Ben Stein's Diary: Can We Talk?
Stein, Benjamin J.
BEN STEIN'S DIARY by Benjamin J. Stein Can We Talk? Monday I t's getting near the end of summer. Ever since we got back from Idaho, little Mr. Perfect has been nagging me to take him fishing. He...
...He was restless and kept kicking me...
...Hitler and Stalin were never partners...
...No mention of the established fact that Stalin ordered the Katyn Forest massacre of Polish army officers...
...And I think maybe my segment had to be reshot...
...It dawns on me that hardly any young people or even older people for that matter even have much of an idea of how to have a conversation...
...Now, I have been around a lot of liars...
...That's what "promises to keep" means...
...Like everyone else, like every other dope who refused to believe in history (there it is again...
...Probably Clinton does remember what kind of chairs were in his rumpus room...
...This is partly because most young people are too lazy and selfish to have any interest in anyone but themselves...
...They are HUGE...
...They loved me over there at the MDA-Jerry's Kids place...
...But kids can make you crazy...
...Years ago, she had me on her talk show...
...We rented a boat and putt-putted all about the lake...
...Lowell Harriss...
...I am sick...
...They were friends...
...Even with "spell check," people cannot spell...
...Now, this guy is supposed to be a professor of law...
...Just because I like to be at home...
...The worst part of the "time line" though was that it was a nonstop paean to the foresight, bravery, and shrewdness of Marshal Stalin...
...Well...I am scared of deep water," Tommy said...
...I was on with a comedian named Ford, and I did not think she was funny...
...But when I looked at his face, I knew I had to go...
...That's all...
...But my wonderful wifie was waiting there for me, and so was the kitty, Peabo, and the dog, Susie, so I am all set...
...But character is destiny...
...His bills...
...Why does it upset you...
...Tommy let him go...
...Then you ask me if I have a tackle box...
...Let him go...
...I felt exhausted, sick with my chronic fatigue, and very anxious...
...Maybe that's the only way out.44 Hardly any young people have much of an idea of how to have a conversation...
...Thursday H ere I am in Washington, D.C...
...This year, right on schedule, there are about thirty of them buzzing around a big picture window...
...What nauseating lies...
...However, he did sell me, for a mere $2.50, a lovely "time line" of World War II from the Russian perspective...
...Anyway, in the immense, truly stupendously big atrium, the size of a good-sized airport, there is a long line of men and women snaking across the highly polished gray marble floor...
...His problem is that he is an evil thug (just in my opinion) and (just in my opinion), if Bill Clinton has to leave office early, it will be largely because of Bill using Carville and Bob Bennett to try to bully his detractors into submission...
...Nothing worked...
...11 up...
...No mention of the massive sale of raw materials from Russia to Germany that fueled the German war machine and made it possible for the Germans to have enough fuel to wage Blitzkrieg warfare...
...We returned our boat and Tommy decided to fish off the wash dock while I sat a few feet away and called my agent and producer and wife and father and sister on my cell phone...
...Then, just yesterday, I saw that my segment of the telethon was going to be hosted by Bill Maher, my nemesis from "Politically (In)Correct...
...The limo driver was late, late, late...
...This is getting truly dizzying...
...That's a good reason, but Mommy is at dinner with her law partner...
...You do not interrupt me while I'm talking, and I don't interrupt you...
...Vicki's answer: His Nose...
...It was clean, large, almost empty, staffed with highly pleasant men and women...
...Well, you had better learn...
...When I was in elementary school, we had only great teachers...
...It's been haunting me since I first saw it several days ago, and now I am haunted by it again...
...Miss Moore...
...again...
...We did this so we would be closer to Lake Casitas, a medium-sized lake north of Ojai, and so we could head there in the morning without having to break through the dense gravity of terrifying Los Angeles rush-hour traffic...
...Stifling...
...Maybe it's time to leave this earth...
...I know lies and liars...
...Tommy almost fell in several times, and once literally fell back as if he were going to crack his sweet little The American Spectator • November 1998 65 head on the gunwale of the boat, but I caught him in my arms...
...Another small bass...
...The neighborhood is lavish manor houses and rolling, large lawns and forested back yards...
...I caught a bass...
...But that's life...
...We found several such places...
...Oh, well...
...Before I got Tommy, I used to think about suicide all of the time...
...No mention of the Red attack on Finland or the seizure of the Baltic States...
...Just bad timing...
...All of the other fishermen left...
