Remembering Papa and The Friday Night Fights

The wonders of You Tube!
by Charlie Leck

My old man was a great boxing fan. He taught me lots
about pugilism and I watched a lot of great fights with
him.

My old man, loved The Friday Night Fights. Unless you are my age, or older, you probably don’t know what I’m talking about. Let me explain.

First, a little digression. In the early sixties, I began reading Ernest Hemingway. Geez, what did I read first? I think it was, in my opinion, his greatest novel – The Old Man and the Sea. My, oh my, what a wonderful, perfectly splendid book this is! It turned me on to Hemingway and I began reading everything he wrote. He wasn’t the greatest guy in the world. He may rank as one of the champion chauvinists of all time; yet, he knew lots about a few things --- bull fighting, fishing, hunting, boxing, war, Africa, Europe and subservient women. I have a full collection of Hemingway’s works, in leather, and I get a wonderful sense of comfort when I look over at those books, as I am doing right now.

Hemingway was a tough guy! Rugged! Masculine! And, wow, how he loved pugilism. He wasn’t tough enough, however, to face his declining masculinity and poor health as he got older. He took the easy way out.

My old man was not a tough guy. He was not rugged. He wilted before my mother’s commanding voice. He avoided controversy like the plague; but, boy, he loved pugilism and he understood it like you just can’t believe – maybe as well as Hemingway. And he toughed out life in the toughest of times.

I don’t think he ever read The Old Man and the Sea. He really didn’t get much reading time. He would have loved it because he also loved fishing on the sea.

I was always interested in getting closer to my old man. He was so busy all day long and every day of the week tending the general store that provided our family with its living. By ten o’clock at night, however, everything was closed down, cleaned up and tallied. It was time for my dad to watch a little television. He stayed in the store and turned on the TV that hung behind one of the candy counters. It was quiet and peaceful and he’d watch a ballgame in the summertime or some kind of drivel in the winter – he didn’t like winter sports. But, on Friday nights, it was always The Friday Night Fights. That was kind of a rule of life around our house. Pop watched The Friday Night Fights. As youngster, I would sit there with him and enjoy watching him enjoy the boxing. He’d explain it all to me. He knew everything about pugilism.

He knew when a guy was tiring.

“His hands are dropping just a little bit,” he’d explain to me. “He’s gunna get in trouble.”

Sure enough, the fellow would start taking some nasty jabs to the face. He couldn’t get his fists up fast enough to deflect the blows. It was the beginning of the end.

Most boxing fans liked the heavyweights the best. My old man didn’t have much time for them. Very few of them were boxers. Joe Louis was the exception, until Ali came along. Most of them were brawlers and didn’t understand the art of pugilism. Pop liked the guys who could move on their feet and do some dancing – swaying and bobbing, as if to a nifty beat.

Sugar Ray Robinson was one of his favorites. Oh how I remember them! With my old man, I watched several wonderful fights that featured Sugar Ray. The old man would chatter all the way through them, pointing out little tricks that Sugar Ray was using, luring his opponent into making mistakes and then lashing those guys with those rocket fast fists he had. Snap! Snap! Snap! The opponent’s face would start to redden and the cheeks below his eyes began to rapidly swell. Then the blood spurted from the nose and the guy had trouble breathing and it was a sure sign the end of the fight was near.

They were great moments to share with the old man. I don’t have a lot of memories of close times with my father, but these Friday Night Fights allowed us to really be close.

I thought my pop was a wizard and a genius to be able to call all those fights and tell me just what was going to happen.

And now, in the wondrous twenty-first century, I’ve got You Tube and I can nearly relive those moments. I watched Sugar Ray win the Middle Weight Championship from Carmen Basilio last night and it was like I was right there, sitting up on the counter, with all the rows and rows of cigarette packs at my back and those giant showcases of candy bars out in front of me. My old man had pulled a chair from one of the luncheonette tables and he sat near me, with a can of beer in his hand.

Basilio’s face took such a pounding that he could barely see Robinson’s fists in the latter part of the fight.

These were the days when the ringside announcer didn’t say much – only a few explanations during the entire round.

“Watch the referee when he breaks these guys up,” the announcer shouted into his microphone.

“What, Pop? What did he mean?”

“He’s warning Basillio because he’s head-butting Sugar when they make their break. There, there! See? He just popped his head up under Sugar’s head.”

