< PREVIOUS ] [ 1992 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >
American folklore has it that mothers, especially Jewish mothers, are the absolute best at instilling guilt.
That doesn't stop others from trying, though. It is a
little-known fact that high-school guidance counselors are
required to attend an annual workshop where they perfect
the sorrowful You're not living up to your potential
speech.
You can have straight A's and a full ride to Harvard, but if you get caught chewing gum in class, you'll hear this from the counselor and start to feel as guilty about missed opportunity as anyone celebrating a 40th birthday.
Public radio is also good at broadcasting guilt. Your
pangs grow throughout the fund drive and you keep thinking
I can't just freeload. I've got to help.
What puts
public radio up there with mothers is that you feel this
way even after you've already paid your annual
membership.
But the best instillers of guilt are inanimate. How many of you just cleaned and roasted pumpkin seeds because you couldn't bear to throw out something edible after you hollowed out the jack o'lantern?
And pumpkins are nothing compared to fruit trees.
Our yard boasts two plum trees. In good years, we enjoy a late frost when they're in bloom, and there's no crop. But generally we get thousands of tiny purple fruit.
We eat some, though it's hard to consume more than a dozen, even if you've just watched a heart-rending documentary about Somalia.
We tried making pies, but they tasted terrible, even with the traditional rhubarb-pie recipe (use all the sugar in the house, and then go get 10 pounds more).
One year I was able to con my parents into visiting at plum harvest. We sent them home with laden with plums, and my mother made jelly. It's tasty stuff, but jelly is a lot of work, and I note that they have since timed their visits so as to avoid plum season.
We also have a pair of fecund apple trees. Thanks to guilt, we try to use the fruit, but we're into sloth (we call it natural organic husbandry) and so worms and birds get most of our wholesome unsprayed apples.
Another complication is that the apples are tiny. Martha
grew up in Michigan, where we had real apples -- you've
only got to peel and slice a couple to make a pie, while it
takes about 20 apples here. These puny Colorado apples
aren't even as big as Michigan cherries.
I suspect we didn't get the whole story about the Garden
of Eden. The serpent actually told Eve that there are
thousands of poor snakes like me who can't reach the
apples, and we're starving while you just stand
there.
Eve picked an apple, and then told Adam, Look at all
that good, edible fruit that will just rot if we don't pick
it and make pies, turnovers, fritters, crisps and
cider.
Adam fetched the ladder. Thus did sin, work, guilt and other evils enter the world.
Setting the record straight: Ignorant historians will record that on Oct. 26, 1992, one Jim McGee made the first landing at Denver International Airport.
That is not so. The first landing of a powered craft there occurred just after the election. It was made by Tom Byars, whom I knew as a printer at the local newspaper before he moved back to Denver a few years ago.
Tom was piloting his ultralight and dropped in on the new airport. He also made the first take-off when he left. When he visited recently, Tom bragged on this feat, so it is only just that the rest of the world now learn of his pioneering accomplishment in aviation.
< PREVIOUS ] [ 1992 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >