4 February 2022

James:  I wish I would have remembered to bring my tape recorder.  I found a cassette tape where I recorded dad quoting his corruption of poetry.

Mac:  “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal … “

Ellen:  “And so let it be with Caesar.  For Caesar was a mighty man with large and sinewy hands…“

Tim:  “The children used to stand in the door just to hear the bellows roar.”

Mac:  That got Wes in trouble once  He was in a classroom, and the teacher asked if anyone knew the Gettysburg Address.  Wes raised his hand and gave his grandfather's version.

James:  He did that on purpose, didn't he?  That was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.  Such an opportunity only comes around once.  Nathan's English teacher asked if anyone could define the word “paradigm.”  Nathan raised his hand, and the teacher called on him.  Nathan said, “two dimes, twenty cents.”  The teacher said, “No, that's not right,” and went on, completely missing the well-timed pun, but Nathan was very pleased with himself for seizing the opportunity.

Mac:  I really got Jean one time.  Back when Jean was being a minister, Joyce and I decided that we wanted to hear her preach.  So we drove to Montana.  After the meeting everyone was having coffee over in the corner, and everything was all a-buzz.  I was talking to a fellow, and he said, “Have you met our pastor?”  “Oh, yeah,” I said.  “I lived with her for 18 years.”  A hush fell over the room, and everything went completely silent.  Jean broke the silence.  She said, “All right, little brother, if you don't shut up I'm going to take you down and sit on you.”

Ellen:  What's a paradigm anyway?

James:  I don't know, but I can spell it.

Tim:  You can!!?

James:  P-A-R-A-D-I-G-M.

Tim:  Well, here's what bothers me.  (Tim and Mac are engineers.  Tim walked over to Mac's couch and picked up a pillow with “Never question an engineer's judgement” embroidered on it).  Jake Myers put a bumper sticker on my pickup that says. “Trust me, I'm an engineer,” and he put it on crooked!  He did that on purpose because he's a contractor, and has a better eye than that!

James:  Well, here's what bothers me.  (Taking the pillow).  It drives me wild when people misspell things.  I might not question an engineer's judgment, but in this case I can question an engineer's ability to spell.  The word judgment should have the “e” dropped.

Mac:  I never noticed that.

Ellen:  Well, what bothers me are those big books on the shelf behind your chair.  If we had an earthquake they'd hit you right in the head.  (She got up and moved them).

James:  Speaking of shelves and earthquakes, Mac, didn't you say that when you worked in Washington D.C. that all of your coworkers always purchased that night's dinner on their way home from work?  You also said that when a big blizzard was forecast to hit the East Coast that all the grocery stores emptied, they locked up, and people were beating on the doors demanding to be let in.

Mac:  They sure did.  No one had any food at home.

Tim:  Didn't they do any cooking?

Mac:  There was another couple who started work there at the same time I did.  They got an apartment on the 12^th floor of a building.  Joyce and I were visiting them when the fire alarm went off.  It took 15 minutes for that building to empty, and some people didn't even bother to come out.  It turned out that the problem was just someone's smoke detector that went off when they were cooking.

Ellen:  In some of those big apartment buildings they tell you not to cook because that happens all the time.  They say you can cook if you have a balcony where you can barbecue in the open air, otherwise there's too much danger of setting off a fire alarm.

Mac:  My office was on the 12^th floor.  Whenever there was a fire they'd send seven emergency vehicles, including a fire engine and an ambulance.  I'd go to my window and look down on the street.  There'd be two lines of cars plugging the street, and the fire crew couldn't get through.  One car would steer up onto the sidewalk, and another would find a slot to fit into.  It was kind of comical looking down on that tangle from my vantage point.  It took forever for those emergency vehicles to get to the end of the block.

James:  Aren't you glad that we live here?  We go to see Nathan up at Bremerton.  I don't ever want to go into Seattle to take the ferry across the Sound, so we have to get on I-5 for eight miles and go down through Tacoma.  Those eight miles are always just stop and go traffic.  It's terrible.

Mac:  Joyce and I wanted to go to Canada once, and I-5 was like that all the way up from Portland.  We decided to spend the night in Olympia and leave early the next morning when the traffic was better.  That's what we did, but it was just the same all the way up.

James:  It's worse now.  We're blessed to be able to live where we do.  Aren't you glad Mom and Dad picked this place?

Mac:  Dad seriously considered buying a place across from Hot Lake in the Grande Ronde Valley.

James:  He also considered the Stockoff Place at the top of Ladd Canyon, and a place along the foothills outside La Grande near where the Waites live.

Tim:  Well, I'm glad they settled here.  Jean said that Dad said he chose this place because of “that mountain.”

Ellen:  Hunt Mountain.  I remember hearing that, too.