Tom and Dick Smothers were a comic folk-singing duo who had worked their way from the coffee house and college circuit to a nationally-televised television show. I was a big fan, from the days of their first album. Here’s their version of a Lonnie Donegan hit; please come back when you’ve finished:

When the TV show began airing, I was still living at home, up the California coast, and driving to L.A. once a week or so, looking for work. Mostly, I was answering classified ads in the Los Angeles Times, posted by employment agencies who’d send applicants (well, me at least) to finance companies, looking for someone to loan money at usurious rates to people who…needed money and couldn’t land a bank loan. Evidently, there was a fairly substantial turnover in those jobs.

“But,” I would explain to the employment agency guy (always a guy), “This isn’t what I want to do — I want to work in the entertainment industry.”

“That’s all right,” they’d reply. “This job [at the loan company] will keep you afloat while we find what you really want.” In other words, they were sending out applicants who they knew didn’t want the job, and would leave it at the earliest opportunity. And. of course, picking up their commissions. Nice.

Finally, out of desperation as much as anything else, I asked myself, what do I really want to do? The answer: work for the Smothers Brothers (hell, if they thought Bob Einstein was funny, I’d be a shoo-in).

Somehow I got a number, which I called from a phone booth in Westwood. Whomever I got (Denny Shanahan, probably, who was their in-house publicist) was polite, though discouraging.

Years passed, and I got my first job in the music biz rather than TV. Many years later, as a reporter, I dealt with Shanahan, then working as publicist at Knott’s Berry Farm. Years after that, I worked briefly as a publicist for Ken Kragen*, who’d been the Smothers’ co-manager (with Ken Fritz) back when I made that call from Westwood.

Funny ol’ world.

Now, I wonder who’ll play me in the movie.

* main client at the time: Kenny Rogers. Also Dottie West, Gallagher, and a couple more. A story for another time.

He sang Spoonful songs; he sang terrific new stuff from his new album (“Red Eye Express,” “Rainbows All Over your Blues,” etc) that I was hearing for the first time and loved immediately.

(not from that performance, obviously)

In the middle of his set, he broke a guitar string. As he was putting on a new one and tuning up, Sebastian started fooling around a bit with a melody that I suddenly recognized as the guitar solo from one of my favorite rock and roll oldies.

“Party Doll!” I yelled out, very proud of my expertise at spotting spontaneously rendered guitar solos from old Buddy Knox records.

Sebastian grinned — as he tended to do a lot anyway — replied “Yeah!” and launched into what I was thrilled to see: an impromptu set of classic rock and roll songs from the era; “In the Still of the Night,” stuff like that.

Not just for that, but because I so enjoyed the whole show, I went back a few nights later.

He sang Spoonful songs; he sang terrific new stuff from his new album that I was now hearing for the second time and sill loved.

In the middle of his set, he broke a guitar string. As he was putting on a new one and tuning up, he started fooling around a bit with a melody that I again recognized as the same guitar solo from one of my favorite rock and roll oldies. And he followed up with the same set of classics as he had earlier in the week — and, I’ve now little doubt, the nights I wasn’t there, as well.

Ever since then, I’ve appreciated showmanship on a somewhat more sophisticated level than before — he still made the routine look absolutely spontaneous, which itself is an enviable talent — but I haven’t let myself be fooled again. Usually.

Don Lanier demonstrates “that” solo.

[Bonus lesson: if  an act has a bunch of hits to its name, hasn't performed them, and calls for audience requests, you're going to hear most of those hits, no matter what the audience asks for -- which will for the most part will consist of those hits, anyway.]

[Second bonus lesson: If you're going to save your biggest hit for an encore, be damned sure the audience is going to want an encore and isn't leaving the theater during "Lucretia MacEvil"]

We were asked to make eight selections; then add a book and an “object.” Here’s my entry:

My earliest memories were whatever was on the radio at the time – I vaguely remember The Weavers’ “Goodnight Irene, “Kaw-Liga” by somebody or another who wasn’t Hank Williams, and Les Paul and Mary Ford. But while I liked those records at the time enough to remember them now, I’ll have to say that in retrospect Gordon Jenkins’ orchestrations ruined The Weavers (though he gets a lot of respect for helping them get on what was then a major label); “Kaw-Liga” still is far from my favorite Hank Williams song; and I’m still not all that fond of Mary Ford’s vocals on Les Paul’s records, though I appreciate the craft that went into them.

