consider the issue to be the most dangerous in our society.

There are great issues, however, in which men and women of goodwill can, and should reach for compromise, for win/win solutions, or at least should try to listen objectively to each other, but until we reach past the rhetoric of bigotry, we have little hope.

STUPID ACTS OF TEENAGERS

STUPID ACTS OF TEENAGERS (or, I hope the statute of limitations has expired.)

For a couple of years, probably during the eighth grade (1949-50) and my freshman year in high school, I set pins in a bowling alley. It is an experience that no longer exists. Bowling pins are now set automatically. At this time, pin setters sat at the end of the alley on a bench that was behind a machine we called the “rack”. Between balls the pinsetter would jump down, clear any pins that had been knocked down and place them in the rack. If he was facing an inexperienced bowler, there was a good chance that he would jump down to face a ball coming at his head. If so, an effort was made to get out of the way, and if the effort were unsuccessful one would get hit by a flying pin or even the bowling ball itself. Most pin setters had a few bruises to show for their efforts and my brother got his nose broken. It was the type of job that OSHA would frown upon in these days, and child labor fanatics would go absolutely bonkers, but it was generally a good experience. I learned to bowl, earned some money and it usually kept me out of trouble. There were some exceptions.

One evening, a group of the pinsetters (most of the names I don’t remember, and those I do I will never tell) were walking home from the bowling alley and were walking down Center Street. (this was in Pocatello, Idaho) I am not sure why we didn’t take a bus, but we were walking along, talking about nothing in particular till we came to the Rialto Theatre. The Rialto was the movie house that showed second run pictures and where admission to matinees was nine cents. We noted that the final feature must have started because we could hear sound from the theatre but the box office was empty. We looked around at the coming attractions and debated the wisdom of trying to sneak in, but decided that it was too late, we would have missed most of the show. We turned back to the street, and, parked in front of the theatre, was a really small foreign car. About that time, a number of little cars from Europe and Japan were showing up in the U.S. I have no memory at all of what kind of car this was except that it was not a Volkswagen (part of me wants to say it was an IFA, though I am not sure there ever was a car by that name). It was a little bitty, rectangular, station wagon resembling an expanded orange crate. Someone made the comment that he bet that the six of us could pick it up. We put three in front and three in back, took hold of the bumpers and lifted. It came right up off the ground, so, staggering a bit, we moved it backward a few feet and set it down. Someone noted that he thought that the car would fit behind the box office, in front of the main doors. As if on cue, we surrounded the car again and lifted it up on the sidewalk. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to us that any police cars roaming the area would notice a car on the sidewalk of the main drag, but it didn’t (until later) and none came. We then stood the car up on its back bumper and slid it into the theatre entryway. We carefully lowered the front of the car and it did fit. It blocked all of the front doors exiting the theatre, and scraped its side a little on the back of the box office, but it fit. We stood there debating about removing it an putting it back out on either the sidewalk or the street but, after trying a little we decided that the fit was too tight and we could never stand it up again, so we just walked on down center to fourth or fifth, turned left and went on home. I looked in the paper the next day to see if there was a story about the car that mystically blocked the doors of the theatre but nothing showed up. There was a lot of talk about it at school the next week (This happened on Friday or Saturday), and I was relieved that no one was dumb enough to brag about it. I still have a feeling that the Police would like to have known how that car got there, and who put it there. If there are still any people alive who got locked in the Rialto that day, and if this ever gets read by anyone but my children and my brothers and sisters, now those folks will know how it happened.

Deception by telling

Deception by telling the truth.

I had a bad time sleeping last night and as a result got to examine two different looks at one thing. First I read the latest Time Magazine which dealt, as a cover story with Dr. Andrew Wyeth, the living symbol of alternative medicine. I like Wyeth and have read at least one of his books. I also used to subscribe to his ongoing suggestions on the web. I’m not a terribly disciplined person so I haven’t had totally successful results, but what he writes generally makes sense and he has done a lot of good for people whose regular visits to regular physicians have not been satisfying . As an ongoing hypochondriac I love to try the odd herbal remedy and I enjoyed the review of his latest book.

