Rambling Josh

I am very happy to report that as of this past Saturday, I’ve successfully advanced my streak for not dying to 38 years. Thank you to all the birthday well wishes from the Facebook crew.

One of the downfalls of being on Facebook is that your birthday doesn’t slip quietly into the night. I spent this one as I have many of my birthdays–no, not inspecting the toilet at the 109 Club–but at a baseball game.

With a July birthday there is a very good chance you’ll either be playing or watching baseball and that’s fine with me. This year it was a little league all-star game and since I forgot to look busy, I ended up in the crow’s nest keeping book and running the scoreboard. It was a real test as I generally don’t like to pay that much attention for that long of time, but I managed.

Throughout my 30’s my son Jackson, whose birthday is the day before mine, has been numerically tied. When he turned 3, I turned 3+0, when he turned 4, turned 3+1, when he turned…well, I hope you get the picture by now.

So, this numerical linkage will continue until I hit 40 and start that slippery slide into what every 40-year-olds slip into. Orthopedic shoes, polyester pants, hospital gowns, a steady spiral of self-pity… and so forth and so on.

At that same time Jackson will start his slippery slide into his teenage years. Seeing how my daughter is 14 I have seen what teenagers slide into and I also keenly recollect what teenagers slide into as I myself was a teenager at one time or another in my life. Teenagers are weird and seem to hang great importance on trivial matters while being oblivious to what really matters. Of course, the parental view of what matters and what doesn’t is skewed by many years of having to pony up the cash for the trivial. Those shirts, shoes, video games, and what not that-were-to-die-for lay in a heap of materialistic items destined for the back of the closet and the underside of the bed.

I never wasted my parent’s financial resources when I was a lad. That “Fart Spray” was a life changing purchase and those acid washed jeans made me who I am today. Actually, those pants were so tight the only thing they made was my voice an octave higher and my feet swell. A single Canadian dime was the largest denomination of currency you could fit in those pockets.

The advancement of one’s age does create changes in the way birthdays are celebrated. My wife and daughter were out of town for a softball tournament so without the ladies to hold us back, us birthday boys celebrated in style. We lay in the hammock, each with our preferred beverage, and chit chatted about this and that while gazing at the stars above.

The perfect ending and beginning to another trip around the sun.

Well, the Three Stooges completed their lap around Ireland without incident, unless you count a blown tire and several bouts of car sickness as incidents.

As I’ve reported before the roads and driving in Ireland are an adventure. A nauseating, torturous adventure for those who tend to get car sick when crammed in the back seat of bobbing, weaving, swerving, stopping and starting automobile. Two of the stooges, Paul and Bubba, seemed to have an issue with this.

As for the blown tire…. well, I was driving at the time but it wasn’t all my fault. Who builds stone walls right next to a highway and then lets so much vegetation grow on them that you can’t see the rocks in the rock wall?

I recall Bubba yelling from the back seat to pull over quick so he could take a picture of a castle. Being the obliging tour guide I pulled over quickly and apparently too far as a large sharp rock that had been holding up a rock wall for a few hundred years tore into the sidewall of the front tire.

So, Paul and I put on the spare while Bubba snapped award winning pictures of his precious castle. Paul didn’t mind the mishap and was delighted with the opportunity to take a break from the nausea rocket. Back in the nausea rocket to find a new tire we tottered along on the little spare donut for a bit and then shelled out 90 Euro for a new tire. The rental car insurance didn’t cover rock attacks. We saw a lot of Ireland but of all the lovely sights we saw nothing compares to the people we met along the way. We had many a wonderful “jaw wags” as they call it.

We spent the last night in Ireland the same as we spent the first, enjoying the Dublin nightlife. The plan was to enjoy it to the point of exhaustion so we could sleep most of the seven hours of confinement in the airplane ride back across the pond. At 3 a.m. we bought some Pringles and decided a rickshaw ride would be the best way back to our hotel.

The rickshaw puller was a spry young man, and we cheered him to pass other rickshaws as we made our way through the Dublin streets. A few blocks, a long up hill, and the burden of three guys and a can of Pringles wore on the poor guy, and his stride was reduced to shuffle as we approached our hotel. The charge was five Euro, but we gave him 15 and a half a can of Pringles for his trouble.

