Untitled Fiction Piece

Well, we come to Friday at last. I changed my mind on what to post at the last minute and so you end up with this, the ubiquitous "Untitled Fiction Piece." I can't tell you how many of those I have floating around my file cabinets.

This particular one is one of my longest ongoing projects. By longest I mean its been around for nearly five years now. This is its latest incarnation, following closely to the original idea but hopefully with better embellishments. I do apologize that its only a small thing at the moment. You have to let these thing ferment a bit before you go full blast.

As a side note, the quote from Saint Augustine's Confessions can be found at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions.xiv.html. If you haven't read at least a small portion of this master work, I do suggest you try it out. Especially, read it aloud. The beauty of it is unparalleled in any other work of heavenly adoration.


The Roman departure from Britain was complete by the year 410 AD. They left behind them a country without protection or government; a country just waiting for someone to lead it or destroy it. For a brief period between 410 and the coming of the Anglo-Saxons, there was a kingdom that exemplified the virtues of liberty, equality, peace and government. This kingdom, now existing only in the myths and legends of the British Isles, is that of King Arthur, the noblest man, the greatest the world has ever known.

Our story begins after Arthur became king of Britain and was married to the lady Guinevere. As of yet there are no knights, there is no Round Table, and Lancelot has never been heard of before. But there has been peace for nearly three years now, a peace everyone hopes will last and no one really believes will.

1

Arthur had been reading the Confessions of Augustine of Hippo in his quarters all morning. He was a devoutly Christian man whose greatest delight was to study his religion. In this Augustine’s book, he found himself both convicted of his own sins and convinced once again of the goodness and glory of God. His eyes were very bright as he read, “Consequently, we lay bare our feelings before Thee, that, through our confessing to Thee our plight and Thy mercies toward us, Thou mayest go on to free us altogether, as Thou hast already begun; and that we may cease to be wretched in ourselves and blessed in Thee - since Thou hast called us to be poor in spirit, meek, mourners, hungering and athirst for righteousness, merciful and pure in heart.” He was halfway through the next sentence when Joles, the steward of Arthur’s house, came into the room, waiting a respectful distance away as he finished reading.
With a sigh, Arthur put the book away and said, “What is it now, Joles?”
“I’m sorry to disturb you on a Sunday, sire” replied the steward, taking a few steps forward, “but Father Paulus came to see me not long ago with a complaint about your foster son, Cador.” Arthur closed his eyes long-sufferingly. “It seems he is outside the wall, gambling again with his comrades.”
The king stood and cast about for his cloak. “He’s been told not to gamble on the Lord’s Day,” he growled, unable to find his cloak. “Its not that I personally care about his habits of leisure, you understand, but Father Paulus has the odious task of educating him in Christianity. I would avoid having to listen to him complain as much as possible.”
Joles took up the cloak from a nearby chair. “I understand, sir,” he agreed. “The lad is stubborn, I’m afraid.”
“The unfortunate influence of his mother.” Arthur took the cloak and belted on his sword. “Well, where is Guinevere?”
“In the stables,” said Joles helpfully. He could always be counted on to know the whereabouts of those who belonged to the house. In that way, as well as in many others, he was a most effective steward.
“Thank you,” said Arthur heading out. “Oh, and, Joles,” he said over his shoulder, “thanks for taking care of Father Paulus earlier.”
Joles chuckled. “You’re welcome, sire.”

I just blogged to say, I love dogs!

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have for your amusement a picture of me blogging in Belmont, not a natural habitat but a favored habitat nonetheless. This is where I come to rest my weary self when my weary self no longer wants to be at home. Pictured with me are three visible furry friends who, in this picture, are helping me review a blog post. From left to right, and with the comments they were giving to me at the time:

The ol' man at the top of the recliner - Willoughby, affectionately known as "Woodjams, rhymes with toe-jams, with his little old man eyebrows." He says, "Its fine, Lydia, because I was sitting on your head when you wrote it, and my schmootzie always helps you think better."

The little girl under my arm (her favorite spot, by the way) is Lady Bug, aka. Bug am Lug. OR Lardass. She says, "Who cares? I certainly don't care because I stole two of your socks earlier and you will never find them."

The perky little princess who is so enjoying her photo-op is Penelope. We call her Poo-Poos and I have no idea why. It might come from the fact that she likes to suffocate you by laying her ear on your mouth and she goes crazy when you whisper "poo poos" in her ear. Its a possibility... Penny says, "Someone has a camera! I am a camera slut. I am only happy when that Camera is focused on me. How does my hair look?"

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the secret to my artistic success - the help of good friends.

Note: Thank you to the wonderful Carol of I.A.C. fame for taking the picture, for feeding me all this month and letting me crash on her couch. Love you lots!

The Amazing Potato Chip

Have you ever noticed how one small idea can create an avalanche? For instance, the famous potato chip. Remember, you can't have just one. That's the Lay's Potato Chip motto and it is undeniably true. So, as I sit here in my comfy recliner, snacking on the entire bag of potato chips, here is the story of one little idea that created an avalanche.

