Implied in Rene Descartes famous conclusion cogito ergo sum (“I think therefore I am”) is the idea that thinking, especially thinking about one’s self - self-awareness, is a distinguishing mark of humans.

Medieval philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas said humans are creatures just below angels (way below if you look at the evidence) and just above animals (not far above by the same evidence).

Mark Twain observed that humans are the only animals that blush - or need to.

My late brother-in-law used to say that the key to doing any job was just having the right tool. Anthropologists have distinguished humans for their ability to invent and use tools. Upon closer examination they observed that monkeys and chimps, for instance, figure out how to break open food containers using sticks and stones (can break your bones, but names can never hurt you [demonstrating a distinguishing mark of mother human beings {at least mine} to encapsulate wisdom in pithy sayings}) But I digress with a digression within a digression.

Speaking of tools, I decided recently (well, we decided, {an obscure reference to Rumple of the Baily, a digression I will not allow to happen here} it was time to clean up and purge the area of the basement devoted to the pile of tools I have accumulated over many years of finding the right ones to do hundreds of do-it-yourself jobs, many of which required the later corrective assistance of someone who already owned the correct tools and knew how to use them. My agreeing to clean up the tools did contribute mightily to domestic tranquility, even though I must acknowledge said tranquility was not always maintained during the process.

That process got me to thinking about, why else, tools. Questions like “Why does a man of no lack of intelligence have so many tools, including duplicates, about which he has such scant knowledge about how to use?” Or scant memory of how he did use them and why? The answer, of course, is that I became a homeowner a long time ago. And who wants to spend all that money on handymen, plumbers, and mechanics when you can spend all that money on tools? Please don’t remind me of the times I spent all that money on tools and handymen or plumbers or mechanics who could undo what I just did and redo it right with their own oft used tools.( sorry about this redundancy of the previous paragraph, but it is a point I need to make to myself every time I think about fixing something.)

My dad knew how to use tools. He had power saws and routers and all kinds of other mysterious things to build furniture as a hobby (I still miss the desk he built for me when I was a preteen, the one with the secret drawer for my treasures.) I even borrowed some of his tools when I was in high school to work on the car. (Philosophical question, Is it borrowing if the borrower does not tell the lender?) I digress but it is an important question. You see, in the nineteen fifties when I was in high school we were all feeling the exuberance of the booming economy. The War was over. Needs we didn’t even know we had in 1945 had become necessities. Luxuries became essentials. My dad didn’t even own a car in 1945, but by 1957 a second car became a necessity so I could drive myself and my younger sister to high school so he wouldn’t have to (something he did not do, by the way, when it was only I who had to walk uphill both ways in sub-zero North Dakota winter days (but that’s another digression we shan’t wander into right now). After the first failure of a second car, a ’51 Chevy that quickly developed transmission problems (no reverse, which made parking at the end of blocks a necessity, and the inability to stay in first gear causing the shift lever on the steering column to snap and bite me as I tried to shift to second - (Three on the tree we used to call it.), he bought a ’53 Ford, which he seemed unaware was somewhat of a hot rod with a V8 (engine, not veggie drink) and Schmitty mufflers designed to make as much noise as possible. I drove that car for a few months, a period in which I decided to “borrow” some of my dad’s tools so I could do my own maintenance.

My dad having seen (and heard!)me drive off many times, apparently decided to sell that car without telling me. He did so without knowing that a box of his tools was in the trunk. To the day he died I’m not sure he had any idea where his tools were or how they got to wherever they were. I suppose I should have told him. But I always blamed him for not looking in the trunk before he made the deal.

Well, the time has come to bring us back to baseball.

I prided myself on being a catcher. I was small - short and light - but, darn, I was going to show those other guys I could be tough. I couldn’t hit a lick. My peg to second was not very good. But I could fly with the best of them when being “slud” into at home plate (Dizzy Dean’s verb) by guys who were all bigger than me. In baseball slang, a catcher’s gear - face mask, chest protector, shin guards - was known as the tools of ignorance. Draw your own conclusions. By the way, I, like other catchers, wore my cap backwards because it was necessary in order to wear the catcher’s mask - a necessity not a rappers affectation. There, I’ve finally said it. And while we’re at it, the bill of the cap was meant to be slightly bowed not flat. God said so on that fateful day when he picked up a handful of dirt, rolled it around in his hand until out came a man, and He said, “Go live in cities after you’ve blown it in the Garden and lost all that free food, figure out how to open coconuts and plow ground, and most of all play baseball. (Remember the story about all of this, the Bible, begins “In the big inning, . . .”)