...I am sure that it had nothing to do with my political views, nothing to do with Bill Maher...
...Not because of the fish in it...
...But The American Spectator • November 199 8 67 I guess, as Bob Dylan said, there are a lot of, eople out there with knives and forks on their tables and nothing on their plates and they have to cut something...
...What happens when Americans no longer know what Stalinism was all about or what state control of everything always means...
...Yes, it would be in the hot sun, but it's for a darned good cause...
...I agreed, although I can tell you the Iron Law of life: No good deed goes unpunished...
...Why, it's Diane Sawyer, former Republican conservative aide to Nixon...
...Susan Sgarlat...
...It was that way all through school until college...
...They paid attention...
...George Hamilton gave me his advice on the stock market...
...I am very scared of needles, for example...
...Prosecutors do not drop cases because you smear them...
...So, last night, we drove out to our increasingly modest house in Malibu...
...The flight back on American Airlines' Flight 75 was perfect...
...What are you scared of...
...Tommy caught a little bass and started to scream, "Daddy, Daddy, come look at my bass...
...You tell BENJAMIN J. STEIN is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Hollywood and Malibu...
...Judy Tenuta was lively and intuitive...
...But, here it is, down z,000 points in a few days' horrifying trading...
...The president was introduced by a black professor at Harvard Law School...
...I made a list of names of men and women, boys and girls, who got me through difficult times in my life...
...Are reporters—not pundits—who cover a story supposed to be asking for funds for one side of that story...
...Well, that's perfectly sensible," I agreed...
...Friday S peaking of pests: About three months ago, I, your humble servant, was called by a representative of the Jerry Lewis Telethon for Mus68 November r 9 9 8 • The American Spectator cular Dystrophy...
...His phone bill...
...In a way, it's a cruel joke to name a building that speaks of a huge government after a man who wanted a small government...
...Then, mirabile visu, Lake Casitas was a huge improvement over what I expected...
...He said that while he was not present at the speech, he could remember every detail of what he was wearing that day (as if it were his first date), what he was sitting in, where the chair was in the room, and he could also remember sobbing his little eyes out...
...Yes, I foolishly watched Wag the Dog, a really, really stupid movie that painfully misuses the talents of everyone involved...
...His strategic decisions were catastrophic...
...The album is from a label called Perverted Dora...
...Yeah, I have a big Jewish nose...
...I had the best job on earth that day: paying attention to my son and sharing in his pride as he fished, caught, and sent the fish back to their next round of destiny...
...He also used crawdads, which are like small lobsters and far too large for my comfort, and also fake worms...
...Why, why, why...
...The restaurant is called Chez Francois...
...Yes, I've noticed that...
...He started out a lying thug and he'll probably end up a lying thug...
...What Professor Ogletree is saying is basically this: "We are with you, 0, President Clinton...
...He played lead guitar (as if there were many other guitars involved) in a "Gay Christian Country Punk" band...
...Even though the news from my agent was dismal, I felt peaceful...
...My sister has a bee in her bonnet about this, and she's right...
...It's very overcast...
...Dodd...
...Daddy, Daddy, come see...
...that day...
...It is," he agreed...
...Tommy did not nag me...
...I am very interested in thewar on the Eastern front, but the line is not moving at all...
...How come no one can spell any longer...
...Like deep dark woods...
...It's my father's 82nd birthday, so now my sister and I are taking him out to a restaurant in McLean, Virginia...
...When the attack came, he refused to believe it and ordered the Red Army to withdraw to avoid provocations...
...My head just throbbed like mad insanity...
...We're here to see an exhibit on World War II from the Russian perspective...
...Life is largely about making conversation...
...They were parents...
...My Mom and Dad...
...Tuesday huge day...
...I was there in D.C...
...A few minutes later, another strike...
...No one cried...
...Tuesday A wakened at a startlingly early hour by a fully dressed Tommy Stein holding his latest fishing rod and saying, "Ready, Daddy...
...And whenever one of us answers a question, we do it so that it leaves a large opening for a response by the other...
...Dinner was good, thanks largely to a very busty woman seated at the next table who wore a highly revealing low-cut dress...
...Calvary" for "cavalry...
...What a gift a good student is to a teacher...
...distress attacked me after midnight and I did not get to sleep until the wee hours...
...As revealed in infinitely tiny type on the back of the time line, all this misinformation was passed on by a museum connected with the Red Army in Moscow...
...I agreed, and over the months, my manager and I were bombarded with calls from the telethon setting a time, a place, sending a script and then another script, arranging every detail...