So the first record – or at least the earliest – I’d take to the desert island is something by Nellie Lutcher. Her version of “Cool Water” was in my grandmother’s collection, though I still have no idea what she was doing with an album (in the old sense of several 78s in a binder) by a black jazz/lounge singer; and why, of all the songs therein, I’d be especially drawn to her rather drowsy version of a song originally sung by the Hollywood cowboy vocal group The Sons of the Pioneers, and written by its Bob Nolan.
As life went on, I became a major fan of the Sons of the Pioneers (particularly their ‘30s and ‘40s stiff, before they sort of went uptown with the – again – orchestrations), and was even privileged to meet Nellie Lutcher. She was to appear at the Cinegrill, a local bôite, and I interviewed her for the newspaper I was writing for at the time (they trusted me to write about pretty much anybody I liked, provided I mix it up and include some popular “names”). If she was taken aback by my story of having been introduced to her through my grandmother’s record collection, she kept it to herself. As nice as she was talented, Nellie later sent me a small cooking grill. I don’t cook outside (living in an apartment) and ethics should have prohibited me from accepting it anyway, but it wasn’t an expensive one (I reasoned), and wouldn’t it be unforgivably rude to refuse such a kind gesture?
All that said, for my desert island stay, I’d prefer something a little slinkier. And after a few weeks of exposure to the island sunshine, I might even qualify as the subject of her lust.

My father (from Nebraska, which is as mid-American as it gets) was an Anglophile; to the point where he subscribed to “The Illustrated London News” and “Punch,” bought me a subscription to “Boy’s Own Paper”, and – to my lasting gratitude – introduced me to the works of authors including A.A. Milne and Geoffrey Williams. He also had a few records by Englishmen in the collection: Flanders & Swann, “Beyond the Fringe,” and – more obscurely – the “Albert” poems of Marriott Edgar, recited by Stanley Holloway. Somewhere along the way, I also became enamored of musical theater.

The first album I remember buying was Tommy Dorsey’s “Hawaiian War Chant,” which launched my lifetime love of big band jazz, despite my mother’s being scandalized by the sarong-clad woman (quite demure, really, and somewhat obscured by red light) on the cover. My second album, as I recall, was Ritchie Valens’ debut; and my third was Gene Vincent’s second, the one with the color photo of Gene and the Band looking especially cool.

There was a lot of variety in Gene’s early albums – I still think he’s severely underrated as a ballad singer – and the band was both hot and “cool” in the sense of cool jazz. I met Gene in 1969 through a mutual friend, and was invited to attend the sessions for the two albums he recorded for the Kama Sutra label in Los Angeles. The first, where Gene was backed by members of the Sir Douglas quintet plus a few ringers, I wrote up as my initial contribution to “Rolling Stone.” Some discographies show me as a background singer, along with the producer’s wife and girlfriend, both of whom were living with him at the time. Trust me: though we were all present, none of us sang on the album. Possibly, the producer listed us on the invoice to the record company, and pocketed the money. Possibly not.
While I like the Kama Sutra albums, particularly the first one, for the desert Island I’m taking an earlier, Capitol cut. Like a lot of rockabillies, Gene had a sentimental streak a mile deep.

Can’t be on a desert island without a Beatles record, right? Well, I can’t. It’d be easy for me to pick one for each: today it’d be “And Your Bird Can Sing” for John; “If I Needed Someone” for George; “I’m Down” for Paul; and, well, “Boys” would be as good as anything for Ringo. But pick one song to stand for all four? That is, as the King of Siam would sing, “a puzzlement.” How about “Rain”? I could spend months, trying to figure how those bass and drum parts were inspired.

Chuck Berry, too: the man who owns as much claim as anybody to have invented rock and roll guitar, and to this day one of the music’s cleverest lyricists. Again, what would I not get tired of hearing? First choice would be the instrumental he released at various points (all different recordings) as “Rockin’ at the Philharmonic,” “One O’Clock Jump” (with the Basie riff somewhere in the background), “Rockin’ at the Fillmore,” and – the definitive version – “Liverpool Drive.” If I were to learn guitar, I’d be tempted to play this to the exclusion of everything else. Maybe on the desert island… (The one here is cut off at the beginning and sounds like a different take than I’m used to, but it’s close enough).