I still couldn’t sleep, so I shuffled through late night television and ran across a huckster for alternative medicines name Kevin Trudeau. I haven’t read his book, and couldn’t logically or honestly review its contents, but as an old teacher of persuasion and argumentation I couldn’t resist an analysis of his sales procedures. First he began with the premise that the government, especially the FDA is involved in a conspiracy to keep people sick in order to increase the income of the pharmaceutical companies. (Now I’m not a fan of pharmaceutical companies and I think that their advertising on television is both dangerous and deceptive, and I am quite sure that anyone listening to those ads is in the process of driving physicians nuts) Also in on the conspiracy are almost all MD,s (because they couldn’t get rich if people got healthy), and as evidence he stated that no disease has been cured in the past hundred years except polio. (He has never heard of smallpox, whooping cough, measles, rubella, or any of the other diseases for which permanent vaccination has been successful. I wonder who he knows that suffers from Tuberculosis or any of the myriad diseases that have been basically conquered through antibiotics--- I know, they have their problems too.) As evidence he cites the growing numbers of living cancer patients, growing numbers of heart disease patients, and the growing numbers of all kinds of people suffering from a variety of diseases, without mentioning that these numbers have grown as a result of a population that has increased exponentially because modern medicine has kept so many of the victims of these diseases alive. (As a quadruple bypass survivor who would have been dead for almost ten years if those evil conspiring doctors hadn’t repaired the damage created by high cholesterol and a slovenly lifestyle I am rather pleased with a lot of modern medicine.) People are living longer and better than they have ever lived in the history of mankind, largely because of modern medical practice.

He then received phone calls from current listeners (anyone who knows anything about late night television scheduling knows that those listeners had to be cued to a particular time and number that was anything but spontaneous.)

He followed this with accusations about food producers introducing chemically addictive substances into our diet to make us all fat, and a conspiracy within the Federal Trade Commission to keep him from marketing his books. He tapped into the fears of almost all conspiracy theory nuts ( though he didn't quite involve Al Quaida.)

Trudeau’s books may be good, but that is not proven through shills that call in and testify that they lost forty five pounds in thirty days through reading his books.

Alternative Medicine is an interesting subject with interesting possibilities (if there is an herbal remedy or “natural” food I have missed, it was an accident), but this rhetoric should shame the publishers, producers and stations that show this garbage.

Addendum to the above. The thing that concerns me most, after thinking about it for awhile, is that he has designed his performance to appeal to paranoid conspiracy theorists with an approximate cumulative I. Q. of seven or thereabouts, and he is obviously successful enough to have made enough money to continue the advertising. What does this imply about the intellect and gullibility of the American Puplic.????/ Sigh!!!!

ADDENDUM #2 (with a small wink)
Perhaps this explains why so many people still think that Gore won the first Bush election.

FINLAND GENERAL STRIKE 1956
A few days ago I read articles from the Helsingin Sanomat that discussed a current problem in Finland. It seems that a number of people had been mugged and one murdered recently in some of the parks and in the Helsinki Railroad Station by what appeared to be groups of Somali young men along with some Finnish youth. It was, to be honest, a shock. When I was in Finland in the fifties their seemed to be very little crime of any kind. I left a very expensive camera in a booth in the Helsinki Railroad Station and when I returned two days later it was still hanging from its hook (which would not have been true in New York City). In general, as foreigners and missionaries who, even though we were not the favorite people of many of the Finns, were treated with courtesy, kindness and curiosity.

The one time in Finland when that was not true was during the general strike of 1956. I was interested when the strike was announced because my father was a railroad man, and he had been out on strike many times during my youth. This was different. I don't remember how long it lasted, but it was at least a couple of months, and when I say general strike, I mean general. Everybody went on strike except people who worked in bread and milk distribution, and some of the restaurants, and they were prohibited from striking (I guess so that people could get food). If you happened to be riding a bus from one city to another when the strike occurred you were stuck wherever the bus stopped. I lived in Pori at the time and it seemed that everyday the strike went on, people became more and more tense, not just with us foreigners but with each other. For awhile we went along proselyting as we always did, but gradually people on the street began to say cruel things to us, and, for some reason, to blame us for the problem.

The pictures above were taken from a second story restaurant (which closed shortly after the pictures were taken) of general strike meetings in the kauppatory (central square) in Pori. About two weeks after these pictures were taken, I witnessed one situation in which a number of people who had been stranded in Pori had (if I understood correctly) arranged for a bus driver who owned his own bus to take them to their home city. The loaded bus was surrounded by several hundred people who literally lifted the bus up from one side and tipped it over. The military (which was mostly draftees in the Finnish Army) were called in to disperse the crowd, and it was very tense. I don't know if the strike achieved its objectives, I don't even remember what those objectives were, but we gradually quit going out in public except to go to church on Sundays. It was the only time in almost three years when I didn't feel totally secure, and I said some prayers of gratitude when it ended. I don't know if the strike created long term divisions in the people. If so, they were not easily discernable to an outsider. There are divisions in our own country that make me very sad, and I worry about where these will take us and how permanent they may become.