Thomas Jefferson, to Whom We Owe So Much

Our third president, Thomas Jefferson, was an undeniably great man. He wrote the Declaration of Independence after all (with a little bit of help from some other famour founding fathers), a document which has stood the test of time and the treatment of Hollywood (*hack* National Treasure *cough*). What not a great many people know about him, however, is the extent of his involvement in the creation of the equally famous potato chip.

Jefferson was a minister to France between 1785 and 1789. Whatever else he did there, much to the advancement of the cause of liberty, Jefferson discovered a fantastic dish which he described in this way "Pommes de terre frites à cru, en petites tranches." Translation: Potatoes deep-fried while raw, in small cuttings. Ta-Da! French Fries!

When Jefferson returned to America from France, he brought the recipe for these deep-fried potato cuttings with him. French fries were a hit with Americans, who as we know love anything novel, and by the next century they were everywhere. Thank you, Mr. President.

Ultimate Revenge?

In the 1800s, french fries were considered classy enough to be part of many elegant restaraunts' menu. One such restaraunt was the Moon Lake Lodge in Saratoga Springs, New York. Here, in the kitchen, George Speck, who often called himself George Crum, was working as a chef. He knew how to make french fries, of course, so he probably thought nothing of it one day as he sent an order of french fries out to be devoured by one of the restaraunt patrons.

The patron sent the fries back.

The fries, according to the guest, were too thick. Crum, obligingly, made a new, thinner batch of fries for the man. These, too, were sent back. Not a little annoyed by this, Crum decided to have his revenge. He decided to make some fries so thin that they could not be eaten with a fork. He carefully crafted and fried his revenge and sent it out, just sure that this would be enough to infuriate the customer. Unfortunately for Crum, the idiot loved them!

It turned out that other people loved them, too, and soon the resaraunt had them listed on the menu as a house specialty with the name of Saratoga Chips. Thus, the first potato chips were born.

THE Bag

Remember how I said that one good idea can create an avalanche of good ideas? Well, the potato chip has made its share of avalanches.

In 1926, in Monterey Park, California (all good things come from Cali), the Scudders Company was making potato chips. Just imagine all those wonderful, crispy chips coming out of the oven, getting all salted up, just asking you to take a handful and gobble them up on the spot. At this point in time, you would probably be buying your chips in bulk from big barrels or salivating all over a glass case in which they were displayed. There were no bags of potato chips on store shelves just waiting to be snatched up by hungry people.

Laura Scudder was dissatisfied with this system, because it left so many chip crumbs in the bottom of the barrel. With some good old fashioned capitalist ingenuity, she thought up the idea of bags for the chips. Originally made from wax paper, the bags kept the chips fresher longer and prevented all that hateful smashing. This, with some help from our good friend cellophane, allowed potato chips to become a mass produced product, much to the delight of the rest of us.

Laura Scudder was very successful with her chip making factory. When she sold her company in 1987, she had made 126 million dollars the year before, just from the sale of potato chips.

Cashing In One at a Time

Today, there are hundreds of brands of potato chips. There are Cape Cod potato chips, Jones potato chips, Zapp's potato chips, Martin's potato chips, Dirty's All-Natural potato chips, Frito-Lay, Charles Chips, every Tom, Dick and Harry has potato chips! But the most famous of them all are Lay's potato chips. These are the chips you can't eat just one of.

There are nearly as many flavors of Lays chips as there are chip making companies. Everyone knows the original, the chosen variety of 81% of chip lovers. My mother prefers the BBQ flavor for unfathomable reasons of her own. I really like sour cream and onion. Lately, Lays has gotten on the natural band wagon with flavors like Lays Natural and Sea Salt and Pepper. Lays is the undisputed king of potato chips.

Lays was started in 1932 by traveling salesman Herman Lay. Mr. Lay put his sales skills to good use by peddling the crunchy snacks invented by George Crum in the bags that Laura Scudder invented from the trunk of his car. All through the Southern part of America and then through the rest of America, on to the entire world, the name of Lays became synonymous with potato chips making Lays potato chips the first successfully marketed national brand.

Today and Tomorrow

Today, potato chips is a multi-billion dollar industry. It is even classified as its own industry, employed 65,000 people every year.

We can only imagine how much farther the potato chip is going to go in the future. There will be new flavors, new brands, new styles, organic, VEGAN, a potato chip diet (if we're lucky), CHIPS IN SPACE! The possibilities are practically limitless and they all center around one, tiny little deep fried potato product.

Good, old fashioned American, capitalist ingenuity, along with the added spice of revenge, brought us these tasty snack wonders; and that same ingenuity will continue the tradition for many, many years to come.

Sources: http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/potatochips.htm, wikipedia articles on Thomas Jefferson, Lays, Laura Scudder, and Cellophane, http://www.helium.com/items/1431389-how-do-astronauts-eat-in-space.

