“English major!”

The other night (Monday, April 6, 2009) the ABC-TV evening news was reporting about the receptionist at Binghamton’s American Civic Association, who took the first shot during the massacre, then played dead and called 9-1-1.
They described her as a hero.
“Heroine,” my wife snapped.
“English major!” I retorted.
For that my wife gets Garrison Keillor’s tee-shirt, P-O-E-M™, “Professional-Organization-of-English-Majors.”

(Epson 10000XL.)

That receptionist at the American Civic Association reminds me of Irene White at the mighty Mezz, who retired a year-or-two before me.
“Ya know,” I used to tell her; “if Granny comes in here with a blazing Uzi, she’s probably gonna shoot you first.
You’re all that stands between her and the newsroom.”
Who knows how many catatonic Limberger wannabees Irene sent packing.
“Just because eight of 10 maps misspelled Faulk Road, doesn’t mean the Delaware Department of Transportation should make the misspelling the kerreck spelling.
Of those eight maps, probably one copied the first misspelling, and then another, and another.
The landowner’s name was ‘Faulk.’”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said.

(Shot in the actual receptionist area at the mighty Mezz.)

My wife of 41+ years is “Linda.” In college she majored in English and History.

The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over three years ago. Best job I ever had.

“Limberger” is Rush Limbaugh. I call him that because I think he stinks.

RE: “Faulk......” —For years my brother-from-Delaware and I have been having an argument about the spelling of “Foulk” Road (“Folk” or “Falk”). When we moved there in 1957 it was spelled “F-a-u-l-k.” He noisily insists it’s always been spelled with an “O.” —A while ago he posted a news-article that said the Delaware Department of Transportation had surveyed historical maps, and determined the correct spelling was “F-O-U-L-K.” (And so it goes.)

RE: “Where’s my grandson’s weather-drawing?” —Children would submit weather-drawings, that ran each day in the newspaper. People would harass the Messenger about -a) why their child’s weather-drawing wasn’t published the day it arrived; -b) why an announcement of a chicken-barbecue didn’t run on the front page; -c) misspellings and grammatical errors, as parried by the “grammar-police;” -d) our supposed liberal bias — our penchant to actually report the news instead of putting a Conservative spin on everything. (A sterling example was our refusal to run the self-congratulatory press-releases of a REPUBLICAN tub-thumper from the N.Y. state legislature.)