I’ve always enjoyed the Everly Brothers, less so during their brief “psych” period, maybe, but there was always something. Generally speaking, the more “country” the better. But when I first heard this update of an old Perry Como ballad on my car radio, I literally pulled over to the side of the street (Loma Vista; I remember it that well) to find out what the hell the record was, and who was performing it.

Anybody who knows me knows my love for country music; I grew up listening to it and watching a lot of great weekend shows (Town Hall Party, Cal’s Corral, Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch, the Spade Cooley Show, etc.) on L.A. television. Even I’m surprised at my love for country music of the ‘70s, often polished up as it was. But the writing and singing were never better than during those years I like uptempo stuff as much as anybody, but I also go for ballads that can break your heart. To me, this 1978 single is probably the best record by my favorite female country singer of all time. She wrote it with producer Billy Sherrill and the man she married after her divorce from George Jones.

Finally, the record I sometimes think may be my favorite single of all time, by anybody. Lyrics, melody, vocals…even the typically-thin Motown string arrangement (maybe a little beefier than usual) works here. I could easily listen to it countless times; thanks in part to the way the song and arrangement shift around. In time, I might even learn the dance steps to go with it.

There are a couple of books I try to read every couple of years; both of them stand up to that treatment. “A Confederacy of Dunces” is one of them; richly comic and almost terrifyingly autobiographical – or maybe it just seems that way to me. But the book I’d take is Thomas Berger’s “Little Big Man,” which is even funnier than the movie; and also, I would expect, a pretty well researched trip though the latter years of the Old West. Part of the fun is trying to determine whether narrator Jack Crabb is making up or hallucinating his tales of life after being adopted into a Native American tribe and leading up to his participation in the Battle of the Little Big Horn (and beyond), though ultimately it doesn’t matter — of course he’s making it up: [i]it’s a novel[/i]. Many years later, Berger returned to the territory; the sequel – “The Return of Little Big Man – isn’t as well known, but it is pretty much as good as the original. In fact, it’s just about time for me to read them both again.

And an “object”? Sort of depends on what’s already on the island, doesn’t it? Presumably something to play the music is included (as well as a power source), I’d probably turn vegetarian, so no use for fishhooks or fancy cutlery. Will I need a blanket for those cool desert island nights? And I’ve learned not to treat women as objects.

Maybe a deck of cards. Or a computer with WI-fi and a very long extension cord.

Yeah, I’ll take that.

He was rightly (or, in the parlance of those days, “righteously”) steamed because the reviewer, evidently “seeing’ the set from the Palladium VIP lounge*, claimed that the band’s horn section was out of tune — and, Donahue screamed over the phone, Stoneground didn’t have a horn section!

Not knowing how to handle Tom — who, after all, could demand that the record label pull its advertising — I turned the call over to Harvey Geller, who was running the office in those days.

Cool as could be, Harvey assured Tom that “you will never see that reviewer’s name in Cash Box again!” Not mentioning that the reviewer in question had left of his own volition the week before; I was his replacement.

(the reviewer wound up in the a&r department of what was then a major record label — though not the one stoneground was on!)

* a bar, off the lobby, where guests could hobnob during intermission. Many used it to wait out the opening act; though the sound was muddy, you could hear when they’d finished..

The college I attended (at least the one I claim) is a “great books” school, where students rely entirely on primary sources: you don’t read “about” Euclidean geometry; you read Euclid. In Greek. And so on.

For various reasons, I only lasted two years at St. John’s, but that was enough to instill some values in me; one of which was to go to the source, wherever possible. I’m not distinguishing myself from other liner note writers, most of whom also try to deal with the artists whenever possible (some don’t bother; others, including me in a couple of cases, are warned against dealing with an artist the label doesn’t want to “meddle” in the project). And of course, some of the times, the artist is no longer available to be interviewed by anybody, being dead.

Still, there’s usually somebody available; and in many cases those on the sidelines are at least as informative as the artist.

Songwriters are my favorite; they always have interesting stories, and unless they’re household names (usually as performers), they haven’t been overburdened with interview requests through the years. I’ve also spoken with recording engineers, arrangers, producers, sidemen, label executives, and members of the act’s bands. Anybody with first-hand experience. I may not be the only person who does this, but I like to think of the use of a lot of firsthand quotes as a sort of trademark. Oddly, perhaps, nobody from a label has ever mentioned that; I wonder if they even notice, or care. Also, I will occasionally see where the writer has conducted some firsthand interviews, but uses few if any direct quotes. “What a waste,” I think.