Note: The author was indulging in Lays Kettle Cooked Sea Salt and Cracked Pepper Extra Crunchy Potato Chips while writing this post for your enjoyment.

Scheduling (Yes! An Actual Schedule)

Well, after about two successful weeks of blogging, the joint blog expedition of Pure Planet (via myspace http://www.myspace.com/ta_athas_orm) and the Failed Attempt are coming out with a concrete posting schedule. Ta-da!! The blogs will be updated simultaneously on Tuesday and Friday.

Tuesday will be random post days when I, your intrepid author, can post whatever I feel like posting. Probably just tidbits about my life, or a thought that burst its way out of my consciousness. You can expect Friday's posts to be infinitely more coherent and, in some cases, sequential. Hopefully, this allows the blog to grow nicely and myself to stay organized. I will admit to, ahem, scheduling difficulties in the past.

If there is anything particular you'd like to see on the blog, maybe a topic or idea you have, you can email me at animus421@gmail.com or leave me a message on myspace!

Thanks!
The Management

p.s. All employees must wash hands after going to the bathroom. Its the law, people...

Support Your Local Library

From the Daily Journal of San Mateo, the city/town I am currently blogging from; in a letter to the editor, concerned citizen Joseph Vause had this to say:

City needs to properly manage its funds

Editor,

San Mateo City Librarian Ben Ocon and his staff need to rethink their plan to implement budget reductions in response to expected budget shortfalls. Topping their list of recommendations is to reduce library hours by 28 percent system wide over the next year, and in particular a 46 percent reduction in hours for the Hillsdale and Marina branches. Keeping our library doors open must be a top priority.

Mr. Ocon and his staff (57 full-time positions) don’t seem to agree. It is interesting to note that staff savings is less than 3 percent of the current total operating budget. How can they suggest reducing library hours so drastically without a corresponding reduction in staff expense? What will library staff be doing while library doors are shut?

In a meeting held on a recent Saturday at the library, Mr. Ocon expressed that avoiding staff reductions was of great importance to the city of San Mateo — apparently more important than keeping library doors open.

If this is how the city library manages our tax dollars, I will not vote for any new proposed tax increases to avoid further budget reductions — since they are proving they can’t properly manage the funding they already have.


Well, its a bit more complicated than all that. As a volunteer for the library, I have seen the inner workings of the place. I can personally attest to the back up of unshelved books, the mountain of work needing to be done to make sure lost books and holds are found, the asinine things that get sent through the book drop, and all those wonderful little inanities that bog up the works. Many of these problems are only made worse by the fact that there is so much to do and few enough people to do it. So, in answer to one of Mr. Vause's questions, library staff will be shelving books while the doors are closed, as they always do. That is why Mr. Ocon wants to avoid staff reductions.

Of course, one may always allow for the motivating factor of greed. Many of those 57 full-time positions who don't want to cut staff merely don't want to be the ones who are cut. We may also allow for those insipid employees who simply want to keep doing nothing and getting paid. But I think having a little faith in humanity might be a good thing here. For whatever selfish reasons people may have, they still want their library to work and it cannot work without employees.

One solution may be for concerned people like Mr. Vause to volunteer at the library. Volunteers do much valuable work throughout the day. School aged kids over the age of sixteen can gain community service hours as well as a valuable glimpse at the inner workings and job conditions of their library. As a high schooler interested in library science, I can personally attest to the quality of my hours spent volunteering at the library. Adults can facilitate the life of their library. If they want to keep it open, they can help run it. Older adults, especially those of retirement age, are invaluable to the library. They are part of the backbone that keeps libraries working. One cannot praise them enough for their service, not only to the library itself, but to humanity in general.

Libraries are a great part of cultured life in any society. The availability of books to the masses is key to education, lifestyle, and culture. Books are what hold our history, our past, much of our present and nearly all of future. Furthermore, libraries offer literacy programs that help children and adults. These are so important that it cannot be overstated. Reducing the number of staff in a library will only hamper these public services. Reducing hours will ensure that they do not suffer as much and that the libraries will still be salvageable machines after this budget crisis has ended. In fact, the case can be made that reducing hours and not staff will be a good thing in the long run. Staff will be able to get a lot of behind the scenes work done. Maybe, just perhaps, the back up of unshelved books can be eliminated.

While Mr. Vause's concern is well-meaning and well-voiced, the fact that perhaps not very many people are as concerned as he is about the issue is worth looking at. From the same Daily Journal: "Less than 10 people visited the San Mateo Main Library Saturday morning to hear exactly how budget cuts will reduce library assistants, hours and some services." This shows no great interest and it certainly doesn't indicate any great outcry over the issue.

But what can be done about it? Certainly not very much if all we’re doing is complaining. One letter to the editor and one itty-bitty blog post aren’t enough to affect a radical change in this arena. Maybe Mr. Vause communication talents would be better used if he wrote to his government representative instead of whining to the Daily Journal. As for me, well, I have a lot of shelving to do.