The Athenaeum

Oren's Anti-American Book

"Oren’s contention that by publicly airing differences with Israel, Obama broke with a long-standing principle that there should never be “daylight” in the relationship. Really? To take just a few examples, Dwight Eisenhower slammed Israel for the 1956 Suez operation and forced it into a humiliating retreat; Gerald Ford froze arms deliveries and announced a reassessment of the relationship as a way of pressing Israel to withdraw from the Sinai; Jimmy Carter clashed repeatedly with Prime Minister Menachem Begin before, during and after the 1978 Camp David summit. Ronald Reagan denounced Israel’s strike on the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq and enraged Jerusalem by selling surveillance planes to Saudi Arabia; George H.W. Bush blocked loan guarantees to Israel over settlements; Bill Clinton clashed publicly with Israel over the size of proposed West Bank withdrawals; George W. Bush called for a settlement freeze in the 2002 road map for peace and afterward repeatedly criticized Israel for construction in the West Bank. In other words, Oren has a point — except in the case of virtually every Republican and Democratic U.S. administration since Israel’s founding."  Washpost

----------------

The most remarkable thing about this book review is the willingness of the Washington Post to publish it.  The Post is a newspaper that is; pro-Zionist, never saw a minority they did not love, ant-Southern (especially Virginia), and wildly in love with gayness.

Why would they publish this?  "Is a puzzlement!"  pl 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bibis-man-in-dc-still-spinning-for-the-boss/2015/06/26/67b36c70-1921-11e5-bd7f-4611a60dd8e5_story.html

 

Podcast on the subject of "Strike The Tent" W. Patrick Lang

I was interviewed some time ago by the North Carolina Museum of History concerning the writing of my trilogy.

"The Confederate Secret Services, a conversation with W. Patrick Lang, novelist, retired U.S. Army colonel, and military intelligence consultant
Patrick Lang discusses his two novels, The Butcher’s Cleaver and Death Piled Hard, both of which focus on Claude Devereux, a Virginia banker who is recruited by the Confederate secret service and placed in the office of Union secretary of war Edwin Stanton. Approximate run time: 24 minutes. Podcast " 

This podcast is highly recommended  pl

Review of "Cry Havoc" by Jack Hanson - Reviewed by TTG

My original intention was to read “Cry Havoc” over the course of a week as a relaxing bit of evening reading before drifting off to the land of
Nod. Instead, I finished it in two sittings. I found it that exciting
and engaging… and definitely not conducive to sleep. As you read this novel, you will find elements of such science fiction classics as “Dune”
and “Starship Troopers.” But make no mistake, this is an original and
uniquely imaginative world set largely at the Ganymede Military Academy
in the year 2410.

A universe slowly unfolds inhabited by an intriguing array of beings, a
bioengineered galactic bestiary including intelligent and heavily armed
dinosaurs. And just like in our world, all these beings display a wide
array of motivations, allegiances and dark secrets. As expected in a
piece of military science fiction, we see futuristic military
technology, but we also see edged weapons and grappling hand to hand
combat. We also see chemically induced manifestations involving seeing
and feeling colors, mind blowing psychic abilities and frightening
fighting skills.

We follow the transformation of four teenagers, Jane, Sand, Salem, and
Paris, as they embark on the journey from youthful innocence through
their last year of academy training to become battle tested competent
warriors. The key to their transformation is Master Assault Sergeant
Alexander Black, a veteran mentor with many secrets of his own.

Many books about soldiers and soldiering are riddled with incongruities
that are painfully obvious to us veterans. This is not so with “Cry
Havoc.” The subtleties of martial life and soldiery interactions ring
true. The author lets us see the formation of bonds between young
soldiers and that special relationship between those young soldiers and
the seasoned mentors that mold youth into soldiers. Even the mundanities
and eccentricities of military life are handled well. The veterans among
us will recognize this with a soft “ah,yes” and a smile. Most of us have
known an Alexander Black. A few have been such a man. Those who have
never experienced military life will gain a valuable insight into that
world.