I’ve had some exceptional fortune. When I was writing about Frankie Laine, Clint Eastwood spoke with me about “Rawhide.” I’d been trying to get to Johnny Cash to talk about himself (generally relative to an upcoming personal appearance) for decades without luck; it wasn’t until I was writing about Rick Nelson’s “Restless Kid” that Cash, who wrote the song for “Rio Bravo” (where it wasn’t used), would speak with me.

Other times, I’ve had less luck, Two musicians significantly involved in Frankie Laine’s records went on to long and distinguished careers under their own names. Laine considered them proteges; neither of them wanted to talk about their work with the singer. I went back-and-forth with one’s publicist for several months; I actually spoke with the assistant of the other, who always referred to her boss as “the maestro.” Both were said to have been “on tour,” to places, presumably, without access to telephones.

I’ve had no luck with film directors, either: Blake Edwards through his assistant wasn’t available to talk about the Frankie Laine vehicles he’d directed in the years of his career pre- “Pink Panther’ and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”; likewise Taylor Hackford, who early in his career worked on a Rick Nelson documentary. George Sidney, who’d directed three Ann-Margret vehicles including “Bye Bye Birdie” and “Viva Las Vegas”, wouldn’t speak to me on the record (he did take my call, then clammed up) until he received permission from the actress.

Speaking of whom:

I’d tried to get Ann-Margret for a year, through her management, who came up with one delay after another. And the day (literally) of my deadline, she came through. I took some quotes and plugged them into what I’d already written. And this was for an Ann-Margret box!

Another time, I’d spoken with every member of Steppenwolf except keyboardist Goldie McJohn and lead guitarist Michael Monarch, though I’d sent out missives trying to locate Monarch, especially, all over the place for some time. The day after I handed in my copy, the phone rang. “Hi, this is Michael Monarch. I hear you’ve been trying to get hold of me.”

We had to do without his input.

A couple weeks ago, the contestants were given the opportunity to record in the Sun Studio in Memphis; and requested to perform a Sun song. I can’t remember at this point who sang what, buy maybe two of the songs (out of five) were identified (like, say, “I Walk the Line”) with the Sun label. Unless Hank Williams recorded “I’m So Lonesome I Cold Cry” for Sam Phillips.

OK, the contestants — between 20-30 years old or so, most of ‘em — don’t know a Sun song from anything else their parents or grandparents owned.* But what’s the production staff’s excuse — or, better, the judges; one of whom, Matt Serletic, is a big-time a&r guy?

My favorite. Wynn Varble, was eliminated this week. He had a distinctive, “country” (as opposed to “bar band” sound, and writes clever original songs (a bonus; contestants only had to write one song — with a professional — during one round). He lasted longer than Serletic probably would have liked — being 50 and not pretty. He’s had songs recorded by Kellie Pickler. Daryl Worley, Easton Corbin (this one went to No. 1) and Willie Nelson, but he won’t be CMT’s Next Superstar.

“Judge” Serletic asked how he expected to fill auditoriums with his funny songs. Varble pointed out that Jeff Foxworthy does OK. He might have also mentioned Roger Miller. But he got dumped this weeks because the voters, a random group of participants in a local charity, voted for other contestants. Truth is, I probably would have dumped him, too: he’s one of the ones who don’t know any Sun Records songs.
Here’s a Varble composition that he didn’t get a chance to sing on the show:

*In fairness, Hank’s records were on MGM; which, like Sun’s, have a yellow label.

As the evening progressed, and after a few missteps with the rolling machines, I lit up, took several draws, and…nothing. A few more…still nothing.

The next day, my friend was all excited about my expected reaction. I told him that it had done nothing; he said I must have been doing it wrong (huh?), and invited me to join him and his wife for dinner at their house.

We had some pasta, and started passing a joint around. “See,” I said, (“hee hee”) “It isn’t doing anything.” (“grin”) The evening progressed and everything got sillier and sillier.

Evidently, I had been “doing it wrong,” at least in not knowing what to expect. I never became even remotely a stoner; rule of thumb being never to have my own, but to take a social puff is someone was passing it around* — but not enough that the others didn’t get most of it.

To this day, marijuana is the strongest controlled substance I have ingested, and I haven’t had so much as a puff in decades.

