Back in the early thirties when I was a little snot nosed kid about seven or eight my brother Jack, about eight years oldern me was cookin flapjacks for breakfast because my mom was sick and she told him to. That was enough to piss him off just because of his natural instincts but it was a summer mornin in August and hottern a three dollar pistol and the flies was thick and buzzin around him and the griddle on the old cast iron wood stove was smokin hot and burnin the flapjacks and things just weren't goin his way a-tall.

It all come to a head when a specially dirty-lookin big old black barn fly power-dived into a puddle of fresh batter on the griddle in a desperate effort to evade the homemade fly swatter that Jack was waving in the air over the stove, attemptin to protect his culinary achievements from endin up lookin like over done raisin toast. It was the straw that broke the camel's back and he flipped. He began viciously beating the air in a frenzy that would have been a credit to a dervish, except it wasn't done as any display of ecstatic devotion.

Commercial Break: In following this and several other recent threads, I am struck by the parallel that they describe to my brother's childish tantrum of seventy years ago. At the risk of becoming a presumptuous and meddling 'NEWBIE' to this environment may I say that I think several of you would profit in your social graces by having received a 1930's education in civilized behavior.

I mention all this as a very new frequenter of these premises who had the good fortune to join up at a time of peace and tranquility just prior to the heated debate of which this thread is part. Two, three months ago? I was looking for musical information at that time and found several of you eager and willing to help and do everything a good friend could do. I was so impressed, I gladly became a member at the suggestion of Mr. Offer so I could participate in the pleasant exchange that was ongoing at the time. I assumed a nom de plume (as seemed to be indicated by the enrollment instructions) and posted exclusively under it, (when in Rome, do as the Romans....?) at times including my real name if I thought I should, for reasons that legislated against using the cloak of anonymity.

And now back to the conclusion of our story:

As you will recall, Jack, when last seen, was swinging wildly at a horde of hot cake crazed barn flies (the real shitty kind.) In swingin that big old clumsy flyswatter around through space, he managed to catch a china platter from the dish cupboard that was an anniversary gift to Mom from "the old man." (Twentieth=China?) and sent it to eternity against the cast iron leg of that old ranch house stove. Needless to say, Jack got the crap knocked outa him when the "old man" found out. That was before the enlightened days of child rearing, when the point of razor strop discipline was to achieve civilized behavior and foster enduring relationships.

Spud (George MacClanahan)