Happy gloopin' Thanksgiving everybody, Ray especially!

Hey! That's my page!

56. In our house, work was a weapon, used as punishment, also to inspire guilt. You waited until I sat in a chair and read the funnies, then you charged in: "How can you sit with this mess all around you?" I looked down. One lonely sock on the floor, a Juicy Fruit wrapper on the table. You snatched them up, sighed as if your heart was broken, and stalked out. A great sigh, so loud it could be heard in the back of the balcony. You worked your fingers to the bone, and did anyone lift a finger to help? No, they didn't. When I lifted a finger, you told me it was the wrong finger and I was lifting it the wrong way. When I vacuumed, suddenly vacuuming became an exact science, a branch of physics, and I was doing it all wrong--you snatched the hose away and said, "Here, I might as well do it myself," which was what you intended all along.

57. You taught me that, no matter what I thought, it was probably wrong. The world is fundamentally deceptive. The better something looks, the more rotten it probably is down deep. Some people were fooled but not you. You could always see the underlying truth, and the truth was ugly. Roosevelt was a drunk and that was that. New Deal? What New Deal? A sham, from beginning to end. There was no Depression, a person could get work if they really tried. There was more to everything than anyone knew. This teaching has led me, against my better judgment, to suspect people of trying to put one over. At the checkout counter, I lean forward to catch the girl if she tries to finesse an extra ten cents on the peaches. That's how Higgledy-Piggledy makes a profit. That's why cashiers ring up the goods so fast, to confuse us.

58. Believing there is always more than meets the eye defeats the sense of sight. Always looking for hidden meanings, a person misses the lovely surface of the world, even in spring. Surely those green leaves are hiding bare branches. If you look hard enough, you will glimpse them: dark, malevolent, and a big trunk that if you ran into it hard enough, it would kill you.

59. Nonetheless you set store by a certain orderly look to things. Dinner was at noon, supper at five-thirty. This is so ingrained in me that I eat whether I'm hungry or not. I eat everything put before me. It is a sign that I am good.

60. Clean clothes made us respectable.

Cleanliness is next to gloopiness. (Weren't the gloops in Highlight Magazine?)

61. A clean house distinguished us from colored people.

Whatever archaic document your quoting from is, you should still use a different term like black americans, besides they're all gone now to Mars, I guess we get what we deserve in the end.

Hey, Rocky, Doug explains the source Garrison Keillor) in his intro, posted 08 November 2008 11:33 AM...

62. Bigotry is never a pleasant subject so you didn't bring it up but you stuck by your guns anyway. Indians were drunks, Jews were thieves, and the colored were shiftless. Where you got this, I don't know, because there were none of them around, but you believed it more absolutely for the utter lack of evidence. Everyone knew about those people. It was common sense.

63.-67. [Obliterated by beverage stain.]

68. Everything was set in place in your universe, and you knew what everything and everybody was, whether you had ever seen them or not. You could glance at strangers and size them up instantly. An article of clothing, a phrase from their lips, a look in their eye--you knew who they were, and you were seldom generous in your assessments. "She certainly thinks a lot of herself." "I'll bet that's not his wife." "If that man's not a crook, then today's not Sunday," you said one Sunday. It was something about the shape of his head. You could tell. They couldn't fool you. And now I do this myself. I adopted the mirror-reverse of your prejudices and I apply them viciously. I detest neat-looking people like myself and people who look industrious and respectable. I sneer at them as middle-class. In elections, I vote automatically against Scandinavian names.

69. In fact, you imbued me with the sensitivity of a goat. I say vicious things about old friends to people I barely know. I say vicious things to people's faces and then explain that I was kidding.
I am truly cavalier toward the suffering of innocent people, including that which I myself cause. The other day, I almost ran down an old man in a crosswalk. I hadn't seen him. My friend grabbed my arm and yelled and I slammed on the brakes. Rather than apologize to the man, I turned and explained to my friend that I hadn't seen him. And I hadn't. I didn't even see him after I stopped and he stood there dazed and terrified. I don't really see anybody.