And that, boys and girls, is your lesson about how tools, baseball , philosophy, and theology all come together to tell us about human nature.

©️William Bache Brown 2026

Share Bill Bache Brown

When Spenser informed his family of the government’s diabolical mandate, he assumed they would all see its evil and fall in behind him to resist. But as he began to put his preparation plan into place, he realized that there was subtle and not so subtle resistence coming everyone involved. At first it shocked him because of the gravity of the situation. Then he was puzzled. Finally he realized the power the authorities had gradually imposed over several years. At first they sold the older generation on the benefits of being chipped, of voluntarily allowing a direct connection to be made between humans’ brains and computers. Some, like Spenser himself, refused, but most did not, even Marilee had had herself chipped. The next generation was easier. They had been softened by the school system into believing that the state had only the best in mind for all citizens and that tapping into the system would facilitate the creation of a communication system that would serve that purpose. The illusion of a voluntary system was maintained, and almost everyone lined up to do their civic duty to become a part of the Great System.

Read more

First, sometime last winter (you know the one that never took place) I was reflecting on my grandchildren, Micah who mows my lawn, Landon who plays piano because of the magic of the hamburger, Vivian who crochets at a world-class rate, these three Bill Jr.’s children, and Devin’s, Erin, who is now married in Kansas City, her sister Sarah in Phoenix, her sister (who manages a popular hamburger store in Omaha), and her sister Molly, who recently graduated from high school (even the fallen-away English teacher has not let the preposition escape). Before I digress further, why did I mention my grandchildren? A good question.

As I was thinking about them one day last winter, I realized that I had never been together with all of them in the same room at the same time. Therefore, I suggested we have a family reunion. I did not realize the magnitude of such an undertaking. You see, I am a dreamer, and dreamers are not always the best completers. It requires a significant amount of effort to organize an event of that scale. Thank you, Martha and my daughter-in-law Kim, for taking on the challenge and doing most of the hard work. I am starting to digress again. The reunion turned out to be a wonderful weekend. A distraction from writing, yes. ut one of the highlights of my life. Thank you to everyone in my family.

Although it was a great experience, it did take a considerable amount of already depleted energy, before, during, and after.

I have also been grappling with the challenge of authentically portraying a robot’s “thoughts” in Spenser’s Choice, particularly in a conversation between Spenser and a robot about how robots feel. Initially, I engaged in extensive research, which consumed considerable time. Because being a feeling human myself made it difficult to assume a robot’s point of view, I decided to directly address the issue by consulting a popular AI chatbot to ascertain how a robot would express feelings . The resulting dialogue is now incorporated into the latest segment of Spenser’s Choice. This decision proved beneficial as it reinforced my belief in the potential of AI as a valuable tool. However, I believe that creators should acknowledge the use of AI in their work, as it becomes increasingly difficult to discern the distinction between a piece composed by a human and one assembled from fragments by a chatbot. This is a pertinent question in our era, when authenticity is under scrutiny at every turn. The significance of this issue is exemplified by the following observation:

“Genuine Human” is a recently adopted tagline by KOA Radio in Denver. I believe this is in response to the need to assert authenticity in the context of the AI revolution.

AI is here. This is not a groundbreaking revelation. No spoiler alert is necessary.

AI possesses remarkable capabilities, which we can observe daily in our data searches. However, how can we ascertain the veracity of the information we obtain? As Ronald Reagan famously stated, “trust but verify.”

But how can we achieve this?

If you are of an advanced age (as I am), you may recall the practice of having meat identified by a blue stamp on the meat itself, indicating that it was “USDA Inspected.”

Will every piece of data now require a declaration of “AI Produced”? Or will every work not produced necessitate the certification “Genuine Human,” with severe penalties imposed on those who fail to comply? Ah, the dreaded government solution.

Will a new law serve as the solution? In my opinion, a law can only achieve two objectives: it will be obeyed by law-abiding individuals and it can establish penalties for those who are not. Laws do not prevent crime; they merely define it.