...The dark is scary...
...Professor" means scholar...
...Professor of law means scholar of facts and law, and applying facts to law and applying law to facts...
...I have lots of fly swatters, and I kill them, sweep them up, dump them in the toilet, and then kill some more and throw them away, too...
...Awful...
...I tried to think of an excuse to avoid taking him because I was so tired...
...No, I'm scared of deep, dark water because it's deep and dark," he said...
...By the way, exactly the same thing happens at Yale...
...Did you see that, Daddy...
...I'm not scared of anything," said Tommy rather sullenly...
...Not again...
...I am so sick from this humidity and from my endless fatigue that I am just lying in my bed at the hotel, barely breathing...
...But many of my fellow Jews still love him...
...Here is a president who has cozied up to the Hamas terrorists, opened the White House to fundraisers for Arab terrorists over and over again (as brilliantly documented by Steven Emerson), coddled Saddam Hussein, done nothing about terrorism at all except when he had to do it to divert attention from Monica, and has snubbed the legitimate premier of Israel, Netanyahu, while kissing Arafat...
...But, mirabile dictu, once we got onto the Pacific Coast Highway, with my little angel at my side, roaring along in the silky smooth Cadillac, I felt a lot better...
...I am a lawyer...
...Yuck...
...Wow, I thought, this kid is a poet and he does not even have any idea of what a deep thing he has just said...
...Thug tactics might work in Russia, where you can kill your opponents and anyone else...
...Barry Walker...
...After our disappointment in Idaho, I wondered when we were going to ever have a great time on a lake again...
...Then gradually, as the sun fell, something magical happened...
...Today's the day...
...You tell me, in detail, but not in sickening detail, and then ask me what kind of fish I'll be looking for...
...When you have a Carville slam a Kenneth Starr, call him "a gutless, spineless weasel," threaten his staff with exposure and call them names, you have not done anything illegal, but you have done something bad and counterproductive...
...A favorite trick of liars is to make up details of events that never happened to make the lie sound better...
...They get very tenacious about it...
...I know," I said...
...Everyone else nearby left...
...You answer it in more than one syllable...
...Not a word about the Communist blood baths and mass murders and enforced starvation of the Russian and Ukrainian people that were Hitler-level crimes against humanity—and made the Ukrainians and other captive states rise up by the millions to join with Hitler against Stalin...
...The Sculls...
...This was just in the beginning...
...But I could count my losses rising like a flood tide preparing to wipe me out...
...No one cried...
...But in a free society, they just do not work...
...Now can I read my `Garfield...
...Stalin ignored warnings of the invasion...
...If you have broken the law, the law goes after you...
...What do I care what my agent said about a job I did not get...
...I drove out this afternoon to my house in Malibu...
...The basic idea is that the contestants are asked to fill in a blank, and then we see how many of us celebrities, haw-haw, match the contestant's guess...
...No matter what the facts are, we're with you through thick and thin...
...No, let's have a give and take conversation...
...It's a reservoir and a state park, and it really hums with cleanliness and efficiency...
...The market is down about too points...
...Make conversation...
...The hills around it are green and neat, with no development except an occasional parking lot and playground...
...All of that lovely security and peace of mind I thought I saw in the stock market, now turned to ashes...
...A noisy party of Latinos with gang tattoos left...
...No disruptive other kids around to upset my son...
...He wanted me to turn the dome lights on in the car so he could read his horrible comic books on the freeway...
...But I don't know how," he said, seemingly with genuine sorrow...
...I guess I was rude, and said I did not think Ms...
...The shallow green-blue water lapped at the dock...
...That's what a Dad is supposed to do: pay attention...
...No mention at all of the treacherous Soviet attack on Poland while Poland was trying to stave off the Nazis...
...Look for shady, quiet places with outcroppings of rock or driftwood," said my angel...
...That Martin Luther King speech was not a sad speech...
...Well, it was too high...
...and Mrs...
...Tommy selected his lures with great care...
...Down something like 25o points now...
...He wanted to have his Dad pay attention to him as he fished...
...It diverted me from the excessively heavy sauces...
...No mention of the Stalin-directed purges of the Red Army that left it in a disastrously weakened condition...
...His name is Ogletree...
...This afternoon, the producer of my segment called to tell me that, surprise and alas, the scheduling for the Telethon had gotten balled up and "we won't need to ruin your weekend after all...
