submitted by Connie Kent

ASTRONOMER
When you rearrange the letters: MOON STARER

ANIMOSITY
When you rearrange the letters: IS NO AMITY

DESPERATION
When you rearrange the letters: A ROPE ENDS IT

DORMITORY
When you rearrange the letters: DIRTY ROOM

THE EYES
When you rearrange the letters: THEY SEE

GEORGE BUSH
When you rearrange the letters: HE BUGS GORE

THE MORSE CODE
When you rearrange the letters: HERE COME DOTS

PRESBYTERIAN
When you rearrange the letters: BEST IN PRAYER

SLOT MACHINES
When you rearrange the letters:  CASH LOST IN ME

ELECTION RESULTS
When you rearrange the letters: LIES – LET’S RECOUNT

SNOOZE ALARMS
When you rearrange the letters: ALAS! NO MORE Z ‘S

A DECIMAL POINT
When you rearrange the letters: I’M A DOT IN PLACE

THE EARTHQUAKES
When you rearrange the letters: THAT QUEER SHAKE

ELEVEN PLUS TWO
When you rearrange the letters: TWELVE PLUS ONE

(Nit Wit Newz is an unauthorized, unreliable, on-line news service designed to keep residents abreast of the inconsequential, unverified, and trifling events that dramatically shape and inform our everyday lives here at Rogue Valley Manor).

RABBIT HOLE STEALTH

(A Fable for our Times)

(Peter Rabbit): Who’s that coming down the chute? Oh, it’s you, Jack

(Jack Rabbit): Hey, Peter, I thought I’d find you here.

(P. R.): Yep, still holed up in Mr. McGregor’s vegetable patch. Best carrots in the Resident’s Garden. Want a stick?

(J.R.): Thanks. Seems to me, you’ve been poaching here in the old man’s plot as long as I can remember.

(P.R.): Yeah, suppose I have.  Can’t get enough of them carrots. So, what’s happening?

(J.R.): Well, I was on my way home passing through the north entrance to the Manor and I see this row of banners—must be twelve or so—hanging from the street-light poles down the middle of the road in front of the golf course.

(P.R.): You mean those little blue and white banners saying “Rogue Valley Manor” with that quail logo on ‘em?

(J.R.): Exactly. They, my friend, spell trouble.

(P.R.): How so?

(J.R.): So this:  Up ‘til now, when you’re coming through that north gate entry you have this gorgeous  panoramic view of the golf course, a vast sweep of our campus’s green lawns bounded by stately trees, a fountain, and sometimes, a flock of grazing geese. All of this, unsullied by anything that hints of commercialism.  It’s a scene that brings me up short no matter how many times I’ve viewed it. It’s a great first impression of Rogue Valley Manor!

(P.R.): Yeah, I know what you’re talking about. It’s quite a sight, alright.

(J.R.): And it’s what makes this place so pristinely beautiful.  This place is commercially, clutter-free.  No longer.  Those blue and white banners work against that natural beauty. It’s just so much unnecessary commercial signage.  Do we need to remind visitors, or ourselves for that matter, that we’re at “Rogue Valley Manor” every 15 yards as you travel through the campus?  Those words “Rogue Valley Manor” are, after all, boldly marked at the entrance. Everyone knows where they are, for gosh sakes.

(P.R.): You are so right. But what bothers me about those banners is that quail logo.  Should have been a rabbit!

(J. R.):  A rabbit?  Peter, what are you talking about?   Years ago, the residents had a vote for an animal to be the Manor logo.  Quail was the clear winner.  If you recall, next came deer, then turkeys, squirrels, and we tied for fifth, for gosh sakes, with voles.

(P.R.): Hmm, I sorta remember something about that.  Vote could’ve been rigged, you know. But to your point, this morning I noticed those same banners were also along Mira Mar, you know that street going up to the main Manor area.  Yep, blue and white signs strung through our quiet, sedate residential neighborhood.  Makes it looks like you’re driving through a new sub-division housing site on a Sunday afternoon.

(J.R.) Yeah, I saw ‘em. Looks a little tacky all right.

(P.R.): Hey Jack, I share your concern, but I never realized your sensibilities were so delicate. You’re pretty upset about this banner stuff, aren’t you?

(J.R.): Well, I guess I am, but to be honest, there’s something else bothering me about those dang things—it’s what they could do to us.

(P.R.): Us? How so?

(J.R.): Look, you, me and our pals, Br’er, Roger, Hopalong and Thumper, have this 600-acre playground pretty much to ourselves that is, as far as rabbits are concerned. And, of course, that includes your honey, Bunny, her girl friends Flopsy, Mopsy, and what?—a half dozen or so other sweeties. You could call this a dream spot for us.

(P.R.): Yeah, life is good! But what’s that got to do with those banners we’ve been talking about?

(J.R.): Just this: Once these promotion guys start promoting they don’t stop. Those banners soon beget flags, flags beget balloons, balloons beget billboards and…

(P.R.): Yeah, we rabbits know how that begettin’ thing works.

(J.R.): I should say. But with a lot of promotional hoopla going on up here, sooner or later some wandering hare down the hill will get wind of our cozy safe haven and before you know it, we’ll have every jack rabbit in Medford over-running this place. Our place.

(P.R.): Hmm, I see where you’re going. But what can we do about it?

(J.R.): Plenty. I didn’t come here to just share one of McGregor’s carrot sticks with you.  Listen Peter, does your honey, Bunny, still hang out in that warren next to the Nit Wit Newz Tower?