Will artificial intelligence have a profound impact on humanity akin to the printing press, dividing individuals into distinct belief systems, such as Protestantism and Catholicism? This phenomenon could potentially benefit both parties. For instance, as a Catholic, I would not have fully comprehended the depth and richness of the scriptures without the printing press, which made them accessible for personal reading. and professional training However, my access to scripture serves as a tool rather than an ultimate goal. I still draw inspiration from the profound depth and richness of the Church’s tradition.

Although the following analogy may seem a stretch, I employ it in particular due to its relevance to the subject of artificial intelligence. A chainsaw possesses numerous beneficial applications, (none of which are suitable for frightened teenagers in unfamiliar surroundings at night). Nevertheless, even in the hands of a skilled sawyer, it can be a hazardous tool.

So, you might ask, what does this analogy have to do with the price of tea in China (even without tariffs)? Good question..

My title for this essay is “Full Disclosure” because I must acknowledge that my next scene in Spenser’s Choice was significantly influenced by artificial intelligence. As has been my practice recently, this segment of the story has been delayed, partly due to the energy expenditure caused by my cancer treatment and partly because I encountered challenges in authentically portraying a conversation between a human and a robot. Ultimately, I decided to seek professional assistance and request that ChatGPT generate the dialogue from the robot’s perspective. This approach proved to be highly effective, akin to using a chainsaw for a specific purpose. I believe I retained my creative instincts and gained valuable insights into the thought processes of robots.

Today,I began a course that delves into the history and future of artificial intelligence. This course will enhance my understanding of the subject matter, which will be beneficial for my writing and overall well-being. It is intriguing that the course is taught not by a technical instructor but by a philosopher, who is a seeker of wisdom rather than just a seeker of information or data.

Long live Sophia!

Happy 250th Independence Day!

Happy 150th Birthday, Colorado!

Happy Birthday, Martha!

(As you can see, even your old fallen-away English teacher has to resort to exclamation marks at times. [See previous essay on such].)

Thank you to those readers who have let me know you enjoy these verbal meanderings. Your feedback is greatly appreciated.

Leave a comment

The day after the tense parting with his son and son-in-law, Spenser waited in his closet-chapel and prayed - that he was making the right decision, that his plan could be implemented without complications, that his son would convince his brother -in-law to assist in the escape. He desperately needed the help of someone who knew his way around the government and especially the infrastructure of the city and how to escape it. Being unchipped was a huge disadvantage in such a venture, any venture, really, like being blindfolded in a dark room where everyone else had a flashlight. He opted a long time ago to not get chipped. He had never been convinced that being chipped was worth the degree of personal freedom he would have to give up. He knew it frustrated his wife and children sometimes, but he was determined he would not give up his autonomy. He had been born a free man, and he intended to stay a free man.

Read more

For those of us who had spent the last five months glued to the “Hot Stove League,” with all the trade talk, rumors, actual trades, managerial changes, and predictions, the arrival of the five most exciting words, “Pitchers and catchers report tomorrow,” sent a thrill down our backs.. This meant the new season was just around the corner, full of hopes and dreams. Teams that had finished last the previous year had a chance to shine, and players who had had tough seasons could start fresh. Rookies who had finally made it to The Show were dreaming of becoming the next big stars. It was a fresh start, just as important as the arrival of new grass, budding trees, and robins.

However, as Clint Hurdle, the former Rockies manager, put it so perfectly, “There are two kinds of people in this (baseball) world: those who are humble and those who are about to be.”

Deep down in some of our DNA, there’s a tiny piece that whispers to our blood, sparking a lifelong love for baseball. It makes us hear the crack of a bat, hear the distant echo of swings from ages past. It’s the memory of first picking up a bat in a PeeWee league, only to be told, “Right hand on top!” (Unless, of course, you’re left-handed.) Later that day, you excitedly tell your dad about your “hit,” a ball you popped straight up, hitting you on the top of the head as you sprinted towards first base. No matter what, your DNA had changed that day. Baseball became a part of who you are.

When not enough guys came out to the sandlot any morning to divide up into two teams you played a variation of the game Workup. With it you learned to play all positions.

Hours were spent with your box full of baseball cards, carefully collected while enduring the boringness of flat, chewy bubble gum. Each card was bought for a penny, (a coin worth a hundredth of a dollar that until recently was in common use). (I still have a tee shirt in a drawer somewhere, with the words: “I used to be a millionaire, but my mother threw out all my baseball cards. How I wish I had those cards now instead of tee shirts. My favorite cards were of the Brooklyn Dodgers because I was a diehard Dodger fan whose favorite player was Jackie Robinson. How, you may ask, did a little white kid on the plains of North Dakota become a Brooklyn Dodgers and Jackie Robinson fan? Good question. I believe it had a lot to do with my Dad being a New York Yankees fan. You know how it goes - we have to start our differentiating process sometime.)