Riding in a rickshaw made me feel a little uncomfortable. There’s just something wrong about having some guy pull you around when you’ve got two perfectly good legs of your own. I offered to help and even offered to give him a ride but apparently that’s against the Rickshaw Code of Conduct. He probably would have gotten more than 15 Euro from us if the gypsy ladies outside the pub hadn’t guilted us into handing them over some change.

All in all, it was a great trip and we all agreed if we went again we would just pick one specific area and see a lot of a little rather than a little of a lot.

I highly recommend traveling to a foreign country, other than Canada or Wyoming, nothing makes you appreciate life in America more.

About halfway through our trip to Ireland last year, after several nights of sitting in pubs listening to Irish music, my wife wore down to the point of suggesting that I go back again sometime with my good friends, Paul and Bubba. So, like a dutiful husband I took her up on the suggestion and am sitting in Kenmare, Ireland writing this column.

Paul, Bubba and I, the Three Stooges, landed in Dublin on June 10 and will be conducting a clockwise spin around the island back to Dublin for our exit on June 19. Other than our first night in Dublin and the second night in Carrick-on-Suir we will be rolling plan free and just see where the narrow winding roads take us.

One of the reasons we chose this time to come to Ireland was that Paul and myself are, as Bubba says, “Clancy Brother Super Fans,” and the Clancy Brothers Music Festival took place on June 12 this year. I enjoy the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem’s music more than any other music and was extremely excited to attend the festival. With the passing of Liam Clancy six months ago none of the Clancy Brothers or Tommy Makem are alive, but their children carry on their legacy quite well.

The concert on Saturday night was wonderful, but the singsong to follow in the pub across the street was one of the most enjoyable musical experiences I have ever had. A singsong in Ireland is an unorganized gathering where whoever wants to can belt out their favorite song. This particular singsong was a virtual Clancy Family Reunion that we were very fortunate to be a part of.

One by one our favorite songs were sung by a different member of the Clancy family, most of which are professional recording artists, with the entire pub joining in more often than not. This went on until a little after 3 a.m. when the pub owner finally said, “Have you no shame? It’s three in the morning… go home.”

The pubs close at 12:30 in Ireland but we were told we were in an “Irish Lockdown.” This basically means if you want to stay you can stay, but if you go you can’t come back in. We weren’t going anywhere.

There is a picture of the Clancy Brothers that was taken during a singsong in a bar in New York City during the groups hay day in the 60’s. In this particular picture the Clancy Brothers are sitting around a table in the middle of a packed house, and I always wondered what it would feel like to have been a part of that. Well, now I know, and to have the opportunity to share the experience with two of my best friends made it better than I ever imagined.

So, as I sit in Kenmare Ireland listening to the sound of Irish music drift up to my hotel room window from the pub across the street I am truly thankful. Thankful for the experience of last night’s singsong, thankful for good friends and the time to spend with them, and thankful for my wife and family. Without their support it would be impossible to undertake and enjoy such a trip.

That’s all for now…this is the Three Stooges on assignment in Ireland for the Burke County Tribune…signing off.

I was asked to speak at Memorial Day services for the Lignite and Portal American Legion posts this year, an honor I readily accepted, and would like to share that speech with all of you.

I hope you all had an enjoyable Memorial Day weekend and took the time to honor those who are no longer with us.

When I was a cub scout, a few years back, Memorial Day was a day I always looked forward to because it was the day we got to march with the soldiers. I can remember watching the veterans get ready for the Memorial Day march in the Legion Hall while us cub scouts attempted to fight the urge to poke one another with the American flags we were all given to carry as we marched. We didn’t fight it very hard and a few of us would always get our flags confiscated by our den mother, who just happened to be my mother.

Marching with the veterans in my cub scout uniform always made me feel proud and I would imagine myself as John Wayne fresh from the front lines. It’s hard for an eight-year-old with stubby legs to pull off the John Wayne swagger while trying to keep step with the veterans. Today I felt that same pride as I got the opportunity to march with the soldiers again.

Many of them are the very same veterans I marched with 30 years ago. Many of them I didn’t know had served in the military until my first Memorial Day march as a cub scout.

I knew these men as farmers, teachers, mechanics, oil field workers, and businessmen. To find out they were soldiers changed them forever in my eyes. I would look at them and try to imagine where they had been, what they had seen, what they had endured, and wonder how they could go from being John Wayne to a work-a-day citizen of Burke County.