(P.R.): Sure does.

(J.R.): And she’s pretty tight with those Nit Wit Newz staffers, right?

(P.R.): Yeah, she loves them and they love her.

(J. R.): And she’s gaga over you, correct?

(P.R.):  Go on.

(J..R.): If Bunny could get those Nit Wit Newz staffers to run an article on those unsightly banners and how they’re defacing the beauty of our community, it’ll go a long way to convincing the residents that they are not adding to the beauty of Rogue Valley Manor.

Peter, can you get Bunny to help us out?

(P.R.): Not a problem. Rest easy, old friend. I’m on it.

(J.R.): Bravo, Peter! I knew I could count on you, old buddy. Well, I guess my work here is done.

(P.R.): So it is, so it is. Grab another carrot stick, Jack, and hop along home.  I’ve got a job to do.

—————–

And so, dear readers, it came to pass.  Jack’s wish was fulfilled. It found its way into print.

—A. Looney

by Anne Newins and Debbie Adler

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

            Leo Tolstoy, in Anna Karenina

Bibliographer Janice Williams discovered that the RVM library has many, many, many books where families play an integral role, no doubt because they are such vitally important parts of our lives.  The books can be dramatic, humorous, critical, or affectionate–any emotion that an author might want to employ.

Lacking the strength to look at all of our books incorporating families, I predict that many of them will not fall into the “all happy families” category, mainly because that does not result in riveting reading.

A brief sampling of the offerings includes:

The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion, by Fannie Flagg

This novel includes the popular family secrets device.  Described as a “riveting, fun story of two families,” the book takes place both in the present and during World War II.  Flagg is known for her sense of humor and charming story telling.

Commonwealth, by Ann Patchett

Patchett is one of the country’s most popular and respected writers.  This book covers the lives of four parents and six children over a fifty year period as family structures dissolve, but new bonds are created.

Barkskins, by Annie Proulx

Described as “perhaps the greatest environmental novel ever written,” and a “magnificent marriage of history and imagination,” the book begins with two young Frenchman who arrive in New France, and gradually form an empire based on trapping and fur trading.  The stories of their descendants, who settle across the world, are recounted as they exploit finite natural and cultural resources.

Angela’s Ashes, by Frank McCourt (Non-fiction autobiography)

McCourt’s memoir describes his impoverished youth. His mother, Angela, is a woman of strength while his irresponsible father enchants McCourt with stories.  Despite desperate conditions, McCourt “lives to tell his tale with eloquence, exuberance, and remarkable forgiveness.”

Pictured:  Volunteer Debbie Adler, incoming table display organizer.

By Eleanor Lippman

It’s hard to remember, but there was a time before cell phones and Zoom calls and instant messaging when keeping in touch with people who lived far away was only possible by means of expensive long distant telephone calls or by writing letters. My brother and I, living on separate coasts, came up with an interesting alternative. We stayed in touch using portable cassette tape recordings that we sent back and forth. Each cassette tape, smaller than a package of filter cigarettes (remember those?), held up to an hour of conversation and could be mailed for little more than the cost of a first-class postage stamp.

And so began the excitement of finding a cassette from my brother in the day’s mail and listening to my brother, his wife and their two sons chatter away. Then my husband and I set the very same tape to ‘record’, respond, and mail it back.

About that time, morning coffee break where I worked was turning into a joke-fest competition. Employees filtered into the break room around ten o’clock, got their coffee and then told jokes, everything from lame knock-knock jokes to shaggy dog stories, in an attempt to outdo the previous jokester. There were some very raw and adult jokes tossed in as well, and I often wrote down the punch lines so I could tell the jokes to my husband.

So, I started opening my recorded response to my brother and his family with one or two of the funny quips I picked up at work. There were so many   I never seemed to run out, and soon I was including them without remembering that my two young nephews were also listening.

So what, I figured. They were too young to understand the very adult jokes.

One day, I picked up the telephone and heard my sister-in-law’s very upset voice.

“We have a problem,” she said.

Panicked, I thought something very serious had happened for her to make a long-distance telephone call.

She explained. The head of the nursery school where four-year-old Sammy spent his days, called and asked my brother and his wife to come in for a private meeting.  They were ushered into her office, and she said that something had to be done about Sam. Sammy, the very clever and loveable, happy, well-adjusted child. What could possibly be the matter?

“Well,” she said, “Sam often comes to school and gathers his little friends around him, engages in animated conversation, then collapses on the floor in riotous laughter, leaving the other children absolutely clueless.”

Curious, the adult caregivers started paying attention to what Sam told the other children. To their shock and surprise, he was repeating the adult jokes he heard me tell and was reacting just as he saw his parents do when listening to what I had said. The most amazing thing was that he was able to remember and mimic so well how I told the joke, and how his parents responded, that the adults in the nursery school started listening to him and laughing too.

It became the talk of the place: little four-year-old Sammy telling raunchy jokes without a clue as to their meaning and entertaining the staff in the process.

It had to stop.

And it did.

Recently I came across a small cardboard box containing paper clips, scissors, some very old and unusable Scotch tape, and, of all things, the very last cassette tape my brother sent me before his untimely death, which left a grieving widow and two pre-teen sons.

Memories flooded back of years of exchanging tapes, of hearing my nephews grow up, of staying in contact with my brother and his family, but best of all, the memory of four-year-old Sammy telling dirty jokes he didn’t understand at nursery school, keeping the staff entertained and amazed.