“Charles Henry!” It was my mother shouting at me from the living room, just one thin wall behind the store where we sat. “It’s past your bed time.”

“He’s all right,” my father would shout back. “It’s Friday night for heaven’s sake. Let him watch the fight.”

There was only silence from the other room and I knew my mother was stewing. She didn’t like my father to disagree with her. She’d have words for him later.

It was after eleven o’clock when the fight ended. Sugar Ray won, but it was a split decision between the three judges. That irked my old man. How could anyone call it for anyone other than Sugar Ray?

How many good fights I watched with him, sitting there near the chewing tobacco and cigars, getting the okay to snitch a Milky Way and taking the tiniest sip from his glass of beer!

Jake LaMotta was one of his favorites, too. How I remember the extraordinary fight in February of 1951! I would have been eleven. They were fighting for the sixth time. It was a ferocious fight for “the undisputed Middleweight Championship.” The fight ended in the 13^th round when the referee stopped it because of the inability of LaMotta to protect himself. LaMotta was furious and stormed around the ring, arguing with the referee. My old man loved LaMotta, but he agreed with the decision. The fight was depicted in the Martin Scorsese film Raging Bull, as were a number of the Robinson-LaMotta fights.

"I fought Sugar Ray so often,” LaMotta was quoted as saying, “I almost got diabetes!" Some of those fights were before we put a TV up there behind the candy counter, but I can remember sitting with my father, ears bent toward the big old radio in our living room, listening to the blow by blow descriptions of the fights. A few times my old man went into the city to see some of those fights with my Grandpa Svejda. Pop would get back home very late and, the next morning, he would give me the round by round details.

Boxing was really different in those days. Robinson fought 16 times in 1950. That’s more than once a month. I guess they had to. They didn’t have those mega-million dollar guarantees in those days. And, my old man would always warn me that a lot of fights were fixed. The Mafia was very involved in the sport and they wanted the fight to go whichever way they could make the most gambling money on it. Often, my old man explained, the fighters didn’t know until the very last minute, just before they went into the ring, that they were supposed to take a dive. The story goes that Sugar Ray wouldn’t go along with the Mafia and he defied them throughout his career. My old man didn’t believe it. He thought he saw Sugar Ray throw a fight or two.

“Watch this Kid Gavilan,” my old man would holler at me, and he’d stand up and imitate Kid’s incredible bolo punch, swinging his arm in a wide arching circle that ended with an uppercut blow coming up beneath the opponent’s chin.

“Watch for that bolo punch,” he’d command me. “It’s just something else.”

Sure enough! There it was. Kid Gavilan staggered the guy and then descended on him, to finish him off.

The Friday Night Fights with my old man! I thought those times were gone forever. Now, here they are again, right in front of me on this spectacular display. And the old man is next to me, telling me what to watch for.

Read about these Two Heavyweights

Here's a hot tip for you.
by Charlie Leck

Go to the New York Times and read this exceptional story about Norman Mailer and William F. Buckley. It's a good account of their rivalry and the different compass directions from which they approached their extraordinary intellectualism. Sam Tanenhaus wrote the piece about these two late and great Americans. Tanenhaus is a good writer. He is currently working on a Buckley biography.

Ribbons and Medals Galore and plenty More

In his column this morning, Garrison Keillor, lists the gifts of grace: "faith, hope, love and a sense of humor." Then he goes on to say: "The harder you strive for a gift, the more it eludes you..." It seems to me that he is telling us to just be patient and considerate. Don't rush! Don't be pushy! It doesn't matter where you are in line, grace will seek you out.

"There is grace afoot in this world and it will find you!"

I’ve been reading some blogs for you. Let me summarize a few and provide the links in case you want to read more.

I’m a regular reader of Dick Cavett’s blog, Talk Show. He has that subtle and dry sense of humor that really breaks me up. However, in his latest blog he wasn’t being funny when he closed with this explanation of why the four-star general (Petraeus) and the ambassador to Iraq (Crocker), who testified before Congress this week, were so befuddling in their explanations.

“Could it be he is being overtaken by the thought that an honorable career has been besmirched by his obediently doing the dirty work of the tinpot Genghis Khan of Crawford, Texas? The one whose foolish military misadventure seems to increasingly resemble that of Gen. George “Armstrong Custer at Little Bighorn? 