* Sometime during this period, I was driving to the Golden Bear in Orange County, to see Jackie DeShannon perform. Driving down Beach Blvd., a major surface street, I was broadsided by a car, whose driver was running a stop sign. My car was nearly totaled, and I was pretty badly shaken up. The local police showed up, of course, and were making their investigation when one of them came up to me with a small Baggy full of what appeared to be grass. “Is this yours?”,  he asked, accusingly.

I was dazed — in shock, probably — but (a) I wasn’t stoned, and (b) probably hadn’t smoked in some time, and (c) as I said, I never carried my own, anyway. I just laughed (as best I could) at the suggestion, and he walked away.

Not to suggest that the policeman had his own bag that he used to fool people into confessing their own, of course. Such a thought would never occur to me.

Tommy Thomas, who owned the place with his brother, for some reason had taken a shine to me, and the bartenders and waitresses treated me nicely. For me, The Palomino was “Cheers,” with live music and an all-you-can-eat Sunday buffet (the food wasn’t much, but it sure was salty — beer consumption went through the roof on Sunday afternoons!).

All of which helps explain what I was doing there on February 19, 1987. I had a night off from my newspaper work, and drove out to the Pal to see Taj Mahal perform; with a band that (as it turned out) included the great Jesse Ed Davis on guitar.

Taj was reliably great, and his ability to move among genres of folk, soul, blues and even jazz made him the Keb’ Mo’ of his day. And “Indian Ed,” while never to make it as a solo performer, was a valued session player.

It was, as I recall, a Thursday night, and there wasn’t much happening at the club. It may even have been raining. In any event, the turn-out wasn’t what Taj deserved; if there were more than 50 people in the room, including the Palomino staff, I’d be surprised.

I tended not to sit at tables in those days, but to wander around the room from a base near the (usually closed) back bar. And there I was, when I spotted two familiar faces: Bob Dylan and George Harrison.

The two had worked together on the “Concert for Bangla Desh,”* and Harrison had cut a good version of Dylan’s “If Not for You.”  I didn’t know that they hung out, but there they were, just chattin’ and laughin’. Knowing neither, having nothing to contribute to the conversation, and not being one to interrupt, I moved on.

Seated about halfway back, at a table just in front of the raised area in the back of the club, I spotted another celebrity: John Fogerty. Him, I knew, having interviewed him a few weeks earlier. It had gone pleasantly enough, so I stopped by the table to say “Howdy.” He’d come to see Taj, he said, as a long-time fan.

Did you see Dylan and Harrison over there by the back bar? I asked. No, he hadn’t, but he did cast a glance that way. Do you know them? No, he didn’t.

Come here, I said, and dragged John over to where Dylan and Harrison were standing. This time, I did have something to say.

Excuse me, I interrupted their conversation. This is John Fogerty. I knew they didn’t know who I was, and didn’t care. But they sure knew who John was, and immediately started talking with him. My work done, I retreated.

Within minutes, Fogerty, Dylan, and Harrison were on stage with Taj and his band, trying to remember each others’ songs, as well as their own. It was a jumble, but God knows a historic one.

I wasn’t able to get space for a full review, but did manage to sneak a news item in the Saturday paper. This was the night that Dylan turned to Fogerty, and pointed out that if he didn’t resume singing “Proud Mary,”** audiences would begin identifying it with Tina Turner’s version.

(This entry originally appeared on my blog on the now-defunct Journalspace; February 19, 2007)

* as had Jesse Ed Davis, who had also recorded with both of them individually
** In protest of something or another, Fogerty had ceased performing songs he’d written and performed as a member of Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Here’s a bit on his earlier days, from my liner notes for the Bear Family album “Bobby Darin Rocks.” At the outset of our conversation, Kirshner insisted that I should, like pretty much everybody in the industry, “Call me Donny.”*

Somewhere down the line, Don Kirshner entered the scene.

“I was working as a bellhop in Atlantic Beach, and had just written my first song. One day I was at a candy store near my house in Washington Heights, and a girl I knew walked in with Bobby – who was working as a janitor in the neighborhood. He was impressed because I was big-time; I’d just had my first song [In All Of My Dreams] published. We walked over to the girl’s place, where she had a piano. Bobby proceeded to play me five songs; I said ‘Let’s team up, and we’ll be the biggest thing in the business’.”

Kirshner did not attend the same high school as Darin. “I went to George Washington high school – I wasn’t smart enough to get into Bronx Science, and was concentrating more on sports than on my marks.”

Darin moved in with Kirshner, and they began writing commercial jingles for local businesses. “I was the lyric writer, he was the melodies, but he was the talent.”