...Here is a true fact: when Tommy asks me to tell him "Ren & Stimpy" stories, I always make up a tale of Ren & Stimpy striking it rich, and then having the bottom drop out...
...Behind him, the sky was as blue as it had been at Parkside Elementary in 1.953...
...Best in several sentences...
...In the car, I heard the news as I approached Dulles: market down over 50o points...
...Ford was funny...
...This is in 66 November 1998 • The American Spectator a handout in the Ronald Reagan Building...
...It's falling like a stone...
...Far worse were stupendous omissions in what was mentioned in the time line...
...I dragged myself out of bed, ate, dressed, tried to get Tommy to help me water the plants...
...Sort of like keeping murder safe for the murderers...
...I guess that's my paradigm of life...
...Everyone on the set was sweet and nice except perhaps Vicki Lawrence...
...It's a really lovely French place...
...What is history without truth...
...But the crux of his remarks is so clearly untrue it makes me want to scream...
...Marvin Goldberg...
...Instead, you won his BLANK...
...Back at my father's apartment we turned on CNBC again...
...I apologized, and I felt really guilty...
...I went and got my mail...
...The only problem was Vicki Lawrence...
...We could barely see the sky because of the dense pines, maples, and oaks, and when we saw the sky, it was a spectacular rich blue, with the occasional airplane flyinghigh above (en route to California, I always thought...
...I saw it...
...I can just imagine Jubal Early's men and Jeb Stuart's stalwarts lurking behind stone walls here waiting for the Yankees...
...Who knows...
...Isn't that a bit strange...
...I doubt that," I said...
...I work in Hollywood...
...I got so aggravated at him for not helping that I cursed at him as in, "What—hose do you think I want you to untangle...
...Then you ask me a question...
...Yes, the flight attendant burned the dinner to a crisp...
...But that stock market has meant a lot to my feelings of well being...
...Their first album is to be called "Hot, Hard, and Born Again...
...Tommy said, "Can I pulleeze turn on the dome light and read 'Garfield...
...I have been in such fear about money all of my life, and just recently I started to feel secure...
...I got up in my room at the River Inn and turned on CNBC...
...Get it...
...I came and looked...
...Vicki, over all, was very kind to me, and it's all over now, baby blue...
...He did not ask me to buy him a thing...
...Political and race commissars make the big decisions now, not scholars...
...How stupid and naive of me...
...Miss Mehrens...
...If not, not...
...They are obviously not getting taught it anywhere else...
...Harry Wellington...
...Instead, a repetition of the lie, no longer believed even in Russia, that Hitler carried out that massacre...
...Who is one of the many famous signatories...
...They glide around on their ugly wings, hover lazily like bloated 747s coming into LAX...
...What do I see but a wildly misdirected letter asking me for funds to fight anti-abortion demonstrators and to keep abortion "safe and legal...
...For example, I ask you what you did today...
...What must black folk who are not tied into Clinton make of this fawning over him...
...Tell me a `Ren & Stimpy' story...
...It's not too late for Clinton, by the way...
...he said, with perfect government worker contempt and a silly smile...
...He's just telling his black pals that he cries for them, and they are so confused they just lap it up...
...Down more than 2o percent...
...The greatest invention for the home of all time — air-conditioning...
...Bill Clinton is lying his head off...
...Peace...
...It's not good to feel alone...
...Ogletree was infuriating, but it was Clinton who really blew out my circuits...
...It's best of all if you can connect the lie with some part that's real, so you look as if you're telling the truth...
...This is a scary exhibit...
...He's always sanguine about the economy and about the long term...
...This scared me a lot because today I have to be a 'guest star' on the new version of an old show called "The Match Game...
...Nell Carter, a large black woman, gave me her advice on the stock market...
...Back in L.A., it was even hotter than it had been in Washington...
...It's a hazy, yellowish overcast day, and all of this fly killing stuff is making me think about James Carville...
...Arthur Best...
...Ready for fishing...
...I am beginning to think that young Americans desperately need a book, preferably by me, about the rudiments of manners, civility, and human relations...
...He noted that he was speaking on the anniversary of the famous Martin Luther King, Jr...
...I was pretty angry, and Vicki did seem sorry she had made such a cruel jest...
...Part of the problem is that the guest room is not air-conditioned...
...Never mind...
...Amazing how many of them are teachers...
...But he kicked so much that I could not sleep and finally, after he subsided, I moved into the guest room...
...America and all the ships at sea about giving to the very worthy cause...
