About "The Great Caruso"

The Great Caruso goes up on Book View Cafe today. Read it here.

This story goes back to my mother, Opal Lee Popkes. (A bit about her work here.)

To say Opal was idiosyncratic would be an insult to idiosyncratic people. She went her own way and did things for her own reasons. Other peoples opinions or reasons did not sway her. She was a writer, as I am. I have fourteen packing boxes of manuscripts in the attic I'm working my way through slowly, figuring out what to do with them.

Opal died in 2004 from a stroke. I still feel robbed.

Opal smoked a good deal of her life. She quit when I was about fourteen or so. She was forty-six.

When I was in college, Opal asked me if I could get her some marijuana. After all, they put it in brownies, didn't they? I, of course, knew nothing about this substance personally but like any college student had heard a few things. I suggested that most people seemed to smoke it.

Mom thought about it for a moment and decided against it. She said it had taken her so much effort to quit smoking that she didn't want to get tempted back into it. As far as I know, she never tried brownies but knowing Opal, you can never tell.

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Wall of Idiots
Losing Trust in Government
Lies about Obama
ABC twitterfeed
Ken Blackwell
National Republican Congressional Committee

Links of Interest
V: Anachronism
Physics of Iron Man
Oil disaster and the Republicans
More on the Gull oil spill
Tobacco + cyanobacteria = biofuel
Greenhouse integrated with solar power
Interesting analysis of 2008 crash
Looking for toasters in all the wrong places
The story of how the FBI got the wrong man for anthrax

DIY
Koi pond
Japanise torii gate
Home gardening
Domestic sustainable agriculture
Mister compost
Making Mead
Birdhouses
Garden fountain
Tomatoes
Raising chickens