It was a time of great divides - me and the Dodgers, my dad and the Yankees. I bet anyone over forty knows that Jackie Robinson was the first Black player in Major League Baseball back in 1947. But how many can tell you who Elston Howard was? Jackie Robinson opened the door for African American players in MLB, and other teams quickly followed suit by signing Black players. However, the New York Yankees were the last MLB team to have an African-American player on their roster, Elston Howard, and that was in 1955, eight years after Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball.

But I digress.

Another hero of mine was Roy Campanella, the Dodgers’ catcher. Did I mention Elston Howard was a catcher?) Eventually, I became a catcher, not because I was naturally good at that position (I wasn’t a natural at any position, really). I was a scrawny kid with poor eyesight. The number one physical asset of a baseball player is their eyes. There’s a good reason why so many baseball stars served as pilots in World War II. Anyway, I digress. I wasn’t a good baseball player, but I wanted to play every at opportunity I could (remember how baseball gets into your blood). And since nobody else wanted to be catcher, I seized the opportunity. I still have cooked fingers to prove it.

Speaking of T-shirts, I have two that I love to wear. They’re Colorado Rockies T-shirts that my long-time personal trainer gave me. They’re the same - black with the Rockies logo on the front—but each is different on the back. One has “Brown” across the upper back with “70” in big letters below it, while the other has “Bache-Brown” and “75.” These T-shirts were birthday gifts for my 70th and 75th birthdays. Isn’t that neat?

As a baseball fan, you naturally have a favorite team. When they’re doing great, you cheer and wave your “Number 1” foam hand. But when they’re not, you groan, slam your fist, and promise you’ll never watch them again. But deep down, you can’t help but remember the Brooklyn Dodgers’ rallying cry, which they chanted every year when they lost to the New York Yankees in the World Series: “Wait till next year!” And then, after a long winter, the love for baseball and favorite team is rekindled when they announce, “Pitchers and catchers report tomorrow.”

Speaking of T-shirts, I also have another one that says, “A day without baseball probably wouldn’t kill me. But why risk it?”

I know not everyone shares my love of The Game. Even harder to believe is the fact there a some people who hate baseball. If you fall into either of those categories, I hope you have read this far and gotten a little insight into my soul. Bless you.

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

Spenser was utterly drained. Not just exhausted, but as if his very life force had been siphoned away. This wasn’t the familiar fatigue from hard labor or sleepless nights—it was a deep, pervasive void of energy, coupled with an overwhelming inertia.

He had just come from The Brain Trust, a pub that had become the meeting place for old timers like himsel…

Read more

Questions arose, of course, at that first meeting with the oncologist: What does he mean by We can’t beat this thing? The only obvious answer was You will live with it for the rest of your life. So it followed that the rest of my life meant for as much time as we can buy. So I asked the obvious question. “How much time can we buy?” His answer, “We don’t know.,probably years.”

He said chemotherapy was not a consideration for a man my age. Ah, that phrase again. A man my age hears it more and more often when he is a man my age. (I’ll not digress here about Where has the time gone? And how did it go by so quickly?)

He explained to me that we were going to pursue, if I chose to, a course of treatment that would suppress the production of testosterone in my body, (It seems prostate cancer cells have an appetite for testosterone.) and would through supplementation , especially with calcium, make my bones as strong as possible. (That’s where “metastatic” comes into play. Prostate cancer cells like to escape to the bones, there to pursue further unpleasantness.)

Why am I telling you all of this? Well, it’s because I asked myself then, Just what do I want to do with this time he told me we were going to buy if I chose to embark on the therapy journey he outlined. As a life long writer, I began to think about how I could reach an audience in the most effective way. I decided it was time to make my presence known on Substack.

Before I left the oncologist’s office, he had explained to me that the course of treatment would have effects that would affect the quality of my life greatly, the primary one being that without testosterone a man’s body is pretty much out of gas, for testosterone is the fuel that drives a man’s journey. Without it a profound fatigue takes over a fatigue that is physical, mental, and spiritual. Your get-up-and-go has got-up-and-went.

