[lit-ideas] This Week's Story
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2011 15:56:23 -0700
My subject this week is Power Mulch, mixed with Tillamook Compost.
On Saturday Gardening Guy was off his medications or otherwise worked up. Five
samples will give you the flavor:
At the place where we bought sand, he asked to use the phone. "No," I was
silently screaming as I signed the credit card slip, but these were kind folk,
Oregon folk, folk who normally say "Yes" to strangers' requests. He dialed and
spoke to the Secret Service about the many violations of the previous evening,
infractions that had kept him from collecting his million dollar checks,
payments owed for his faithful service. He also wanted to complain that his
government work was keeping him from his true vocation, a comfy spot on the
bench of a pro soccer team. He conceded that at age fifty-one he isn't likely
to be a starter for a pro team, but why shouldn't he be paid to sit on the
bench?
At the place where we bought a yard and a half of mixed Sandy Loam, Power
Mulch, Tillamook Compost and Horticultural Pumice, the salesman's physical
stature reminded Garden Guy of his CIA handler in L.A. So he told him what he
thought. The guy laughed it off.
On the freeway on the way home the borrowed truck hinted it was developing a
desire to fishtail, so I didn't listen carefully to Garden Guy's rant about how
this one friend of his had turned into twelve people, some of whom were proving
to be backstabbers. Enough registered in my mind however for me to think, "I
can see the day when I myself join or morph into the dirty dozen. And then
this fellow's garden implements may take on another character entirely." He's
a generally gentle fellow, who is good at what he does, but...
I learned, BTW, how it is that Garden Guy has so many kids. It seems that the
government takes your sperm and impregnates women with it. This is how they
create super athletes, ones who are subsequently undone by pharmaceuticals in
their clothing. It is by these impregnations that he came to be related to
people on the Olympic soccer team, the U.S. World Cup team, the University of
Portland Women's team... He has them by princesses. There was the Swedish
princess, the Ukranian princess, the English princess...all blonde. He's
blonde. His kids are generally blonde.
I won't go into the whole satanic homosexuals bit, but you should know that
while normal homosexuals are fine and friendly, these other ones stab you in
the back, keep you off teams and throw you to the dogs.
I was quite happy when he quit for the day.
I hope writing this doesn't count as stabbing him in the back.
What one intends and how things are received, however,...not necessarily the
same thing.
Case in point: a normal work conversation in the faculty offices last week.
Two people discussing: some colleagues' embrace of Chicago style over MLA, the
current primacy of form in college paper assessment, some memories of when
content was the be-all-and-end-all in essay writing, how strange it is in a
college that some people say "I feel" when Liberal Arts people would say, "I
think," the disengaged performance of some weak students, the excellent
performance of some strong students, exercises I had planned for the second
half of the day's three hour seminar.
This conversation somehow struck someone who overheard it as "hostile." She
complained. The consequence was an e mail asking that people cease "making
comments intended to wound, regardless of gender issues" and "compromising
others' right to work free from a hostile atmosphere."
David Ritchie,
Portland,
Oregon------------------------------------------------------------------
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