Notes From Irene

Irene, as you may recall, is the librarian at the little County library in town. Irene is also the one who publishes this blog. I have no computer. I hand write my story and hand it off to the mail carrier Bette. Bette takes it to Irene who types it up and publishes it (I have seen my blog on a computer screen only twice). Irene then lets me know if anyone has posted a comment so I can respond. She also prints out a little graph that shows how many people actually view the blog. With Bette as the dispatch carrier, the system we use is not remarkably different from the one Gen. Lee used one hundred and forty eight years ago at Gettysburg. Occasionally Irene will offer her own comments and suggestions. Some are motherly, like; “You really need to stop smoking those damn Swisher Sweet Double Barrel Rum Outlaw Cigars”…others are more informational like; “Ramon’s wife really didn’t find the blackberry wine recipe funny”. I appreciate all of Irene’s comments. I particularly enjoyed one she wrote relating my story about Paul the goat to Leviticus 16 in the bible. In the biblical ceremony of Yom Kippur one goat is sacrificed and one goat is allowed to escape into the wilderness carrying the sins of the people with it. The word ‘scapegoat’ is derived from that escaping goat. I wrote back to Irene and told her that may explain why I had been feeling so much better about myself lately. (By the way, there have been reports of a goat matching Paul’s description loitering outside a truck stop in Tazwell Virginia just off of Route 19. If you happen to see Paul, tell him it’s OK (and safe) to come home. We miss him.) There are other notes from Irene that, although I appreciate them, I don’t really understand her motivation. For example, why did she send me a detailed note on the etymology of the word ‘squirrel’? It got me to thinking, however, that readers might enjoy

Irene’s comments so I have invited her to add her comments and notes to my blog anytime she felt the urge to do so. The only stipulation is that she clearly label her contributions as “Irene’s Comment. Thank you Irene and thank you Bette, I couldn’t do this without you.


*Irene’s Comment”: No comment.