[CFrance]

Originally Posted by Boomer

Thank you, GL. Ah, yes, tulips. Many years ago, I went tulip-crazy in response to a catalog from Breck’s. Those pictures were glorious.

I blissfully spent a blue fortune, ordering bulbs that promised many colors — red, pink, yellow, purple, even chartreuse, and black, too. Some had ruffles.

I then spent a whole day, early that November, planting those things. I even buried them in chicken wire to keep underground and digging critters from getting them. Spring came. Gorgeous. My work had paid off — or so I thought.

Then one morning I looked out the kitchen window and there was Bambi, gobbling up tulips just like popcorn. I took a shot — with my camera — and I never planted tulips again, although I do love them.

Now, about our back-and-forth other stuff here: I hope I do not sound like I am going all English teacher on you, but I really must give that old advice I gave so many times — about how to answer essay questions. The advice I gave was to first read the question carefully.

I am giving this advice because what I asked you in my earlier post was, “Why don’t you preach what you practice?” I had turned the phrase around but you missed that wording.

But then, your answer actually turned out pretty much OK anyway. You explained your focus well, and it was good to be reading your own thoughts instead of having to go around link after link. When you used your own words, you clarified things.

Now, before I get any bad press about how an English teacher sure can bastardize the hellouta punctuation and be so free with sentence fragments and start sentences with ‘and’ and be so much in love with dashes, etc., etc., I must say I know I do all those things. I let voice and tone beat stickler.

Well, now that I have cleared up all that, I would like to move forward with what I said earlier about the cover stories from June’s Atlantic.

I know I probably sound like I am assigning homework, but I am not trying to be a smartazz when I say I think you might find some of the articles interesting, thought-provoking, especially the one titled, “How QAnon is Warping Reality and Discrediting Science.” There are others, too, “How Can We Recover From This?” and “The Way Plagues Leave Societies Altered Forever.”

Reading articles in Atlantic magazine can take up an entire afternoon sometimes but that gives the brain a little workout by invoking critical thinking skills instead of letting the highly paid mouths on the various “news” channels tell us what to think. I really do hope you will at least peruse the June issue, in addition to your other research.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Boomer, Rm. 101

Hmm. Maybe you'll find Little Fires Everywhere understimulating...