“Not an apt comparison, I admit.

“Custer sent only 258 soldiers to their deaths.”

Cavett, like most of us, is now reaching the end of his patience for this stupid war.

During the hearings, I was struck by a comment of a Republican, Senator George Voinovich of Ohio:

“The truth of the matter is that we haven’t sacrificed one darn bit in this war, not one. Never been asked to pay for a dime, except for the people that we lost.”

That’s the truth of the matter. Of course, he’s talking about the American taxpayer. On the other hand, although we haven’t been asked, we’re paying plenty when you look at the 3 trillion dollar price tag on this war.

I think I know how to end this war. Just enact and pass a bill to reestablish the draft. With that law in place, the war will end very, very quickly.

Blake Hounshell writes the following on Andrew Sullivan’s blog:

“Few Americans would support spending $12 billion a month in Iraq if they understood that they were buying, at best, another Nigeria, and at worst, Somalia with oil.” [click here to read it all]

Barack Obama appears to have had a slip of the tongue and he’s trying to dig his way out of it. Is it a candidacy breaker? I’ve not found any opinion writer or first-class blogger who has built a good case for it. We’ll just have to see how much leg this gaffe has got. Here’s the NY Times story about Obama’s attempt to patch up the hole he made in his campaign. Here’s a bunch of reaction from voters and pundits.

This is a juicy one from Chris Suellentrop at the Opinionator Blog

WAR CRIMES INVESTIGATION AHEAD? [April 10, 2008] Reacting to an ABC News report that “Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft… discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency,” The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder says, “it remains one of those hidden secrets in Washington that a Democratic Justice Department is going to be very interested in figuring out whether there’s a case to be made that senior Bush Administration officials were guilty of war crimes.”

Have you noticed the way Colin Powell seems to be reemerging on this war issue and speaking softly about the insanity and irrationality of it?

Let's change the flavor of this blog and mix in something lighter.

Great blogs if you love to cook…
Have you found the cooking videos of Mark Bittman at the NY Times. I’m doing most of the cooking around our place and I’m trying to get better and more creative. Mark Bittman has given me a huge shot of energy and hope. I love his videos and follow them often. If you like to cook and you haven’t watched “the Minimalist” in action, go to his videos and start with the one showing how to do stir fried shrimp and fermented black beans. Fabulous!

Then, of course, there is Epicurious
The nice thing about this web site is that they not only give you recipes, but they also give you careful preparation and serving instructions. Terrific place to go for recipes!

Shepherds Pie
I did a shepherd’s pie last week that was an absolute knock out. I’ve never seen my wife eat so enthusiastically. It was a recipe by Gordon Ramsay, a British Chef of great acclaim. He's supposed to be quite a jerk personally, but the man can cook.

You horse people out there might want to watch this video of Patches. It reminds me a lot of our friend, Dick Ledstrom, and his horse, Ooofda, who could do many of the things Patches does in this video. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHcUTNre2oI]. Dick Ledstrom is not doing well and his friends out here sure miss seeing him and that massive smile and the mysterious twinkle in his eyes.

Local Restaurant Review: We dined with some friends last evening at Pittsburgh Blue, a new restaurant here in the Twin Cities. It’s one of those places that basically serves monstrously large pieces of steak with side dishes that serve the entire table. My feeling is that it’s okay to eat in one of them about once every year or two, just to keep reminding one’s self that they’re around. The whole approach is really no different than Morton’s, or Ruth Chris, or Manny’s. I had the porterhouse steak special, which was a 24 ounce hunk of nicely aged meat cooked precisely as I asked for it. We brought nearly half of it home for munching on later today – perhaps while we watch the Masters golf tournament on TV. The joint, I will say, made a great martini. A friend, with whom we were dining, opined that a martini is a martini and anyone can make them. How come, then, I get so many really bad martinis? The place was very crowded, but not as noisy as a lot of the new restaurants that are being designed today. That was a relief. We were actually able to have a conversation. I thought the restaurant’s biggest weakness was that it was way out in the suburbs, stuck in one of those gigantic, spread out, drive-up to each store, shopping malls. It’s a lousy setting. There’s nothing like walking along an interesting downtown street to get to your restaurant (that may be the old man in me). The place was jam-packed, however, so a lot of people don’t agree with me. I’ll add one word of significant praise. We had a 7:30 reservation. When we walked in the door, and saw the crowd, we were sure we’d have a long wait in spite of the advance notice. Wrong! We were comfortably seated at 7:29.