Each and every time I encountered them, I would yearn to ask about their experience, about their war, but I never did. I never did because even to a curious eight-year-old it seemed to be a private matter and as a curious 37-year-old it still does.

I had plans to contact each veteran who is here and get their story to share with you today, but I doubted many of them would want this day to be about them. This day is a day to remember the men and women who served our country and are no longer with us.

Some left here young and full of life to serve our country and fight for the freedoms our flag represents and returned lifeless under the cover of that very same flag. They are who we are here for, they are not to be forgotten, the sacrifice they made cannot be forgotten. That is why these men and women, these soldiers, these veterans march every year. It is important we have this day of remembrance and take part in these services.

General George S. Patton once said, “It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.”

I disagree with the General, which is easy to do given his current status. We mourn the death of a soldier because they were more than a soldier. They were a brother, a sister, a son, a daughter, a husband, a wife, a father, a mother, a friend.

That is who we mourn the loss of. Today is their day.

My buddy, Paul and I headed to Montana this weekend to fart around for a few days at the cabin. I say fart around because all the backbreaking, log hoisting labor that used to be a part of going to the cabin is complete.

Is the cabin completely done?

You’re never completely done with a wilderness cabin; it is a perpetual work in progress.

This particular weekend we spent a grueling hour or so hanging up curtains. Rustic red was the color I selected to add a splash of color to the log palate. My daughter and 63 other people already beat you to the “Broke Back Mountain” joke so laugh it up chuckles.

We managed to instill a little manliness in the process by turning sapling evergreens that we mercilessly ripped from their happy forest home into curtain rods, and I almost lost a thumb sawing tree limbs to make the rod holders. So, the cabin has curtains now. I like it because when I went up to the cabin by myself this winter, I felt like I was sitting in a fishbowl at night with Yetis, wild clowns, and who knows what else peering in the windows. My dog didn’t help matters by occasionally perking up and staring at the windows or door. It’s also nice in the morning not to have that pesky sun waking you from a rum instilled slumber.

Also, on the “to do” list for this trip to the cabin was constructing a lid for the gorilla box. The gorilla box is a wooden box about five feet long, three feet wide and three feet deep that I built to store tools and wild clowns in. To me it looks like a crate you would ship a gorilla in, so I named it the “gorilla box.” I’ve never ordered a gorilla but it would be handy to have one as the caretaker at the cabin when I’m not around.

As a conversation piece I plan to paint “GORILLA” on the side of the box with my name as the ship to address. When someone inquires about the whereabouts of the gorilla I will explain we had a disagreement shortly after he arrived about the type of friends he was inviting to the cabin and he now roams the mountains with a Yeti and a wild clown.

With the curtain hanging and gorilla box completed it was time to relax with a friendly game of hatchet throwing. I got two throwing hatchets a few years ago because lawn darts is too dangerous….just ask my sister. There’s something pleasing about throwing a hatchet and watching it turn end over end and then stick with a satisfying “thunk” in a tree.

It’s much less satisfying to watch the hatchet go end over end past the tree and continue end over end down the hillside. I tried to train the dog to fetch the errant hatchet throws but he seemed a little leery about the whole process. I bet the gorilla would have done it.

The hatchet throwing game made it about an hour and a half before both handles had been broken beyond duct tape repair. I contributed the hatchet handles breaking to divine intervention as it was getting dark and the evening beverage service was beginning to cloud judgment.

So, we retired to the campfire to belt out a few Irish songs and reminisce about the days when we had a gorilla to tidy up for us.

That’s all for the May edition of “This old cabin.” Bye now.

May is here for another go around and has brought with it the typical unpredictable spring weather of the Dakota’s.

You’re an optimist or an idiot if you pack away your mukluks, muffs and mittens before mid-August around here. Idiots don’t know any better and optimists will just grin and bear it, so it’s hard to differentiate sometimes.

Speaking of idiots and optimists it’s Mother’s Day this weekend and behind every idiot is an optimistic mother just hoping that all that pain and suffering wasn’t in vain. For some of our mothers the physical pain of childbirth was merely a warm up for the lifetime of mental anguish to follow. Idiots don’t know any better and our mothers just grin and bare it.