This is the first of what I hope will be a long series of novels about
these characters and their universe. There is a lot more to learn about
these soldiers, both the newbies and old veterans, and the worlds they
live in.  The Twisted Genius

Non-Fiction Showcase: Prison Journey, A Memoir by Brigadier F B Ali

This newly published non-fiction work by SST/TA longtime author and commenter FB Ali is truly a must-read.  From the cover of Prison Journey:

FB Ali was a rising star in the Pakistan Army when, in 1969, Gen Yahya Khan, the army chief, declared martial law and took over the country. Disheartened at the direction in which Pakistan was heading, and his inability to do anything about it, he contemplated resigning, but the 1971 war with India intervened.

Given an important combat command shortly before it began he witnessed firsthand how badly this disastrous war was mismanaged by the military regime and the incompetent generals it had appointed. The resulting debacle drove him to initiate and lead the army action that forced Gen Yahya Khan to hand over power to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who had won the 1970 election.

The usual fate of kingmakers befell him: in 1972 he was retired from the army and a few months later arrested and tried on charges of trying to overthrow the government. Narrowly escaping a death sentence, he ended up with life imprisonment, spending over 5 years in prison before he was released following Bhutto's ouster in another military coup. Though offered a significant role in the new setup he decided to move to Canada with his family.

This memoir contains an insider account of many important events of that decade, including the 1971 India-Pakistan war and the troubles in East Pakistan that led to the creation of Bangladesh. It is also a poignant tale of courage and endurance in the face of adversity.

 

Prison Journey is listed at Amazon, Kindle, Amazon UK, and other Amazon properties.

 

Below are some excerpts from the book which provide a flavour of its contents and style (other excerpts, and reviews, are available on the Amazon sites):

 

- 1 -

 

THE BEGINNING

Where did it begin, this road that took me to the sprawling stone fort of Attock, perched on the low hills above the winding Indus River? And then, from there, through the shadow of the gallows, to those many prisons in the Punjab before I finally ended up here in Canada?

Confucius is reputed to have said: The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. What, then, was this first step that set me upon this long road that I have travelled?

Was it the sudden ending of my childhood when, at the age of seven, I was plucked from the warm cocoon of a small family and deposited in the midst of a boarding school up in the hills? I had never been away from home, had never had to fend for myself, did not know any English, which is what they spoke there. I had to grow up fast, very fast.

Or, was it all those new and exciting ideas of nationalism and freedom from foreign rule that Taufiq put into my innocent head? My friend, my difficult friend (I was the only one he had in that school), whose precocious mind knew much more about the outside world than I did, and teemed with ideas that I knew nothing about. I still remember the excitement of those "rambles" on which we were occasionally taken out, when, while the other boys played boisterous games around us, I would sit, rapt and entranced, on the sun dappled slope of the wooded hill while he told me the tale of the Count of Monte Cristo, or held forth on how India had to overthrow its subjection to the British. 

Poor Taufiq! He could not cope with a world that neither understood nor cared for the brilliance of his mind, the ebullient joy of his spirit, the essential innocence of his soul, a world that would make no allowances for the peculiarities of his nature, a nature that he had neither fashioned nor sought. Finally, unable (or unwilling) to carry on this constant struggle, he went to a railway platform and stepped off it, departing from a world that seemed to have no use for him. 

Was it that intoxicating time when I was consumed by the passionate struggle to create Pakistan? My first two years in college had been spent in the heedless but innocent enjoyment of living away from home in a big city. Then, suddenly (it was almost like a religious conversion) this struggle was the only thing that now mattered in my life, and I threw myself into it completely: organizing my fellow students, marching in the processions that mobilized citizens, facing off the police and hostile activists, trudging through the countryside, village after village, mile upon weary mile, seeking votes. Then, as ominous clouds began to gather in the sky, engaging in cloak and dagger escapades in the murky, shadowy world of Khurshid Anwar, risking much more than I then realized.

Christmas Eve Radio Reading: Frederick Forsyth's "The Shepherd"

 

Pour a Christmas pint, Athenaeum readers, & settle in for one of the great aviation tales. Written by Frederick Forsyth, published in 1975, this novella tells of a 1950s RAF pilot trying to fly home to England for the holidays in a deHavilland Vampire. But fate, always the hunter, intervenes...

 

Thanks to SST/TA commenter Charles I for gifting us all with this annual Christmas Eve CBC radio reading of "The Shepherd."