If you’ve got the guts, you might want to take a look Jesus’ General, a blogger who hates liberals but is very deft with satire and makes me laugh. This blog might be a little too hard core for the timid and it may be pretty offensive.

Time to get serious with the Sunday newspapers, so I’ll close this out right here.

First Request Gets It

Peter Bergen's Book, Holy War, is yours, absolutely free, if you're the first to ask

David Hanson, a blogging friend from Oakland, CA, was the first to ask for the book and it is on it's way to him!

Let's try something new this morning, just for fun.

In August of 2001, Peter Bergen, accomplished and award winning journalist, turned in a manuscript to his publisher that explored the links between the 1993 bombing of the world trade center and the CIA-funded rebels who were fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. As part of his research, he had interviewed Osama bin Laden. 

Bergen's plan was to take several months editing and sharpening the book before its final publication. Then came 9-11 and the plans for Bergen's book changed. A whole team of editors and writers went to work on it and it was out only weeks after the destruction of the World Trade Towers.

It is a very good work. It's yours if you're the first to ask for it. I'll ship it free anywhere in the world so you can read it. The first person to request it gets it. Either send me an email, if you know my email, or leave me a comment with some way I can contact you. If I already know your email address, don't bother leaving any further information beyond your name.  

If you are the first to request the book, I'll request your shipping address and get it promptly delivered.

Bergen, Peter: Holy War Inc: Inside the secret world of Osama bin Laden [Free Press, New York, 2001] This once-read book is in very good condition.

In Case You Missed It

Sometimes the comments that come in are the best thing about blogging
by Charlie Leck

One of the things I like most about blogging are other bloggers. I enjoy commenting on their blogs, and beginning a dialog with them, and I enjoy it when they leave comments on my blog. One blogger I’ve really gotten to enjoy is David Williamson. His blog is called Van Peebles Land –the Shambolic Postings of an Irishman in Wales.

On a day when your mind is sharp and ready for it, do go to David’s blog and try it on for size. More than likely, you’ll be making many return visits.

David recently left a comment on my blog about Bobby Kennedy’s extraordinary speech in Indianapolis on the April night in 1968, during which he announced to those crowded around him that Martin Luther King had been shot and killed. This is what David wrote:

“The very idea of a contemporary politician even trying to quote Aeschylus is so extraordinary that it gives us yet another reason to mourn the passing/slaying of men like Bobby K. I think Eugene McCarthy opposed the Vietnam War because of the precedent set by the Greeks' Punic Wars. The amazing thing about classical civilisation is the extent to which it provides counsel against venality and impetuosity in foreign policy that we neglect at our peril. The whole question of NATO enlargement should be discussed against the backdrop of Athens's experiences with the Delian League. There are few roads in this world that someone hasn't already trod, so it doesn't hurt to study their fates."
April 11, 2008 4:25 AM

Doesn’t that make you want to read those Shambolic Postings?

I’ve also been getting a lot of comments from anonymous readers. I’ve decided not to post any anonymous comments because they’re usually very crude and not well thought out. It’s easy to talk tough when one doesn’t leave one’s name. I take comments very seriously and respond to those who have the guts to leave their names.

I saw a cartoon somewhere not too long ago that portrayed two dogs, sitting on their hind-quarters and chatting. One dog was saying, very seriously, to the other (and I need to paraphrase here): “I blogged for a while, but I decided to go back to meaningless, incessant barking!”

END

Here's What's Blowing My Mind

Are the neo-cons and John McCain blind, or crazy, or stupid, or what?
by Charlie Leck

Andrew Sullivan on his blog, The Daily Dish, (9 April 2008) speaks to this question of mine in a very succinct manner. The blog is only one short paragraph in length, so go and read it.

How can the neo-cons remain so complacent about America’s present condition and the incredibly uncomfortable position we are in this world? How? Are they deaf? Blind?

Don’t they realize the bind we are in over there in Iraq? I want to scream at them. They've gotten us involved in a situation that requires we disentangle ourselves very slowly and deliberately. We can’t just flee Iraq and I think Clinton and Obama both really know it. Yet, the game plan that General Patraeus has laid out for our congress, though wise and patient, is going to cost us trillions of dollars. And, my dear conservative friends, who are supposed to hate credit card debt so much, we are living on incredible high interest debt and the economy is going to hell in a hand-basket more quickly than any of us can understand.