Braves game
Regarding what I said yesterday about not caring if the Braves win any more. I LIED, I LIED, so sue me, so I'll go to hell for lying. I'm sorry. (Any body know any good hexes to put on the Astros??? No, I didn't say that, I'll just watch like a good boy. ---gnashes teeth and growls. Is that hair growing from my face? Oh shucks that was there all ready.)

Braves Game is good therapy
Not much, but I can't get over how a lousy, rainy, tired, forgetful day during which I can manage to irritate my loving wife (nothing sarcastic here, we've been together since 1958) over and over again (largely cause we're both deaf as posts and our hearing aid experience was expensive and futile) can be totally changed by watching John Smoltz come out on the mound and just cremate the Astros in a playoff game. I know, I know that the Braves haven't been stellar in the playoffs, but this game was good enough that I don't give a hang if they win the rest. (I should be careful, my mother used to say that you could go to hell just as fast from lying as from stealing.)

SUPREME COURT

SUPREME COURT

I am slightly bemused by the reactions to Bush’s nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.  Last night on O’Reilly  I heard Ann (Court, or whatever her name is) run down Meirs.   The blonde lady in leather is the only commentator on the air who irritates me enough to make me consider being a liberal.

Successively I heard most of the conservative birds on Fox run her down, and Rush Limbaugh almost had a  stroke he was so passionate about it.  There is a part of me  (the conspiracy  theory  part) that wonders if the conservatives are just attacking Miers  in order to head off any liberal objections.  After all, what liberal can attack anything that Rush Limbaugh has attacked?

The particulars of the attacks are equally interesting.  She hasn’t been a Judge;  She hasn’t written much legal scholarship?   Did any of these folks ever hear of Earl Warren, who was only a lawyer to the degree that a lot of politicians become lawyers.   Dwight Eisenhower is said to have identified the nomination of Warren to be the worst failure of his administration.  When asked why he did it, he noted that a number of his staff members had told him that Warren was a good man.  He also noted that if he had ever really gotten to know the arrogant S.O.B. he would never have nominated him for anything.   At least Bush is acquainted with his nominee.

PROBLEMS, PROBLEMS, PROBLEMS.

I haven't posted for awhile. Nothing has gotten my dander up, and my reminiscences of Finland haven't been much of a hit (Though they are likely to come back again, as will the stories of my childhood). I sat for an hour today and read about anguished sex lives and anguished lack of sex lives, and terrible jobs and terrible job markets found in many blogs and decided that no matter how it gripes me sometimes seventy plus isn't all bad. My worst problems become whether I will make it to the restaurant restroom without peeing my pants (or at least without doing it visibly), actually the strong corollary to that is will I make it to the restroom in the highway service station without baptizing their floor ; Should I send a birthday card to an old friend because I remember that its his birthday, but I can't remember what in the living hell his name is; If I succeed in getting to sleep tonight without any major pains waking me up, will I sleep so soundly that I sleep through my eleven o'clock dentist appointment? Should I keep paying the damn dentist to maintain my teeth when a bunch of those teeth are already gone and I will probably be gone before the rest of them wear out.

A nurse called me the other day because Blue Cross has put me on a list of folks who might be subject to congestive heart disease, and somehow Blue Cross has figured that they can save money if they can keep you from getting whatever congestive heart disease is , for a little while.

As a result of their interest I listed my medications, my indications, my limitations, my irritations and everything else she could think to ask me about. When she was finished I reflected that if I had a car with that many flaws, and was costing that much for upkeep I would quickly determine that the old buggy wasn't worth the upkeep and junk it.

OOps, maybe I shouldn't get into that. After all, thanks to God, the Georgia Teacher Retirement System, Medicare, Social Security, a bit of savings, The State University Medical program and the ability to make and sell a few puppets and one of a kind dolls, along with presenting the occasional children's workshop in Puppetry or Theatre, I can still afford the upkeep on this old crate. Which gives me an idea for a future blog. I have a 93 Dodge Caravan that has a story of destructive repair that is incredible. Johnny Carson once said that a boat is a hole in the water into which you pour money. I am currently a hole on dry land into which I pour money (see above) and that damnable Dodge is my hole on the highway into which I pour money.