That is why I am telling you this. For a year and a half I have been running on fumes as I have tried to entertain you with my essays and my episodic novel (that those of you who have become paid subscribers have been able to read {Thank you!) {Has he really resorted to the dread exclamation point?!} [Click here to see my earlier essay on the exclamation point.] )

Excuse me for a moment while I wiggle my way out of the parentheses box I have crawled into.)

Please do not try the parentheses within parentheses within parentheses at home. I am a professional and I’m not even sure of what I have done.

But I digress.

I want to apologize for having gone so long without a posting here. I’ve had to find the energy source without having to resort to stopping the therapy. Just sitting down at the keyboard is energizing; but summoning the energy to do the sitting is difficult.

When I started writing Spenser’s Choice, I had in mind that he would have a health condition affecting his ability to carry out his mission. (If you remember, in the first episode he seemed to be struggling with some mysterious lung problem.) It occurred to me that his physical problem could be the same as mine, not as a dominating theme in the story but as a factor influencing the flow of the narrative, just as it interferes with my telling the narrative.

Every good story ever written has a protagonist who wants something, who has a goal to achieve. The story consists of a major hurdle to be over come, or a series of hurdles in the form of people against him, circumstances that have to be overcome, inner weaknesses of character that make it difficult for him to reach his goal. For Spenser Deegan his illness will be one of many such obstacles.

My goal is to tell his story which I think is a good one for our times, therefore I will strive harder to evercome my own hurdles to tell his story.

I feel more energized already! (Oops just couldn’t resist the !)

The next episode of Spenser’s Choice, arriving in a few days, will set up several of the barries to Spenser’s goal. I hope you will come on his journey with us.

The Fallen Away English Teacher will also return soon with another light hearted effort about Language, Literature, and Life.

Thanks for taking your valuable time to read these ramblings.

Bill Brown

Leave a comment

©️William Bache Brown 2026

Rather than recap my answers to continue to feed your gathering ennui, I want to tell you what I would do today if I were a newly graduated English major who could make a living playing with words.

I would go forth and find a job in the pharmaceutical industry, the chief duty of which would be to coin words for new drug names (and all other duties as assigned). Among those other duties would be to write lyrics for catchy songs to sell those drugs, and most importantly to write lengthy disclaimers to tell you all the dire consequences that could happen if you take said drugs, the most common of which would be “suicidal thoughts.”

Recently I got an idea: Why not collect drug names and write a poem using only those words? I’ll tell you why not. Because Lewis Carroll already mastered the nonsense poem. Too bad he didn’t instead become a coiner of drug names. Jabberwocky would make a great drug name - perhaps to, treat vertigo. But I digress.

I am always mystified about the etymology, the origins, of the words they come up with for the names of drugs. Are they somehow associated with their chemical formulae, some kind of weird portmanteau of thought that sounded cool using chemical abbreviations? By the way, our good friend Google provided me with this interesting tidbit: “Lewis Carroll is famous for coining the term “portmanteau word,” which he defined as a word made by combining two words with the analogy of an old-fashioned suitcase that opens into two halves. He created many such words in his poem “Jabberwocky” from Through the Looking-Glass, with some well-known examples being chortle (chuckle + snort) and galumph (gallop + triumph)” But again, I digress.

Perhaps drug names are clever compounds of Greek or Latin words. Or perhaps they are nonsense words that the coiner thought sounded cool in a Lewis Caroll moment. I don’t know, nor can I ever associate the words with the disease they are purported to cure. It seems to me that many of the words could work in other contexts too. Can you see yourself navigating a mountain road In your brand new Lexus Bimselx ( a treatment for psoriasis.) Or how about your favorite super hero taking on the evil monster Ebglyss (a treatment for itchy skin, generic name - lebrikizumab-Ibkz). Or your travel agent could be planning a trip for you to Mounjaro (a treatment for type 2 diabetes), another new country in Africa.

I am extremely annoyed at having my viewing pleasure (Jeopardy, Broncos football, or NCIS to name a few, at the risk of coming off as a TV junkie {I almost forgot Ancient Aliens on the History Channel}) interrupted by commercials for these and other medical miracles.

The formula is always the same: people enjoying surfing or hang gliding, or hiking while small print crawls across the the screen like a wounded animal, and a discrete voice in the background tells of all the awful things that could happen by taking the advertised drug, not the least of which is being allergic to the drug itself (tell your doctor if you are before he prescribes. But how are you to know if you are allergic unless he prescribes it first?), or developing a worse case of the disease the drug is supposed to treat. I am convinced these commercials are really only for the purpose of the company being able to respond to your lawsuit, “You can’t say we didn’t warn you.”