How can they be so complacent? Our position in the eyes of the rest of the world is gruesome. Our position “economically, diplomatically, militarily” are all awful. [Andrew Sullivan]

This, this terrible situation, is what Rove, Rumsfeld, Chaney, Bush and the radically fundamental Christian Church have given us.

Do they actually want more? They talk and act like they do.

Listen to John McCain carefully. Please, listen to him very carefully. He doesn’t understand our nation’s desperate position. He does not understand the cultural and religious system in Iraq. He's misspoken a number of times on this subject – confusing Sunnis and Shiites – and handlers, including Joe Lieberman have needed to step forward to correct him. It might be a matter of age, but I don’t think so. I think he just plain doesn’t get it and he doesn’t care very much.

Howard Dean put it this way in an email to me a couple of days ago:

“At least five times as a candidate John McCain has stated that Iran (a Shiite nation) is supporting Al-Qaeda (a Sunni group) in Iraq. This is not some minor mistake, but a significant gaffe. He clearly does not understand the sensitive political dynamics in that region of the world.” [Newsmax]

In a front page article and accompanying editorial in 1999, when John McCain’s star began to rise as a candidate for the GOP nomination for President, the Arizona Republic ran a front page story, telling its readers that the paper wanted the public to know about the Senator’s volcanic temper.

"If McCain is truly a serious contender for the presidency, it is time the rest of the nation learned about the John McCain we know in Arizona. There is also reason to seriously question whether he has the temperament, and the political approach and skills, we want in the next president of the United States."
[Read this Washington Post story about the revelation in the Arizona Republic]

McCain’s response and deflection of this criticism has always been that he is a tough fighter and always will be. As I read some of the accounts of his temper I see a man who could really be dangerous in office. We’ve had enough of that.

The more I carefully listen to John McCain the more convinced I am that he would be as bad for America as was George W. Bush. You all really understand just how stupid George Bush really is. It’s a terrible thing to say about one’s President, but it is the absolute truth. We don’t need more stupidity in that office – and John McCain is showing some signs of such stupidity.

You are going to be reading about more and more of these McCain gaffes and “misspeaks.” You are also going to be reading about his horrendous temper and the way he shoots his mouth off when he gets angry.

A former colleague in the Senate, the New Hampshire Republican, Bob Smith, said what many people know of John McCain:

"I have witnessed incidents where he has used profanity at colleagues and exploded at colleagues . . . He would disagree about something and then explode. It was incidents of irrational behavior. We've all had incidents where we have gotten angry, but I've never seen anyone act like that."

Salon.com republished another 1999 story from the Washington Post about McCain’s furious temper. The story included the following:

“But McCain's a Rorshach test; you see in him what you want to see. To his Republican opponents in the House and Senate, he's a hot-headed, grandstanding opportunist, while his Democratic foes see him as an ultra right-wing wolf hiding beneath the pelt of a charismatic sheep. To his first wife, he was a philanderer; to veterans he is the exemplar of the American fighting man.”

In 1998, John McCain publically told such an awful joke about Attorney General Janet Reno and Chelsea Clinton that the newspapers wouldn’t even write about it. A few papers referred to it, but indicated taste wouldn’t allow them to put it into print. He made the comment at a Republic fund raiser and probably thought it would never leave the room. If you can handle really bad taste, read it here!

A new book, The Real McCain, by Cliff Schecter, just released, will tell even more gruesome tales about McCain’s frightening temper and his vile mouth. Some of those accounts will make the above joke sound like child’s play. Schecter was asked why he wrote a book with so many tales about McCain’s seismic eruptions:

"The public certainly has to know what this guy might do as president…"

Why has so little of this been reported over the decades? It’s because John McCain has been a media darling. He’s been protected and many of his gaffes have been covered up. Now, however, they’re coming to the surface and thinking people have got to give weight and consideration to them. Media Matters is one of the most important web sites in America because it keeps the Media honest and on its toes. You can read a very revelatory account there about McCain’s long and close relationship with reporters.