...Friday F or some reason, CNBC, which has become one of my favorite channels, is reshowing Bill Clinton giving a little speech to a group of African Americans on Martha's Vineyard...
...You encourage her to fight you as long as she lives...
...But I can't imagine that if I had been Danny Glover, Vicki would have said, "his lips...
...I spend time with small kids...
...They loved me so much they wanted me to be on the Labor Day telethon pitching Mr...
...He was framed by a rail fence so that he was as if in a picture frame...
...I am here at the Ronald Reagan Building on 4th Street, Northwest...
...But I thought I had that money...
...The picture was of a thin, happy, tow-headed little boy with a fishing reel on a dock surrounded by black MerCruiser engines under overhaul...
...No mention of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact which enabled Hitler to invade France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Greece, and Yugoslavia...
...I wish he did his homework with as much care...
...But what's this...
...If Bill Clinton had not resorted to the thug tactics practiced by Carville, if he had been polite and apologized to Paula Jones and treated Starr with respect, Bill Clinton's whole life would have been greatly easier...
...Stalin is a hero of the anti-fascist struggle...
...I am so glad I have my little family in Los Angeles and Washington and New York and at the Spectator...
...I know I'm scared of a lot of things...
...Good work," I said...
...Miss Smith...
...Then there is the evil note about the Red Army urging the Polish underground to rise up against the Nazis in 1944...
...Brown...
...And there is only one side to the Right to Life debate in polite society...
...It is humid...
...Another big time favorite trick is to interlace heavy44 Like everyone else, I thought this time maybe the market would not break our hearts...
...Anyway, as we sped through a very dark Las Virgennes Canyon, Tommy asked, "Do we have to spend the night at our house in Malibu...
...No," I said...
...This is amazingly true, and it's also true that when you take a woman who has been sexually assaulted by the president and call her "trailer park trash" you do not deter her from going forward...
...I am sure he is a lot braver than I am...
...This is how...
...We talked about the stock market...
...He pooh-poohed my fears about a crash...
...With thoughts of thankfulness in my mind, I fell asleep at last...
...I ask you a question...
...Thought about fishing...
...My father thinks I'm whining, and I guess I am...
...Mine, at least, can be so utterly selfish, so completely unaware that anyone else has any rights at all in a situation, that it makes me want to scream...
...I tell you I have a modest tackle box, and ask what brand of tackle box you recommend and where you would recommend that I stock it...
...Now, as it moves rapidly downward, I guess my good times are over for a while...
...However, love and duty call...
...Then they land and rub their hideous front legs together...
...Probably about what I think about the liberal Jewish monolith that supports Clinton — furious...
...A very loud-mouthed woman with a horrible accent is screaming next to me...
...Even during the war he inflicted a bloody terror on his own people...
...Cam" for "came...
...I felt suicidal with illness and headache...
...True enough that the Red Army asked the Poles to rise—but also true that when the Poles did rise, the Red Army did not lift a finger to help, and let the Nazis crush the Poles so that the Reds would have fewer problems when they occupied the country...
...Everyone but Vicki gave a fairly innocuous answer...
...I felt too sick to eat my crab cakes...
...My father talked about his childhood and it made me terribly sad...
...That's where bass like to swim...
...This made her stalk off the stage in a sulk...
...As I read it, I thought I would have a stroke...
...It was an uplifting, cheering oration...
...I asked...
...For a child that age to be afraid of death is not rare at all, but to express it so well...
...me you rearranged your tackle box...
...I thought that this would be a great way to show that men of different political backgrounds and different moral faiths can work together for a fine cause...
...Maybe their parents never had conversations...
...It implies some independence of judgment...
...Joan Didion wrote a piece long ago about how wonderful negative ions make you feel great...like the feeling in the air after lightning...
...What a gift a good teacher is...
...But the commentators are gloomy...
...We won't catch a thing...
...Credit where it's due: Carville is a former Marine...
...I suppose that a smart woman like Vicki would remember it, and think about her revenge...
...But it's also because they have never been taught how to have a conversation...
...Even though I had been feeling happy to be home, food poisoning or another form of G.I...
...Only Tommy and I and the staff were still there as evening started to fall...
...Well, that's why there's Hollywood...
...Tommy, as my old law school pal Duncan Kennedy used to say, that is merely a restatement of the question and not an answer...
...I finished packing back at the River Inn and left...
...Gene Daumit...
...So you see how it goes being a parent...
...What else...
