THIS 'N' THAT

I just finished reading a nicely written novel, “Happy Now?” by Katherine Shonk. According to the jacket cover, the author “explores both the possibilities and the limitations of human relationships.” A suicide is what forces the exploration. But this is one of those books that after finishing the last page you wonder where the ending is? Have they hidden it somewhere that you missed? And then you realize it’s a Marshall McLuhan kind of thing, where the medium is the message. I’m very ambivalent about this kind of story. Without a “wrap up” given to me, it keeps me thinking long after I put the book down. Which I’m sure is what the author wants me to do.

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A note in the newspaper today said a cattle truck full of calves overturned on a local freeway yesterday in Redlands, causing the deaths of 70 little animals. I wish I hadn’t read that; more than that, I wish it hadn’t happened. But in the scheme of things it wasn’t as bad as the two ships colliding in the Bosphorus when we lived in Istanbul and some twenty-thousand sheep drowning. When our driver told us about this horrible event, he called them cows – which was just a mis-recollected word on his part and we didn’t realize it. We didn’t watch Turkish TV, so it was a big surprise the next day when an American friend living nearby who spoke Turkish asked us if we heard about the boats full of twenty-five thousand sheep colliding. At first we thought there had been two separate accidents – until we realized that it was unlikely that almost 50,000 animals drowned in the Bosphorus the previous day!

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I read that our fine California State Assembly has legalized a process called alkaline hydrolysis (using water, heat and an alkaline solution) to be used as an alternative to cremation. It is called “bio-cremation” and speeds up the decomposition process. I suppose it is the ultimate “Go Green” for those who want to practice what they preach. I say “Gross!”

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Also an article is headlined “Neanderthals and Humans Mated: A DNA study of ancient bones shows interbreeding about 80,000 years ago.” The way I see it, the practice is still going strong!

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While I have reluctantly accepted the fact that “bust” and “busted” is an acceptable synonym for “break,” and has been since at least 1975, which is the publishing date of my trusty old “Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary,” I can’t bring myself to like it, and certainly not to use it. Mrs. Peterson, my 6th grade teacher back in 1946-47 one day corrected Tommy Graves in front of the class after he said something “busted” by saying, “Tommy, the correct word is ‘broken.’ A BUST is the BREAST of a woman.” I was totally mortified at her language, since my family required euphemisms for all body parts. Mrs. Peterson’s pronouncement is seared into my brain, and this morning when our local NBC anchorperson said in front of God and everybody watching TV, “the Louisiana oil well that busted…” I just about had a stroke of apoplexy, Webster notwithstanding.

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That’s it for today, folks.