Happy Christmas To All.

-Maureen Lang

 

A Yuletide Omnibus

 

(originally published here on 12/10/09)

 

Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes

Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,

The bird of dawning singeth all night long:

And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,

The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,

No fairy takes nor witch hath power to charm,

So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

 

-Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 1

 

For your Yuletide enjoyment, here are a few Christmas-themed short stories suitable for those long evenings sitting by the inglenook (courtesy of eastoftheweb.com):

A Kidnapped Santa Claus . . . L. Frank Baum  One might think that Santa Claus would have no enemies on all the earth ... then the Daemons came along.   The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle . . . Arthur Conan Doyle  A Christmas mystery for detective Sherlock Holmes begins with a lost hat.   How Santa Claus Came To Simpson's Bar . . . Bret Harte  On Christmas Eve in a remote settlement cut off by heavy flooding, a group of men pay a visit to a deprived boy.   The Fir Tree . . . Hans Christian Andersen  The Yuletide tale of a young fir tree that wants to grow up. The Gift of the Magi . . . O. Henry  A tragic, ironic Christmas for one hard up couple.   Markheim . . . Robert Louis Stevenson  Markeim arrives at an antique dealer's on Christmas day, ostensibly to buy a present for a lady. A tale of evil and its nature.   Bertie's Christmas Eve . . . Saki  Bertie Steffink takes action against his disapproving relatives.   Captain Eli's Best Ear . . . Frank Stockton  Two reclusive, retired ship's Captains decide to celebrate Christmas for the first time in years.   And a few favorites of my own: The Burglar's Christmas- Willa Cather At Christmas Time- Anton Chekhov A Child's Christmas In Wales- Dylan Thomas A Christmas Memory- Truman Capote A Miserable Merry Christmas (from The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens)   One Christmas Eve- Langston Hughes Susie’s Letter from Santa- Mark Twain Our Lady's Juggler- Anatole France A Christmas Dream and How It Came True- Louisa May Alcott The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton (from The Pickwick Papers)- Charles Dickens Christmas With Queen Bess (from Master Skylark)- John Bennett Dancing Dan's Christmas- Damon Runyon (added to list via comment thread- thanks, Dave)     Christmas Eve at Sea A wind is rustling "south and soft," Cooing a quiet country tune. The calm sea sighs, and far aloft the sails are ghostly in the moon. Unquiet ripples lisp and purr, A block there pipes and chirps i' the sheave, The wheel-ropes jar, the reef-points stir Faintly --and it is Christmas Eve. The hushed sea seems to hold her breath, and o'er the giddy, swaying spars, Silent and excellent as Death, The dim blue skies are bright with stars. Dear God -- they shone in Palestine Like this, and yon pale moon serene Looked down among the lowing kine On Mary and the Nazarene. The angels called from deep to deep, The burning heavens felt the thrill, startling the flocks of silly sheep And lonely shepherds on the hill. To-night beneath the dripping bows where flashing bubbles burst and throng, The bow-wash murmurs and sighs and soughs A message from the angels' song. The moon goes nodding down the west, The drowsy helmsman strikes the bell; Rex Judaorum natus est, I charge you, brothers, sing Nowell, Nowell, Rex Judaorum natus est. -John Masefield             Christmas! 'Tis the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial fire of charity in the heart. -Washington Irving

Wishing You All A Joyous Holiday Season!

-Maureen Lang

Veterans Day 2013- "When you go to war as a boy you have a great illusion of immortality..."

(this post first published on The Athenaeum 11/9/11)

During the First World War, Ernest Hemingway volunteered to serve in Italy as an ambulance driver with the American Red Cross. In June 1918, while running a mobile canteen dispensing chocolate and cigarettes for soldiers, he was wounded by Austrian mortar fire. "Then there was a flash, as when a blast-furnace door is swung open, and a roar that started white and went red," he recalled in a letter home.

Despite his injuries, Hemingway carried a wounded Italian soldier to safety and was injured again by machine-gun fire. For his bravery, he received the Silver Medal of Valor from the Italian government—one of the first Americans so honored.

Hemingway in Italy, 1918.