One of the singers Kirshner and Darin used on their jingles was Connie Francis. Just beginning her career, she was managed by George Scheck, a former vaudevillian and prototypical “man with a big cigar.” He also hosted a local talent show, ‘Startime,’ on which Francis – then Connie Franconero – had been a regular performer.

Through his contacts, Scheck placed several Darin-Kirshner compositions with recording artists including Bobby Short (Delia), Davy Hill (By My Side), LaVern Baker (Love Me Right) and the Jaye Sisters (School’s Out and Real Love). He also took the young man on as a management client, convincing Walden Robert “Bobby” Cassotto to adopt “Bobby Darin” as his stage name. Darin himself told conflicting stories of its origin at various times: either the name was pulled from the telephone directory, or he spotted a Chinese restaurant whose neon sign glowed with only the last five letters of “mandarin.”

A Darin-Kirshner composition, My First Real Love, became Francis’s fourth single for MGM records, with backing credited to “The Jaybirds” – a multiply-overdubbed Bobby Darin. Francis wouldn’t break through until Who’s Sorry Now, but My First Real Love and the other recordings were an encouraging start for the songwriting team…

Directly after the [Tommy and Jimmy] Dorsey “Stage Show” appearance, though, Darin and [Steve] Karmen made some personal appearances: at a multiple-artist show in a basketball stadium with Gene Vincent, Charlie Gracie and Vikki Carr (“The first song we did was Timber and the audience was dead. The second show, we kicked the tempo up.”), followed by a two-week stand at the Gay Haven, a nightclub in Detroit. “While we were in Detroit, we went to see Elvis Presley do an afternoon show at the Fox Theater. It was an electrifying experience, and Bobby was very jealous.” (Al DiOrio’s Darin biography, “Borrowed Time,” features an advertisement for an appearance at The Cabin Club in Cleveland, Ohio, by Darin “with Don Kirshner and his guitar,” that Kirshner finds particularly amusing: “Not only do I not read or write music, but I don’t play piano or guitar. I get such a kick out of that!” It was, of course, Steve Karmen.)

In November, 1956, Little “Lambsie” Penn recorded Darin and Kirshner’s I Wanna Spend Christmas With Elvis for Atco, a recently-formed subsidiary of Atlantic Records…

As Darin and [Woody] Harris began to collaborate, Kirshner’s business interests took him elsewhere: the man who couldn’t read or write music became (with partner Al Nevins) one of the most successful publishers of popular music in the ‘50s and ‘60s; headquartered at 1650 Broadway (not the Brill Building) and representing the catalogs of Gerry Goffin and Carole King; Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil; Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield, among others.

Later, his company supplied The Monkees with much of their early hit material. And, though Brand New House, the Darin-Harris collaboration, wasn’t released as a single, it was recorded several years later by Chicago blues pianist and singer Otis Spann.

Artie Wayne was there in the early days. He shares his memories here

* I’d been spelling it “Donnie,” but Neil Sedaka says “Donny,” and who am I to question Neil Sedaka?

I was in public school in California when President Eisenhower put the “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance (which we were all required to stand and say at the beginning of each school day). Truth is, even as the unbeliever as I was and remain, all that bothered me about the addition was that it ruined the scansion.

Every Thursday after lunch, the “religion” trailers came up to the front of the school; it was sort of weekday Sunday school. I remember Catholic and Protestant trailers; there may have been a one for the very few Jewish students as well. Those of us who didn’t go to the mobile schoolrooms for an hour stayed in class and did God knows what. I looked it as time off, and sort of learned about Noah, Solomon, David, St. Peter and Jesus — again, with no reluctance; just the idea that it was time off from class.

And the truth is, I’m grateful for that small amount of religious training and other such stuff I’ve picked up through the years; ours would be a much poorer culture without the perhaps decreasingly common literature that comes from the Bible.

So — not that anybody asked — how do I feel about religion being taught in public schools? I think our district handled it pretty well.  And if a teacher can deal with the Bible as literature, without getting preachy, so much the better.

I feel less enthusiastic about the Pledge of Allegiance, though. I’m all for allegiance, but not to a piece of cloth. And, like the loyalty oath, it doesn’t prove anything: do you think someone committed to subverting anything would have reservations claiming in public to support it?

But if making somebody stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance, or sign a loyalty oath, makes those in a position to require it feel any or more secure,  just hand me that pen, as soon as I sit down.