The idyllic settings and enjoyable activities meant to tell us that if we only take (you name the drug), we too can have this wonderful life. Reminds me of cigarette commercials of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. (Permit me to digress further. Did you know that during said decades and even earlier, doctors prescribed smoking as a weight control method or to prevent the jitters {actually caused by smoking} and doctors were often featured in cigarette ads.)The drug ads almost make you want to go out and contract some really bad malady just so you can experience these wonderful drugs.

I’m sorry, I have to quit now (not smoking in case you are wondering; I did that a long time ago) . Just contemplating all of this is causing me to have suicidal thoughts. Perhaps I can find a drug out there that can stop those thoughts. Maybe something called Yikesellyx (my first attempt at coining a drug name).

I’ve decided, however, to continue collecting drug names as they interrupt my tv viewing (Did I mention Ancient Aliens on the History Channel?). That poem I talked about, using as many drug names as I can, just might come about after all, to be posted here. Look out Lewis Carrol. I’m coming for ya!,

© 2025 William Bache Brown. The Fallen Away English Teacher

Paid subscribers have access to the serialized novel Spenser’s Choice, the next segment of which is coming soon, in which Spenser tries to convince his son and son-in-law that they must escape with him to avoid a terrible fate..

Thanks for being here.

Leave a comment

Welcome all subscribers. Paid subscribers have received the earlier scenes from this episodic novel. To others, please read and enjoy this sample scene from Spenser’s Choice and consider a paid subscription to read this saga to its conclusion.

I apologize for the considerable time gap since last we saw Spenser Deegan trying to deal with the monstrous challenge he has been handed from the government. Summers will do that, even (or especially) to a writer. Hopefully intervals between scenes will be shorter from now on.

What we know so far:

Spenser has been told to choose which of his line of descendants is to be eliminated as part of a plan to deal with dwindling resources caused by the climate crisis humanity is dealing with. For Spenser this is the final straw in a series of events, including his family’s being forced to leave the farm they had been living on to live in the high density confines of city life.

Spenser has decided he will no longer bow to the dictates of the government but will instead, move his family to the ranch he grew up on in west central Colorado. He has already experienced some opposition from his son-in-law. Now he must tell his wife Marilee of his intention and his desire for her to help him plan the escape. He anticipates it may be difficult because Marilee has made the best of their living situation and built up a large circle of friends.

Spenser asked Marilee to come to the living room from the kitchen to talk, fearing she might be the biggest obstacle among the many to his plan to save his family. They had always had a tacit agreement in dealing with people or problems that her feelings were the deal maker or deal breaker for most decisions. When dealing with a car salesman, or a handyman, for instance, if Marilee just didn’t feel right about the person they were talking to, they would move on to someone else. Most of the time it worked perfectly for them because Marilee was a glass-full kind of person. It was rare for her to not like someone she had just met. In fact, it was a long standing joke in the family that anyone she just met, even a stranger at a convenience store, was immediately her best friend, at least for the time they were together conversing. Thus, her having a bad feeling about anyone was a sure sign that person was better avoided and not entered into business with of any kind.

Marilee also most often went along with any decision Spenser made. But not always. If the decision went strongly against something she wanted badly, she could dig in her heels against it. His decision to remove the family from the city in order to save them could easily lead to her intransigence. She had never liked living on the farm, had expressed her happiness at moving into the city even if it was forced upon them, as she had quickly made many friend with whom she interacted daily.

She entered the room, moved to her favorite chair, and sat down.

“What is so important, my love?”

Spencer quickly went through the facts of their new situation: the population reduction dictate from Aigod, his decision to remove the family from the situation by moving everyone to his dad’s old ranch in the western mountain country.

She looked stunned by what he told her.

“You can’t be serious. Move again after I’ve just got settled? Besides, you don’t really believe that the government would do such a thing, Do you? They are supposed to protect us. And who is this Aigod person any way? I’ve never heard of him.”

Spenser shifted in his seat.