...Well, I don't like it in Malibu," he said...
...He's also smart and quick and tireless...
...Now back to killing flies...
...Tommy, as usual, refused to make conversation...
...For a law professor...
...Long ago and far away, Richard Nixon, then in retirement, said that nations do not react well to threats and bullying, and people don't like being pushed around either...
...For example...well, you don't need an example...
...Larry Lissitzyn...
...I'm sure...
...I am hot...
...But to say we are on your side even if you have broken the law...
...Plus he was very strange...
...OF...
...I thought about pretty Miss Smith, my third-grade teacher, and about Parkside Elementary School in Silver Spring...
...He refused to sleep in his own room, which I have been keeping immaculate for him for almost nine years now...
...Za Stalina...
...That night, I read my mail, filed, and then Tommy and I got in bed...
...Sunday N ow, this is an ugly scene...
...That way, we soon have a conversation going...
...I was seated about five feet above him at a picnic table...
...I have tickets, but the officious officials are not letting us in...
...I want to air-condition my brain, and maybe there's a way I can: I started to make a list of all the people who have been good to me...
...A metaphor of death...
...Still, I felt awful...
...Larry Simon...
...For a tenured Harvard professor...
...Home, home, home...
...Nothing to interfere with the precious interface among Daddy, Tommy, blue lake, blue sky, and foolish fish...
...Bill Clinton does not even remember the event at all...
...His Dad was glad to oblige...
...How wonderful...
...Why did we love our teachers so much and why don't kids love their teachers now...
...I am in the line...
...Better than any other place...
...Tell me what you did today...
...In column after column, misspellings on a government document...
...Poor you...
...That little bit might be true...
...You didn't win Ben Stein's money...
...His wardrobe...
...I took one pain pill after another and nothing helped...
...He stood on weather-beaten gray boards...
...Monday U h-oh...
...Yes, you can," I said...
...The Russians had nothing to do with the Katyn Forest Massacre...
...What happens when Americans' knowledge of history comes from the Red Army...
...But I don't know how to have a conversation," Tommy whined...
...I Have a Dream" speech (and by the way, I have a great joke about that...
...For some strange reason, maybe a mystery of nature, I have infestations of flies two or three times a year...
...Yes, it would be on a Saturday even though I do not like to work on Saturdays...
...He was very tall when he showed up...
...Never mind, I guess all parents think their kids are poets...
...The host, Mike Berger, is a great guy from old "Home and Family Show" days, and enviably thin...
...Who knows what creatures are in deep water...
...You just have to see how badly Robert De Niro is abandoned with nothing to do but bluster to believe it...
...I figured he had said enough for a while...
...Preferably in a way that encourages an answer from you and refers to something in your life that readily allows you to answer...
...Thus, at a certain point in the new show, Vicki and all of us were given the following "match" problem...
...Now I know...
...I do not like it...
...64 November 1998 The American Spectator "Yes...
...I thought this time maybe the market would not break our hearts...
...Daddy, did you see...
...This is not good...
...Deep dark water...
...Because I want to stay at home with Mommy...
...I answer that question...
...Isn't she a "reporter" on a network...
...As I waited for the bus to leave, I thought I might throw44 Ali this misinformation was passed on by a museum connected with the Red Army in Moscow...
...Off to lunch with my father at the Cosmos Club...
...We finally got underway and I thought, "Hey, this is going to be a terrible day...
...The heat was stupendous, stifling, killing...
...There, we can have a conversation about what we're scared of...
...The woods are lovely dark and deep, and I have promises to keep...
...duty "sincere" emotion...
...Now, that's ripped away from me again...
...It was not hot, but it was not cold and there were no negative ions floating around soothing me...
...After about a half hour, I started to feel too frustrated to stick around, so I asked a clerk when I would get in...
...Hadler" for "Halder...
...Of course not...
...Now I rarely do...
...The trip out was dismaying...
...However, I did have a quiet cabin and lots of time to ponder my fall from financial grace...
...Ned Burrows...
...A fine fish, my boy," I said...
...This is a huge building, maybe the biggest in D.C...
...Actually, now that I think of it, this area was occupied by the Union right away, and stayed occupied through the war...
...He is not just interested in fishing, but obsessed with fishing...
...I don't like it...
...This is what pleasure is all about...
...That's also what my best book, 'Ludes, is about...
...Down again, and down a lot...
...First, and last important, but still important, there were large numbers of misspellings...
Vol. 31 • November 1998 • No. 11