Commenting on this experience years later in Men at War, Hemingway wrote: "When you go to war as a boy you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed; not you. . . . Then when you are badly wounded the first time you lose that illusion and you know it can happen to you. After being severely wounded two weeks before my nineteenth birthday I had a bad time until I figured out that nothing could happen to me that had not happened to all men before me. Whatever I had to do men had always done. If they had done it then I could do it too and the best thing was not to worry about it."

Recuperating for six months in a Milan hospital, Hemingway fell in love with Agnes von Kurowsky, an American Red Cross nurse. At war's end, he returned to his home in Oak Park, Illinois, a different man. His experience of travel, combat, and love had broadened his outlook. Yet while his war experience had changed him dramatically, the town he returned to remained very much the same.

Two short stories (written years later) offer insights into his homecoming and his understanding of the dilemmas of the returned war veteran. In "Soldier's Home" Howard Krebs returns home from Europe later than many of his peers. Having missed the victory parades, he is unable to reconnect with those he left behind—especially his mother, who cannot understand how her son has been changed by the war.

"Hemingway's great war work deals with aftermath," stated author Tobias Wolff at the Hemingway centennial celebration. "It deals with what happens to the soul in war and how people deal with that afterward. The problem that Hemingway set for himself in stories like 'Soldier's Home' is the difficulty of telling the truth about what one has been through. He knew about his own difficulty in doing that."

After living for months with his parents, during which time he learned from Agnes that she had fallen in love with another man, he decamped with two friends to his family's Michigan summer cottage, where he had learned to hunt and fish as a young boy. The trip would be the genesis of "Big Two-Hearted River"—a story that follows one of Hemingway's best known fictional characters, Nick Adams, recently returned from war, on a fishing trip in northern Michigan.

Hemingway in Oak Park IL, 1919.

In the story, Hemingway never actually mentions the war and the injuries Nick has sustained in it—they simply loom below the surface. In this and other stories in his first major collection, In Our Time, Hemingway does more than advance a narrative; he also debuts a new style of writing fiction.

"The way we write about war or even think about war was affected fundamentally by Hemingway," stated Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., another speaker at the Hemingway centennial. In the early 1920s, in reaction to their experience of world war, Hemingway and other modernists lost faith in the central institutions of Western civilization. One of those institutions was literature itself. Nineteenth-century novelists were prone to a florid and elaborate style of writing. Hemingway, using a distinctly American vernacular, created a new style of fiction "in which meaning is established through dialogue, through action, and silences—a fiction in which nothing crucial—or at least very little—is stated explicitly."

"Hemingway was at the crest of a wave of modernists," noted fellow centennial panelist and book critic Gail Caldwell, "that were rebelling against the excesses and hypocrisy of Victorian prose. The First World War is the watershed event that changes world literature as well as how Hemingway responded to it."

(Courtesy of the National Archives)

 

May all Athenaeum/Sic Semper readers, commenters, & posters spend at least part of this Veterans Day with those they love the most.   

-Maureen Lang

 

Halloween 2013: Ten Terrifying Tales

Halloween has its roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain, the day when the souls of those who had died that year progress to the underworld. It was said to be a night when the veil between this existence and the next is the thinnest- when ghosts, demons, and things that go bump in the night roam the earth freely and people placate them with offerings of food. In modern times offerings are more likely to be M&Ms and Jelly Beans, but it remains a day when we acknowledge our fears and celebrate forces we do not fully understand.  These 10 stories tell of the sort of sinister goings on we've come to expect from the Eve of All Hallows. The October Athenaeum invites you to curl up in your favorite chair, turn the lights down a bit, and read your way into a Halloween frame of mind...