The neo-con system really doesn’t care much who is in the White House – just so they can control him and can be assured he will speak the company line. They then work him like a marionette and you can see evidence of such manipulation in the activities of John McCain over the last couple of weeks.

We can’t let it happen! Under no circumstance can we stand by and watch the election of John McCain. Progressive, intelligent Americans must be involved more deeply than they ever have before.

If you need convincing, just listen to John McCain carefully and you will understand that he is oblivious to the situation in which America is mired today.

I’ve never really gotten involved in a presidential campaign before; however, this year I am going to work my little tootsies off. I’m going to give money! I’ll make phone calls and write letters. I urge you to commit yourselves to do the same. For the sake of the country, stop the blind stupidity of the neo-cons.

To the Stars

Enough people suggested I rename and update the design of  my blog, that I finally just did it!
by Charlie Leck

"What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?"
Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

I have been blogging here, at this site, for exactly one year now. In that time I've faithfully pounded out a lot of well-meant and sincere words and thoughts. There are well over 150 blogs archived here and several dozen more were written on a former site and were not transfered to this spot.

So many of my readers – mostly neighbors, family and friends from around the country – suggested I give my blog a more distinguished name and a more contemporary look, that I just went ahead and did it. This current look is the result of extensive market tests by a distinguished New York consultant and is the work of a Chicago design firm – JUST KIDDING!

The idea is all mine. Ad Astra is Latin for “to the stars!” It is my ultimate destination and it seems the ship of life, piloted by Kilgore Trout, is right now moving at extraordinary speed toward the outer edges of the universe and then we’ll be released to go beyond. These blogs are my musings – my reminiscences, rants and raves – as this journey proceeds toward its ultimate destination.

I’ve explained here previously, these are for the record – a record by which my grandchildren and their grandchildren may know their old and odd grandpa. If others get some enjoyment from these along the way, or find them informative and interesting, so much the better.

I want to make sure I leave a rather crucial message for my grandchildren. It came first from the mouth of Elliot Rosewater and the pen of Kurt Vonnegut. Rosewater, one of Vonnegut’s glorious fictional characters, and certainly not a cleric, was asked to baptize two babies. He objected, saying that he couldn’t, wouldn’t, and didn’t have the right. The mother pleaded with him and he relented. Rosewater’s wife was aghast when he told her; and she asked him what he said. His reply is my message for my grandchildren:

“'Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies – God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”
[Vonnegut, Kurt: God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater]

I’m pleased that several hundred people come here from time to time to read these ramblings. I’m even more pleased that I’ve made so many good friends among the blogging community. There are so many good amateur bloggers out there that it astounds me. When I read some of their excellent writing, it gives me hope that we might indeed be moving toward a more decent and rational world where kindness, justice and peace will rule the day. It will not happen in my lifetime; however, from out among the stars I will be paying attention and will rejoice when the world decides to turn away from madness and toward hope. My constant prayer is that my grandchildren will know a world devoted to kindness.

END

About Kurt Vonnegut
One of my daughters teaches English at the college level. She is quite astounded, I think, when I list Vonnegut as one of my favorite writers. As Vonnegut, himself, might have said: “So be it!” Of course, I read Slaughterhouse Five first and that hooked me. I simply waited for everything else to come out after that and grabbed hold. I’ve read all his published work since then, except for a work that was recently posthumously published. I’ll pick that up one of these days, too. Vonnegut got very experimental with some of his later works and the quality of his writing (or story-telling) fell off. Nevertheless, I just kept right on reading.

I have a first edition copy of each of Vonnegut’s books and that is a very important corner of my library.

Another of my daughters is teaching English at the junior high school level. I have a feeling that she’s never read Vonnegut. Too bad! I think any high school kid would love to meet Elliot Rosewater and Kilgore Trout. My goodness, they are two of the great characters of fiction. I actually get the shivers whenever I think about those two guys.

I think I would assign my junior high schoolers the pleasurable assignment of reading Breakfast of Champions and God Bless You Mr. Rosewater. My they were fun stories.

I remember how Gilgore Trout, an outstanding science fiction writer, thought mirrors allowed us to look into another universe that was an exact duplicate of our own. He thought mirrors leaked out information about that simultaneous universe and so he called mirrors that – “leaks.” If he was having a beer with some guy and that fellow said he was going to take a leak, Trout thought he was going to steal a mirror.

Oh well, you had to be there!