An elite D.C. girls’ school thought its founding nuns taught slaves how to read. Instead, they sold them off for as much as they could.

I was taught to read by the wind. 
the rain keeps me clean at night.
my clothing is moss and bark.
manna and bacon are my food.
I drink from dry riverbeds.
there are marks around my wrists.
broken promises are my bed.
no one sees me run away.
but everyone will see me fly.

Postcard to the President

‘I ... thought he was dead’: Three football players nearly drown during ‘exercise’ involving sweaters in a pool

I don't know why I go anywhere with Crazy Henry. he spoils every trip we ever take, even down to the Rec Center to go swimming. we went there last winter and he insisted on wearing a sweater into the water. "why are you doing that?" I asked him. "it's supposed to help develop better muscles; all that drag once the wool absorbs the water" he replied. but after being in the pool for a few minutes his sweater puffed up and the sleeves came unraveled and there was red wool yarn snaking around the pool -- so they kicked both of us out, cuz I was trying to gather up the yarn.
the next time we went to the Rec Center Crazy Henry brought in a bottle of tadpoles. "I'm training them for America's Got Talent" he told me as he released them in the wading pool. you should have heard the screaming. they closed the pool and I spent the rest of the day at Crazy Henry's apartment helping him make artisan breadcrumbs for the Italian grocery store down the street. they pay ten dollars per pound for it.
the last time I was at the pool with Crazy Henry he didn't do anything crazy at all, but the lifeguards knew him by now -- so they followed him around in packs, bunching up so close that they trod on each other's toes and finally they all fell into the lazy river like a pack of lemmings. after that Crazy Henry was banned from the Rec Center, so I have to go there by myself. I'd rather make breadcrumbs.

and I will give away all my sins to know thee,

" . . . and I will give away all my sins to know thee . . . "

Alma 22:18

I will give my money, and my time and effort, too, 

when I am called upon to help another in a stew.

But when the call is coming to give up my little sins,

that is when my stubbornness so frequently begins.

For I may have my foibles, but they are so very small

that it is too much bother to get rid of them at all.

Tarnished and defective though my soul may be at times,

can't I be excused because I write such witty rhymes?

O man, a voice doth come to me, your striving to improve

is the only way that into Heaven you can move!

As Domestic Troubles Mount, China Points Finger at U.S. (NYT)

Crazy Henry and I were under the Hennepin Avenue bridge to fish for river carp. something smelly had been dumped into the Mississippi that day and the carp were going crazy over it. we could practically reach out from the shore and grab them. I wanted a couple to plant with my sweet corn. we were using bamboo cane poles.
I was on edge that day. the sky was overcast in that way that feels like a prison sentence. I thought a quiet day of fishing would do my soul some good. then Crazy Henry had to start talking.
"I think we should buy Hong Kong from China" he said.
"what?" I said.
"you know" he replied. "like we bought Alaska from Russia all those years ago. let's buy Hong Kong so we got someplace to get our fireworks from and rice and stuff without a tariff. Hong Kong is pretty close to California, isn't it? Like Hawaii?"
with great self control I kept my own counsel and continued fishing. we were using kernels of canned corn for bait.
Crazy Henry tripped over a cable sunk in the mud. I helped him up and he insisted on pulling up the buried cable to see where it led. we got so involved that our poles were pulled into the river and floated away. we finally found the end of the cable looped around a tree stump twenty feet from the shore.
"huh. an old barge cable probably" I said. 

Tomi Lahren apologizes after saying Kamala Harris slept her way to the top (headline in the Washington Post)

we had this guy in clown alley who thought it was hilarious to walk around the arena dressed in a brightly stripped nightshirt and a long white night cap, pretending to be sleepy and trying to take naps while leaning up against a guy wire yawning or crawling up on an elephant tub.
his name was Scott. he did a whiteface makeup and used his own blonde hair for a clown wig. I never could figure out if he was just plain lazy and didn't want to run around like the rest of us, or if he was really an unrecognized comic genius. 
certainly the first time I saw him do his act out in the ring I couldn't help but be impressed by the originality of it. but he had no pantomime training and his actions were clumsy and unconvincing. oh, and he carried an unlit candle in an old tin candle holder too. said it added to the authenticity of the act.
circus management was unimpressed by his innovation. they wanted lots of jumping up and down, running, shouting, explosions, and were not averse to paper mache clown heads being cut off at the end of a gag. so Scott got the old heave-ho after just one season.
you could say he slept his way to the bottom. 

Universal is building a new theme park to challenge Disney’s dominance

the man knocked on my door and said "hello, I'm here to tell you that a theme park is being built in your neighborhood and we want to buy your house to knock it down so we can put up a tilt-a-whirl in its place."
I replied: "come in, please."
the man sat down comfortably, as if he already owned the place. I offered him a glass of buttermilk, which he politely refused. "would you like some mince pie?" I asked him. "no thank you" he said, "I am trying to watch my weight. we will give you two thousand dollars for your home and you must be out by midnight tonight."
"and if I refuse" I asked. "then we will take you to court and ruin your life." he said. so I sold him the house and moved across the country to a cabin on a lake. but I was only there a month when the same man showed up, demanding to buy my place so they could build a water park. this time he only gave me a hundred dollars and sent diseased moose after me as I left. I found a cave up in the limestone hills to live in, and was very happy there until that same man showed up a year later to tell me they were building caveland and my cave would be the snack bar. but this time I fooled him; my cave was full of bats, which I had trained to attack. the only thing left of him was his right shoe.