Kerfol by Edith Wharton  A prospective buyer goes to look round a French chateau (complete with chapel and tombs) but finds the place deserted - apart from a strange pack of dogs.   The Return by Fernando Sorrentino  A man is the only witness to an accidental killing and the bizarre series of events that follow.   The Case of Lady Sannox  by Arthur Conan Doyle  A case which leaves a Lady of notoriously loose morals in a nunnery and her lover - a brilliant physician - in a vegetative state.   Mrs. Zant and the Ghost by Wilkie Collins  A man and his daughter come across an apparently mad, ill woman in a London park.   The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde  When an American minister buys Canterville Chase, a long term resident's life (or death) is thrown into turmoil.   The Body Snatcher by Robert Louis Stevenson  A student doctor becomes suspicious of the methods being used to supply dead bodies for his professor's dissection table.   The Moonlit Road by Ambrose Bierce  A man's mother is brutally murdered but, except for the finger marks around her neck, no trace of the killer can be found.   Hobnail by Crystal Arbogast  Scary bedtime story about a mother and daughter's night-time journey home.   The Lost Ghost by Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman  Late one night a little girl appears at a woman's door: "I can't find my mother".   The Trial For Murder by Charles Dickens  A banker is disturbed by visions of a murdered man and his killer. Then he is called for jury duty. (story links courtesy of www.eastoftheweb.com)   Wishing all Athenaeum/Sic Semper readers, commenters, and posters a very Happy Halloween spent in the company of family and friends.   -Maureen Lang Ghosts of Athenaeum Halloweens Past: 2012- A Bit of Halloween History, Poetry, Music, & Ephemera 2011- "The Banshee"- Alice Guerin Crist 2010- "Hallowe'en in a Suburb"/Classics from the Crypt

"The War Game"- FB Ali

Johnny Demeter killed himself last night.  No, he didn’t put a gun to his head or anything like that. His sports car skidded off the road and into a wall.  He always drove too fast; he liked to take risks; he enjoyed the thrill of danger.  He was also lucky, but it seems his luck ran out last night on a rain-slicked curve.

We got the call very early this morning.  Still half-awake, we barely understood what was being said.  When the realization came, Helen and I were devastated.  He had become so much a part of our life in the last few months.  And then there was the ruin of all our plans for the future.

We had met him six or seven months ago at one of these big family weddings.  Someone introduced us; he turned out to be a cousin of a cousin of mine.  He stood out in the gathering: young, handsome, fashionably dressed, and with a striking blonde hanging on to his arm.  We learned that he was rich; an only child, his father had died some years ago and left him a lot of money and property.  People thought he was something of a playboy; he owned several fast cars, and seemed to have a string of girl friends.  Later that evening he sought us out again, and we chatted for quite a while.  The three of us were about the same age, and we seemed to like each other.  Helen is shy, and doesn’t talk much, but with him she was quite animated.  We enjoyed our conversation till the abandoned blonde found him and dragged him away.

A few days later Johnny came to our coffee shop.  Helen and I had started this business a couple of years ago, shortly after we got married.  We were just managing to keep our heads above water; in fact, we would have gone under if some of our loans hadn’t been from our families, which they were prepared to stretch out.  Johnny arrived just as we were closing up.  He helped us to tidy up the place, and then we went upstairs to the small apartment above the shop where Helen and I lived.  He had brought along a bottle of wine, and we sat up late after supper, talking away.

Pretty soon this became a pattern in our lives.  Every few days, Johnny would turn up with a bottle or two of wine, and we would eat Helen’s supper and talk and talk for hours.  He seemed to enjoy it just as much as we did; perhaps he found in us what he missed as an only child.  For us he became a bright light in our rather drab lives.  We worked all day, and seldom had the urge to go out or meet people afterwards; we had hardly any friends.  Johnny was such good company.  Helen, especially, blossomed in the friendship; in the beginning, when he would tease her gently, she would just blush and laugh, but then gradually she opened up, and joined equally in the chatter and kidding around.  We all laughed a great deal.  We were happy together.

And then Johnny offered us a way out of the dead end in which our lives were stuck.  One of the properties he had inherited from his father was a building on the Danforth in which there was a Greek restaurant.  This had been running for a long time, and was very successful, but the owner now wanted to retire, and was putting it up for sale.  Johnny wanted to buy it, and he wanted us to run it as his partners; his contribution would be the capital, ours would be to manage and run it.  At first we thought he was joking, but he was quite serious.  We talked about it, we checked out the place; Johnny had his accountant check the books; we talked to lawyers, and they began to draw up papers.  From a tantalizing hope, it suddenly became a doorway into a new life full of promise.  We were living hand to mouth, and always with the fear that one of the big chains would open an outlet in our neighbourhood and put us out of business.  And now here was a way out.  Helen and I were so excited; we talked about it all the time and made plans for the new restaurant.  We even discussed how, perhaps in a year or two, we might be in a position to have a baby.

