a sweet potato took me

...to a 40-year-old love letter last night.
Sweet potato
Kept it too long. Shriveled scabby skin. So I peel it, down deep. Pale flesh inside, not orange. Is it OK to eat?

Search engine
Yields ag-school info. Found a yam variety named "Vardaman". Whoa.

English major
Went to my shelf, retrieved Faulkner. Yep. Vardaman character in As I Lay Dying.

The letter
Tucked inside the front cover.
From a lover, posted 40 years ago this week.
He's in New Haven, then; I'm in Austin.

Six months earlier I'd met my future husband, for better, for worse, in Austin.

Jim's letter spoke passionately of life and death, meaning and purpose--concerns felt keenly by brilliant youth. He sensed I'd said goodbye.

He wrote, "Your letter read like a tickertape from a news service as I just read it again for the tenth time--not so warm & human and loving as it was the first several times. It seemed very distant & cold this time--maybe that's me..."

Oh no, dear boy. It wasn't you.

It was I, delivering what you sensed. Distancing myself. Hedging my bet. Hoping the new boy would be the man in my life. He was, and now he's passed away.

Wonder what I wrote you then. Wonder where you are now.

TX + R + R + R = 51

It's a new Texas brag. We're first!
Oh I mean FIFTY-FIRST, in education.

Congrats to Mississippi for moving up to 50th. The rankings include 50 states plus DC. We are last.
One in five Texans lacks a high-school education.

Total population of Texas...........23,827,328
Adults age 25+ failing high school.. 4,860,774

Perhaps it's time to ditch all that testing (TAAS, TAKS, TEKS) and its baggage?
Let teachers get back to teaching kids and not teaching for the tests!

"toilt paper set ablaze"

Yesterday's top story in my local rag (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)--Texas ranks last in health care and education.
Ya think? Uhhm, yup. See today's story:

Burleson elementary school evacuated after toilt paper set ablaze

Posted Wednesday, Sep. 23, 2009 Comments (0)

BY SHIRLEY JINKINS syjinkins@star-telegram.com

Burleson’s Taylor Elementary School was briefly evacuated Wednesday morning when a toilet paper roll was set on fire in a restroom at about 8:30 a.m.

Emergency personnel responded and put out the fire, which melted the plastic housing around the toilet paper holder and created a large amount of smoke.

The school is at 400 NE Alsbury Blvd.

Campus administrators decided to relocate 13 classrooms to temporary buildings so maintenance staff could clean and air out the affected area.

$ for war, $ for health . . . high dollars

WAR.
We broke the 4-minute million. As in dollars. I clocked it twice.
About every 3:56 minutes we waste $1,000,000 on war.
At 4pm CDT today we'd squandered
$908,653,700,000 in 8 years of war
Stop the killing, start the healing!

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
HEALTH.
$484,000,000,000 in estimated benefit payments for 2009 Medicare
. (from the July-Aug 2009 issue, AARP bulletin, pg 9)

Can't afford both now.
Shall we keep on killing people 8 time zones away?
Or shall we take care of the elders who took care of us, right here?

Dick and Lynne play nice with scissors

In naming its new center for international students after former Vice President Dick Cheney, the University of Wyoming made a mockery of itself.

Yesterday the Cheneys went to Laramie to dedicate the Cheney International Center at UW, an educational monument whose namesake embodies rapacious wanton evil.

Ex-Veep Dick and cohorts Bush and Rumsfeld are war criminals whose legacy includes heinous acts of torture, gross violations of international law and the widespread suppression of civil rights that defined the Bush era.

Will UW be naming its new business school Bernie Madoff Hall?
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
At least there were protests.

Naming center after Cheney draws protest

By Becky Orr
borr@wyomingnews.com

LARAMIE -- The Cheney International Center became part of the University of Wyoming campus Thursday over the objections of protesters who carried signs in opposition. . . .

(Really I feel their pain, the folks who protested this travesty at the U of Wyoming. I live 30 miles away from W's new home town.)

The photo came from the UW coverage. Click it to read their take.

psst, somebody tell the Forest Service...

...to start looking in Oklahoma. Indoors.

$500K Worth of Marijuana Found Tossed on Road Near Durant

Posted: Sep 06, 2009 5:22 PM CDT Updated: Sep 07, 2009 4:12 PM CDT

Associated Press

DURANT, Oklahoma--- Durant police responding to a call that "shrubs" were on a roadway found about more than 200 high-grade marijuana plants. . . .

I want this

Milton Whitley displays his Twisted Yam on a Stick — a fried, spiral-cut sweet potato on a 13-inch skewer. S-T/Max Faulkner

The Texas state fair is on, and the winners of the wretched-excess-in-fried-food contest hit the paper yesterday. Yeah, it's gross. Deep Fried Butter proved a strong contender, winning 'Most Creative' but losing to top winner Fernie's Deep Fried Peaches and Cream. Read the whole story and look at the pix.

S-T/Max Faulkner

Gary Duddleston samples Fernie’s Deep Fried Peaches and Cream during judging for the Big Tex Choice Awards. S-T/Max Faulkner

I could not figure out what one of the finalist's dishes was about, only hearing the name on TV. Twisted Yam on a Stick. Then I saw Max Faulkner's photo in the Star-Telegram yesterday. Oh, Milton, you are my hero.