The Hammer of God is on Order.

I just got home from the Plum Creek Memorial Death March with Sarah Debater, which commemorates the three miles Laura Ingles (of Little House fame) walked without her bonnet. There is a monument memorializing where Laura poked her sister Mary's eyes out, blinding her, when Mary scolded Laura and told her, “I am telling Ma you did not wear your bonnet!” This gave Laura the defense that, “she did not see a damn thing!” This held up in court and Mary spent the rest of her life at the mercy of others. Pionner life was rough, they just paint it pretty in the books.

I have to admit, I was a little afraid that Sarah Debater was going to murder me and leave me to be incorporated into one of the many dams being built by a crazed former professor here at Concordia who is living with the ingenious animals. You see, my sister has arranged with Dr. A that Sarah and I are supposed to marry each other at the completion of my Master’s Degree and pay for Sarah’s law school. Hitherto, she was called “Sarah Debater,” from now on she should be called “Sarah Betrothed.”

Seward is not just the Fourth of July City, it is also Nebraska’s “Dam Nation!” because of the preponderance of beavers and dams around the town. There have been two major floods this summer but I think that has less to do with beavers and more to do with God attempting to smite Sarah Betrothed and I before we marry or procreate (in which ever order works for you).

We also wrote a song about Seward, which was downwind of Milford tonight:

It's beginning to smell a lot like pig shit

Ev'rywhere you go;

Take a look in the John Deere Store

With combines and tractors aglow.

It's beginning to smell a lot like pig shit

stench in ev'ry nose

But the prettiest sight to see is the present that will be

On your own soccer shoe.

It evades my comprehension how people could live here. I cannot imagine getting used to the smell, but it gets better than living with the smell. People here appreciate this smell and can tell the type and gender of pig from which the smell emanates. I could not be bothered to go into that detail.

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Today Catherine and I went out for lunch with our undergraduate program guru, Dr. F. She is incredibly fantastic because she is honest, frank, and does this out of a love for her profession. She is inspirational.

We went to Godfather’s Pizza for their buffet, it was five dollars and ten cents. I bring that up because five dollars and ten cents is an odd price, I would not have batted an eye at five dollars or five dollars and twenty five or fifty cents. However, I spent a lot of time wrapping my brain around ten cents.

We were late back to class and as we were walking back into the Education Fortress, where our classes are taken and we ran into the daughter, son-in-law, and new granddaughter of the professor whose class we were missing. We adored their new daughter and then asked them to come with us to our class and distract the class by sharing their baby. They declined but they did give us a note to get us back into class, it read “The Hammer of God is on Order>” and it originated at the University Bookstore.

We brought this innocuous and cryptic note to the professor who asked, “What am I supposed to do with this?” We told her that it was our excuse. She looked at us as if we were growing arms out of our forehead, and excused us.

We were punished. We were punished by her offending my sensibilities by giving as advice on how to talk to parents called the Oreo Method. Apparently, conferences should run, “good news, bad news, good news” This implies that the middle of the Oreo is bad and there is nothing bad about Oreos. I have no idea what that woman is talking about. Sure, you should always have something good to say about children but what did Oreos ever do?

I prefer calling it the sandwhich method, or just tell the parents the truth: their child is ugly and dumb.

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For a moment I had lost confidence in the Boy Scouts of America, because those clowns had always been at the top of my list, but in the current situation with that young man who got lost in Utah, I think they should have been cut a break.

Apparently, while the people were searching for him and he would hear a horse, truck, or ATV, he would then hide. I had spent this time thinking the boy scouts had no skills in finding the lost (which they train for) but this boy would hear people coming and hide. I guess it had not occurred to him after days in the wilderness that someone might come looking for him. Some people should be left lost.

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Also, in response to the previous post’s comments where people disagree with the class I am taking while knowing absolutely nothing about it beyond the title: for the record, it is based on the soundest research on writing instruction that has stood for twenty years, without question or refutation. The research that supports the current methods used in schools was refuted in 1906 and a study to support the way we actually teach has not been supported since Theodore Roosevelt was President.

For the record: Dr. J M-R has no milkshake, she does not bring the boys to the yard (I am the only one in the class) but she knows her stuff and if you want to incite this hollabackboy then keep it up. Unless you have research to back up your claims, please do not bother me with them. Graduate School is Lincoln/Douglas not Parliamentary. Evidentiary standards must be met.

Comments

[Princess]

I think Sarah's new name should be "sarah, neither Plain Nor Tall"

[Sarah Bethrothed]

I like them all personally because I think they all fit! And anyone trying to say that Dr. J M-R is wrong can go and do some studying because like a former post says "Everything Dr. J M-R says is Gospel!" This is LD people you had better be ready to step up to the challenge!

[Alex Vance]

I'm glad to hear about you and Sarah . Does she have a cute rebuttal?

[Sally]

I smell a mega-hit on the folk circuit. Off to invest in the realistically scented porcine souvenir gamut-to-be.

[golfwidow]

The kid had been admonished by his parents never to speak to a stranger who didn't use the "family password", but then, when they wanted people to go look for him, they forgot to tell them, "Oh, by the way, if you don't use the password, he's going to avoid you." Poor confused kid.