Now this terrible early morning call had changed everything.  A dear friend, almost a brother, had been torn out of our lives, and so had our future.  Bereft, we clung to each other and cried out our grief.  Helen could not be consoled; she curled up into a ball on the bed and wept and wept.  I sat beside her with my head in my hands and this awful emptiness inside me.  But, finally, we had to get up and get ready to go downstairs and open up the shop.

"How Santa Claus Came To Simpson's Bar"- Bret Harte

It had been raining in the valley of the Sacramento. The North Fork had overflowed its banks and Rattlesnake Creek was impassable. The few boulders that had marked the summer ford at Simpson's Crossing were obliterated by a vast sheet of water stretching to the foothills. The up stage was stopped at Grangers; the last mail had been abandoned in the tules, the rider swimming for his life. "An area," remarked the "Sierra Avalanche," with pensive local pride, "as large as the State of Massachusetts is now under water."

     Nor was the weather any better in the foothills. The mud lay deep on the mountain road; wagons that neither physical force nor moral objurgation could move from the evil ways into which they had fallen, encumbered the track, and the way to Simpson's Bar was indicated by broken-down teams and hard swearing. And farther on, cut off and inaccessible, rained upon and bedraggled, smitten by high winds and threatened by high water, Simpson's Bar, on the eve of Christmas day, 1862, clung like a swallow's nest to the rocky entablature and splintered capitals of Table Mountain, and shook in the blast.

     As night shut down on the settlement, a few lights gleamed through the mist from the windows of cabins on either side of the highway now crossed and gullied by lawless streams and swept by marauding winds. Happily most of the population were gathered at Thompson's store, clustered around a red-hot stove, at which they silently spat in some accepted sense of social communion that perhaps rendered conversation unnecessary. Indeed, most methods of diversion had long since been exhausted on Simpson's Bar; high water had suspended the regular occupations on gulch and on river, and a consequent lack of money and whiskey had taken the zest from most illegitimate recreation. Even Mr. Hamlin was fain to leave the Bar with fifty dollars in his pocket -- the only amount actually realized of the large sums won by him in the successful exercise of his arduous profession. "Ef I was asked," he remarked somewhat later, --"ef I was asked to pint out a purty little village where a retired sport as didn't care for money could exercise hisself, frequent and lively, I'd say Simpson's Bar; but for a young man with a large family depending on his exertions, it don't pay." As Mr. Hamlin's family consisted mainly of female adults, this remark is quoted rather to show the breadth of his humor than the exact extent of his responsibilities.

     Howbeit, the unconscious objects of this satire sat that evening in the listless apathy begotten of idleness and lack of excitement. Even the sudden splashing of hoofs before the door did not arouse them. Dick Bullen alone paused in the act of scraping out his pipe, and lifted his head, but no other one of the group indicated any interest in, or recognition of, the man who entered.

     It was a figure familiar enough to the company, and known in Simpson's Bar as "The Old Man." A man of perhaps fifty years; grizzled and scant of hair, but still fresh and youthful of complexion. A face full of ready, but not very powerful sympathy, with a chameleon-like aptitude for taking on the shade and color of contiguous moods and feelings. He had evidently just left some hilarious companions, and did not at first notice the gravity of the group, but clapped the shoulder of the nearest man jocularly, and threw himself into a vacant chair.

 "Jest heard the best thing out, boys! Ye know Smiley, over yar -- Jim Smiley -- funniest man in the Bar? Well, Jim was jest telling the richest yarn about --"

     "Smiley's a ---- fool," interrupted a gloomy voice.

     "A particular ---- skunk," added another in sepulchral accents.

     A silence followed these positive statements. The Old Man glanced quickly around the group. Then his face slowly changed. "That's so," he said reflectively, after a pause, "certingly a sort of a skunk and suthin of a fool. In course." He was silent for a moment as in painful contemplation of the unsavoriness and folly of the unpopular Smiley. "Dismal weather, ain't it?" he added, now fully embarked on the current of prevailing sentiment. "Mighty rough papers on the boys, and no show for money this season. And tomorrow's Christmas."