La Boheme

Y'all probably remember me telling y'all I am a big opera fan. Peoples around here find that hard to believe for some reason. I reckon they thinks only peoples what has been well educated and lives a high live style likes opera music. Like I said earlier, my daddy had opera records what he played when I was growing up. He took up listening while he were living with this Italian family in New Orleans. One of my favorite operas are called La Boheme. It's about this Paris man and woman what falls in love, but has a hard time getting along. They break up and get back together all the time. When they finally gets back together, at the end, it turns out she have come down with TB and is at death's door. She dies. We got a couple right here in Harper what is like these two opera peoples. They is constantly leaving one another and coming back together. But there are two differences: she don't have TB and, as far as I know, there ain't no singing.

Sharp Colors

Cletus, the guy what I were watching football with, is in love with bright colors, or what he calls sharp colors. As soon as he gets home with a new car or truck he commences to start painting it. He's got all the spraying equipment and stuff. The car he come over in were painted a bright, or sharp, yellow. His truck are green as a much-watered yard. Even his wife car are painted Pepto-Bismol pink. And she ain't working for that company what sells ladies face paint and gives peoples pink Cadillacs. He says it's so he won't have to search for his car in parking lots, but I know that ain't right cause he don't drive to no parking lots that big anyway. And he dresses the same way: yellow, red, bright blue and green sport coats with bright pants what may or may not match. Considering his politics and other view points, I reckon them colors are the only way he can claim to be bright, or sharp for that matter.

Football in the South

Cletus Wilbanks come over to watch football with me on my big wide screen TV what Hollis talked me in to getting. Dorothy made some good barbecue and of course had a selection of snacks and stuff for us to get fat on. The team we was pulling for got way ahead so me and Cletus commenced to talk about all kind of things. One of the things we was discussing were about why football are such a big deal in the south. They almost always fill up these big stadiums and they have celebrations before the game with what they calls tail gate parties outside the stadium. And after the game they has parties at the houses of peoples what they know. Well, me and Cletus was giving our ideas about just why football are so big. I said it were pastures. Years ago we had a lot of pastures what give peoples plenty of room to get out and run. It warn't too long till they was trying to add a game to the running and football were just the thing. Cletus said that may be right but he believed it were the cheerleaders what made it so good. I reckon he may be right.

Learning at the Liberry

My job at the liberry are going pretty good. I'm learning stuff real fast. Like yesterday a woman come in and asked me where she could find a book wrote by somebody name of Evelyn Waugh. I told her her books was listed under the "W's" on the far back shelf. The woman laughed and said Evelyn warn't no woman; she, I mean he, were a man. I thought about that a lot since, about how hard it would be to go around with a woman's name if you was a man. I mean if my folks had named me Mildred or Grace, I don't know what would have become of me. And about a hour later a man come in and asked me if we had a book called A Separate Piece. I figured he were looking for a ponygraphical book and I told him we didn't carry no books like that. Myrtle Picket, the head liberry person, come up and taken over. She went right to the shelves and come back with the book. She showed me it warn't A Separate Piece a'tall   but was named A Separate Peace. Like I says I'm learning a lot down at the liberry.

Black Dogs (Hollis)

Black Dogs by Ian McEwen
Fall of Berlin Wall, fall of inlaws' marriage, pseudo-memoir, post WWII honeymoon, together in communism, rejection of communism, black dogs of the gestapo, dolmen, epiphany, Christianity, estrangement, France, England, Majdanek concentration camp, black dogs of world contention.
Anything Ian McEwen writes is worth reading.

Suppository Story

Harper, I don't reckon, are no different than most places. We got what I like to call hard peoples and soft peoples. One of the hard peoples around here are an old doctor what has been in business for more than fifty year. And one of the soft peoples is a new, young druggist what just finished school last year. Seems like the doctor's old aunt had a problem doing a number two and the doctor wrote out a subscription for what they calls a suppository for her. She taken it in to the drug store where this young druggist was working. I overheard him taking to the owner of the store. He were real ruffled and said, "There is no way I am going to type the word 'shove' and 'butt' on one of my labels."The owner agreed and suggested using the words 'insert' and 'rectum' instead. I reckon the owner are right in the middle between hard and soft.

County Fair

Me and Dorothy went down to see the county fair last week. We just walked around and looked at things. They had a few exhibits and one of 'em kinda upset me a little bit. It were the animal part where young'ens could bring in calves, sheeps, poultry and others from their farms. What made me a little fumey were how they labeled them animals. Somebody got the bright idea of calling the males boys and the females girls. Now I reckon that's right to some degree, but I really don't think it's very teaching to have our young peoples calling them boy-chickens and girl-chickens. But I got over it. Back when me and Dorothy was young we both rode all the rides they had available. We never rode together since Dorothy are younger than me, but we rode 'em separate in our own time. Now, all we was willing to go up in were the ferris wheel. And that were a little too exciting for Dorothy. She had me signal the man what held the stop and go lever and get him to stop and let us off after only two rounds.