My mother is no exception; she is an eternal optimist but is not content to just grin and bear it when it comes to her idiots. She has been my and my sibling’s mother for as long as I can remember and during that time, she has always been there for us. She was always in the bleachers, always behind the camera, and always willing to call us “idiots” when it was warranted.

It was, and still is, warranted a lot and in the true spirit of idiots it never has stopped us from doing whatever it was that seemed idiotic to her. It’s a pretty sure bet if it seemed idiotic to my mom, it was, because a woman who appreciates the endless entertainment a whoopee cushion provides is no fun hating prude.

As we’ve gotten older it seems Mom’s reference to us as idiots has lessened. This is either due to maturity on our part or acceptance on Mom’s. “Eternal optimist reduced to realism by idiots.” Film at eleven. Swing by our next family gathering and judge for yourself…it’s worth the price of admission…a whoopee cushion and a jug of rum.

I remember my first whoopee cushion. My brother, Jarvis in his zeal to make the loudest fuuuuurrrrp, jumped up and landed on it and blew it out. He rolled around clutching his backside and yelping while I, the concerned brother, ran to check the status of my poor whoopee cushion.

We took it to the gas station to get it patched and nervously paced the floor sipping Coke and eating Corn Nuts waiting for the prognosis. They were able to patch it but it never sounded the same after that. It had a listless half-hearted “fss” sound that just didn’t pack the same humorous punch. So I sat on my brother and produced the real thing to teach him a little lesson.

Mother’s Day is a day set aside for us to drag our mothers and wives to overpriced buffets in an attempt to put our conscious at ease for another year. Don’t you think they deserve more effort than that? They smile and remain optimistic while their kids drag whoopee cushions to the local gas station to get patched.

Let’s strive to make Mother’s Day more of a sustained effort that sounds like, “fuuuuurrrrp” rather than “fss.”

Happy Mother’s Day.

There’s no place like home.

I think I had a wee tear in my eye as I spotted the Black Hills from the airplane on the last leg of my return trip from Japan. I have never been so happy to see those hills and the hundreds of miles of wide-open space between those hills and the Minneapolis airport as I made my journey from concrete to conifers.

Since my last trip to Japan two years ago, I must report that not much has changed. Still a lot of people, a lot of buildings, a lot a lot and too much of everything for this small-town boy.

Apparently “Country Folk” in Japan live in “rural” settings of around 100,000 people and when I explained that I come from a town of about 150 people the usual response was, “Do you know everyone in the town?” Everyone and their dog… and that’s the way I like it. Speaking of “a lot,” the dietary choices haven’t changed much either. You have to be a marine biologist to identify what you’re eating most of the time. The Japanese know their sea creatures, but then again when the sea creature on your plate isn’t much different than its swimming, living, breathing self, it simplifies things a little.

Here in the Midwest, we have to rely on taste and smell to identify our food, well you people who can taste and smell do, I rely on what I’m told. It would be easy to tell the difference between our various meats if a hoof, horn or antler were hanging out of the bun but thankfully we don’t care to have our food resemble its living, breathing self.

Speaking of various meats. Being a good guest I thought I would bring my Japanese associates a little piece of South Dakota and bought about $150 worth of buffalo, elk and deer salami and bacon cheddar cheese to bring with for gifts. I hope the workers in the quarantine station at the Tokyo airport enjoyed the gifts from America.

When we landed in Tokyo, I saw the signs at the airport banning the import of any meat and debated on trying to smuggle the salami past the salami sniffing dogs, but who knows what they do to salami smugglers in Japan, so I came clean. They looked over my stash and politely pointed to the sign, I handed over the salami, and the salami sniffing dogs all smiled.

When I’m in Japan, I have to wear a suit and tie much more than I would like. I don’t mind wearing one for the occasional bar mitzvah but not all day long while sitting in hot stuffy Japanese buildings, eating in hot stuffy Japanese restaurants, and traveling in hot stuffy Japanese trains. It’s hard to be pleasant while developing a heat rash but thankfully my grimace resembles a smile and no one was the wiser.

It takes a lot of self-control to drink hot green tea and eat a big bowl of piping hot miso soup while feeling sweat roll as far as it can roll while you’re sitting on a hot nonporous surface with nary a breeze to speak of. Visions of baby powder danced in my head as I longed for a stiff upstate North Dakota gale to somehow find me and whisk the sweat from my brow before it headed south to take care of more pressing issues.