“Yes, the government would do such a thing. What about when they insisted it’s okay to murder your own babies and even encouraged it. What about when they made laws so old people or the very sick could just tell a doctor they wanted to end it all, and the doctor could give them a cocktail of drugs to make it happen. This is just the next step. Those in power think, or say they think, they are protecting the majority of people by eliminating a few. And as for Aigod, I’ll have Bradley explain that later.

“When the government offered the chip to everyone who wanted it, you did not take it, remember, even though at first you thought it would be a good thing. You said you rejected it because I was against it.”

Now it was Marileee who shifted in her chair.

“I strongly considered it. It all sounded so good. The ability to communicate directly with a computer. The ability to communicate subconsciously with others not only thoughts but feelings, The ability to receive information from the government directly to our brains. It felt like the beginning of a wonderful new world. But when you said you were against it, afraid even of it, I decided against it because I trust your judgement in these matters.”

Spenser reached out and took her hands in his.

“You trusted me then. I’m asking you to trust me now.” Spenser said. “ I ask you to not fight me on this move. I am genuinely afraid of what will happen if we don’t. I am leaving with the rest of the family who will come. My life would be empty without you at my side, but I have to do this.”

“Spenser, it scares me when you say you are afraid because you have always stood up against anything you thought was wrong. If this thing scares you this much, then, of course, I’ll go with you. But I will not be happy. You are asking me to give up an awful lot.”

“Think of what you will be giving up if they come for our son and his family or our daughter!. To me that would be giving up everything.”

Marilee removed her gaze from Spenser’s and stared at the wall behind him for a moment, then rose from her chair, and stepped to him, still in his grip on her hands..

“I love you,” she said and leaned over and kissed him on his forehead, “Just promise me you’ll find a way to help me be happy on the ranch.”

“How can I do that?

“I don’t know. I’m not sure you will be able to. But we’ve come this far together. We’ll find a way to go further together.”

Tears were rolling down her cheeks. Spenser knew this was not going to be easy. Though he knew she would go along, she would not be happy. Now he had two obstacles to contend with. Marilee and their son-in-law Bradley, who by all indications would be resisting the move. Spenser did not know how to counter the chip, which he was sure Bradley had taken when there was still a choice. Who knows what kind of programming was going on in him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After their conversation Marilee returned to her craft room, which also became a guest room when needed by pulling down the Murphy bed. Their six-year old grandson, Sean, who had stayed the night with his grandparents as he often did said “Good morning, Gramma,” and bounded down the hall.

Spenser went to his makeshift retreat in their bedroom closet .

On his way to this personal retreat he encountered Sean.

“Hi, Grandpa,” Sean said. “You want to play knights?

“I’m sorry, Sean. I can’t right now. I have to go to my room and make some plans for the family..”

“‘If what you plan is good for the clan, is it also good for man,’” the boy recited.

“Where did that come from?” Spenser asked.

“I dunno. It just came from my head.”

Spenser slowly shook his own head, recalling that it had been just a year before Sean was born when chipping had become mandatory as part of a newborn’s processing into the world. This was the first time he saw any direct results. The kid’s brain was being filled with attitude building ideas to make him conform to what the authorities wanted. He would have to confer with Spense on how to counter this conditioning.

Spenser slid open the closet door. He lit the candle on the makeshift altar, made the sign of the cross, and prayed silently for a few moments. He asked for guidance as he took his family on the journey to come. And he wept quietly because of the direction the world was heading. He remembered the good days of his youth growing up on the ranch where he and his brother Rob, Robinson on issues birth certificate, felt free to learn all the skills he would now need to call on. He had not seen his brother for many years, not since his brother had returned from the incessant wars in the middle east where he served as a sniper. When he came back it was with only one leg and a bitterness that would not go away. He let everyone know he wanted to be left alone. And no-one had heard from him since he returned. For all Spenser knew his brother might be in a monastery, Catholic or Bhuddist, seeking healing. Or he could be living on the streets of Denver or any other large city seeking healing from a bottle or a needle. Spenser missed him greatly. He missed the long afternoons they had whiled away in archery contests on the ranch. Oh how he wished Rob were here with him now.

Spenser also missed his dad, who had taught him and Rob to to be self-sufficient and independent. Until the great consolidation when rural America essentially ceased to exist as its denizens were forced to move into cities because the anti-carnivore movement killed the cattle business and the cessation of all rural infrastructure maintenance made it almost impossible for an octogenarian rancher to survive, no matter how rugged and self-sufficient his younger self had been.

Spenser’s father died in less than a year of enforced city living..