When I returned to Rapid City, I dropped my suits off at the dry cleaners and I think I saw the people who work there out by the dumpster beating my suits with a dead carp to freshen them up a bit. I think I’ll wear culottes and a tube top if I have to go to Japan next year.

I’ve got the knees for it, but I might have to trim my shoulder hair to a respectable length.

All my bags are packed I’m ready to go…

By the time you read this I will have eaten my weight in sushi and rice. No, I didn’t enter an eating contest or attempt to ingest a tapeworm as a form of weight control. On Easter Sunday I was shipped off on another goodwill tour of Japan to bolster relations between the university that graciously provides me employment and an affiliate university in Japan.

This is my second go around in Japan as I was sent to smile, nod and bow a few years ago as well. I guess they figured I have the most experience dealing with foreigners growing up so close to Canada and Minnesota. So, they called in the good-natured North Dakotan, stuck him in a suit and simply said, “Don’t offend anyone.”

As the saying goes, “You can put a North Dakotan in a suit but he’s still a North Dakotan.”

Just smile, wave and tip your little hat like Leroy the monkey at the North Dakota State Fair but don’t bite anyone. If you never got a chance to meet poor Leroy before he was escorted off the midway, my brother Gabe does a spot on impersonation. It’s the wet your pants brand of funny. The kind of funny I’ll need when I get back from the land of little sarcasm.

Seven days of saying, “No..no..I was just joking,” wasted wit, and laughless responses to Caddyshack references will have my funny bone wincing. They are a serious lot, extremely cordial and friendly, but serious. I think it’s the lack of meat and potatoes in their diets.

I enjoyed my last trip to Japan but I’m not looking forward to it as much this go around. A total of about 24 hours in the luxurious accommodations of coach class has me debating on faking the plague. More so than the long flight and the lack of laughter I find myself not wanting to go because it’s a lot of time away from my family. The kids are involved in a lot of stuff nowadays, so it takes two ringmasters to keep the chimps in line.

Pre, our black lab, tries to help out the best he can when I’m gone but not having thumbs limits his effectiveness. So, my wife, with a faithful lab at her side, will be stuck as the Captain of a two-chimp crew while I gallivant around looking like a turd in a punchbowl. As the saying goes, “You can put a suit on a turd but it’s…”

So, if you’re not doing anything feel free to swing by while I’m out and about to make sure the ships still afloat. It may list a little to port or starboard on occasion, but she’s got a good captain and a first-rate crew so I’m sure everything will be just fine and dandy. Fine anyway.

The kids’ only request from me was a shipment of Japanese candy. Of course, Dawn didn’t make any requests because, well, we’re just supposed to know, aren’t we gentlemen.

I’ll have a full report of my journey for you upon my return. I’m sure you’ll bide your time with abated breath until the next column hits the newsstands.

After about four years I finally did it. I got “hate mail” for a column… my friends are surprised it took me this long to irritate people since I’ve been irritating them for years.

I guess “hate mail” may be a bit strong maybe “dismayed mail” or “disappointed mail” would be more accurate. Either way I was informed in a very polite manner that my brand of humor, or attempt at humor, is not welcomed at the altar.

In hindsight maybe it should have been left in the sacristy where Father John told me to leave it when my brother and I were altar boys. Father John always had a few jokes for us while he was getting into the vestments prior to mass and then right before we stepped out onto the altar he would put his serious face on and encourage us to attempt to do the same.

My brother, Jarvis and I could usually hold it together for a while until Grandpa Ardell caught our eye. Grandpa, whose birthday we would have celebrated today on St. Patrick’s Day, is now our patron saint of mischief.

I guess I should have known better than using my conversations with a high school history and shop teacher turned priest as the basis for a column. Leonard Savelkoul taught pretty much everyone in my family during his lengthy tenure at Burke Central High School. Some of us he liked…some of us he didn’t, playing favorites was a weakness of his. He liked me and I enjoyed his unique way of conveying history to a bunch of teenagers who generally could care less about what the Potsdam Conference was all about. After retiring from teaching, he entered the priesthood; and shortly after Father Savelkoul was ordained, I asked if he would marry my wife and me. He agreed and after it was all said and done the people of the parish in Webster, SD didn’t want him to leave. His unique way of conveying history carried over into his new vocation where he knew how to relate religious teachings to a person so they would understand them best.

He and I were both baseball fans, him rooting for the Orioles and me, the hated Yankees. So, when I had a question about the order of things in the Catholic Church he related it to me in terms of baseball.

We were sitting at the clock in the Dakota Square Mall in Minot, a place you were almost always sure to run into him, and I asked him if he had to give up the Orioles for the Cardinals now that he was a priest. He laughed, and said, “Na..I don’t look good in red…black suits me better.”

Then I asked him if when he became Pope if I could be an elder altar boy in the Vatican. He figured Rome would be better off without a German North Dakotan at the helm.

Then we got to talking about the path from being a priest to becoming the Pope and like a good teacher he related it to me in a way he knew I would understand it. Obviously it worked because I still remember and I also remember that Joseph Stalin, Clement Attlee and Harry Truman were the big cheeses involved in the Potsdam Conference.

When I questioned Father Savelkoul about confession and asked if he and other priests compare notes he simply said, “In one ear and out the other…just like my history lessons.” He explained if he dwelled on everything his flock told him during confession he would end up in the loony bin preaching to the “fruit loops.”

Father Savelkoul passed away a few years back and I miss visiting with him and hearing his unique view of religion and the world in general.

So, to make a short story long, I apologize for offending anyone as that was not my intent. I’m sure Father Savelkoul would have got a kick out of the guff it brought me… he always liked to make people squirm a little.

So back away from the torches and pitchforks and I’ll leave the religious commentary in the Tribune to Ron Nelson while I handle less inflammatory subjects like lobbying to get March 17th changed to St. Mischief Day.

May your frown always be upside down and your laughter be heard throughout the town.

I have been pondering a theory of quasi-conspiracy that confession was devised by the Pope to spice up priests lives a little. You can’t sit around and read the Bible all day every day can you? A few hours here and there sure, that’s good for the soul, but too much of a good thing could be bad.

There are a lot of potentially life changing messages in the Bible, but wouldn’t you get desensitized to the majesty of it all if you over-indulged?

Priest muttering to himself as he reads the Bible, long sigh… “Here we go again, the Lord speaking eternal wisdom… a leper healed with only a touch…I can’t even get rid of a rash with a prescription…”

The Pope, having been a priest at one time, at least I think that’s how it was explained to me in catechism, hatched a plan. Spend a few years in the minors honing your skills with potlucks, bingo, and the occasional youth ski trip and if you don’t mess that up you might make Bishop and get bumped up to the AA club, where you get a nice new ring for people to kiss. Spend a few years there and eventually, if you look good in red, you reach the AAA – Cardinals.

There you bide your time coaching first or third base until the owner (God) decides He wants to shake things up a little and calls the head coach (Pope) up to the big house (Heaven) for some R and R (he’s dead). The assistant coach whacks the head coach on the melon with a silver hammer to make sure he’s not faking his R and R. If the head coach passes this test, by remaining dead, the Cardinals and Bishops have a slumber party and play truth or dare until white smoke billows out of the Vatican.

Now that the, “Was the Pope ever a Priest?” question has been answered, let us move on. The Pope is milling around the Vatican thinking back to his days in the minors, washing down bland food with watered down wine, the constant fear of contracting dandruff…. He decides that since he’s the Pope, he’s going to do something about it before he gets whacked with the above-mentioned silver hammer.

So, what’s he do? Confession. The priests aren’t supposed to be drunkards, murderers, cheaters, lovers, haters, and so forth and so on so why not have them lend an ear to the ‘ers’ and ‘ards’ type people. How can we get these people to share their unsavory activities with the last person on earth they would like to share them with besides their great grandmother? We’ll put a screen between you, so you can’t see each other blush.

You get to brag about your ‘ways’ for the price of a few Hail Mary’s and an Our Father. You feel cleansed the priest feels nauseous, everyone is happy. I have attempted to contact the Pope in regards to my theory but he has chosen to remain silent on the matter. In the world of conspiracy silence is proof of existence…along with denial.

Now all you non-Catholic kids know what they were teaching us in the basement of the church every Wednesday after school as we dined on scotcharoos and Kool-Aid. “They” being a couple moms, mine included, who were doing their best to give us a little direction in life.

My theory of quasi-conspiracy demonstrates there may have been a bit of a difference between what I was taught and what I learned but as the song goes, “Momma tried… Momma tried…”