Spencer pulled himself back from nostalgic wanderings to the task at hand. He began making a list of all the things that had to be done and the obstacles to be overcome. There was Marilee, of course. For the meantime, he would rely on their love for each other. Bradley was something else. His great loyalty to the political regime would be hard to overcome And the chip thing would hang over their heads always. Bradley, he knew, had opted for chipping when that was still an option. Spenser himself had, of course, opted out. He doubted Spense had been chipped. In any case, he now had much more to contend with than just ubiquitous street corner cameras that could track vehicles anywhere, and use facial recognition software to identify the people in them.

He jotted on his list: Steal e-bus and have Spense hack its system.

To be continued.

Thanks again to all you paid subscribers.

and support my work,

and support my work,

and support my work,.

In order to help me keep engaged with the world as I age, I have been challenging myself to learn new things. Photography having been a love of mine since I was twelve years old, I strove to improve my eye as a photographer. I have spent many hours trying to master Lightroom and Photoshop so I can turn my photographs into pieces of art. But I try not to limit myself to just expanding what I already am interested in, but to exploring new forms of artistic expression, for instance.

On a recent vacation to Door County, Wisconsin, on an excursion sponsored by Road Scholars, I was introduced to two new ways of artistic expression, taxidermy and watercolor painting. If you have read my musings and ramblings for any length of time you know that one of my fascinations is with words, their meaning, their origins, and their nuances. I find it fascinating how words go through a process of mutation and evolution. Take, for instance, Door County. How did Door County come to be called Door County? Was it named after someone named Door for instance? No.

It turns out that the indigenous peoples in the Green Bay region gave an interesting name to a particular part of the peninsula on which Door County now resides. Because this was a place where many people died due to harsh conditions and shipwrecks, the natives called it The Door of Death. Actually they used their own term, of course, which, as the story goes was hard for the French explorers to pronounce so they called it La Porte du Morte. (As Steve Martin once so astutely pointed out, the French have a word for everything.). Apparently the English speaking explorers of the time had a difficult time pronouncing the French solution to the difficulty of pronouncing the native word, so door of death entered the vocabulary scene, and in our ever-present tendency to shorten language, Door County, sans death, was born. If you ever find yourself writing a history of Door County, please do not cite me as a source for its name. Mine is merely hearsay evidence.

“But,” you may ask, “What does any of this have to do with Taxidermy or Watercolor?

Good question.

One of the fun features of Road Scholar trips is educational sessions. Amongst several we encountered were a class on beginning watercolor painting and a class on the art of taxidermy.

The watercolorist who taught us, urged us to use watercolor painting as a means of capturing memories on our travels. I have my camera to do that, thank you. But I was fascinated and delighted by being able to paint a simple picture with only a few instructions. (The picture I painted was inspired by a photo of a sunset I had taken the evening before.)( I’m beginning to reveal myself here: I am a photographer at heart.)

I am now looking for an instructor here in Colorado so I can learn more about watercolor painting. As you will see, I need to learn a lot more about watercolor painting.

After being stuffed with pizza at a restaurant near a Door County Maritime Museum, we were treated to a class on taxidermy by a master taxidermist, and I do mean master. His work was amazing. The first thing I learned was that I was completely wrong about what taxidermy is. I thought it was a process of stuffing animal skins to create a preserved model of the dead animal. Taxidermy literally means “stretching skin”. The word itself is a combination of two Greek words that mean stretch and skin. (It seems the Greeks have a word for everything. And so does English when you think about it. Of course a lot of English words come from French and Greek; but, that’s for another time.) The process of taxidermy is the stretching an animal skin, or bird skin, or fish skin over a hard base (think of something like a mannikin) and then arranging it over that base to make it look as real as possible. Sounds kind of what nature does when it puts skin on a skeleton, doesn’t it?

Reminds me a storyI heard once about a little girl who was asked by her teacher why we have skin. The girl replied, “ So we don’t have to go around all the time saying, ‘Yuuchhh.”

Of course, one of the most important characteristics of “looking real” is a convincing pair of eyes. I learned that there is a company in Germany that, besides making prosthetic eyes for people, makes a wide variety of eyes for taxidermied animals. Our instructor showed how a most important aspect of a taxidermied animal is having eyes that look as if they are looking at you. (We also got to see the work of a master wildlife photographer at another session whose work demonstrated the same thing about eyes in photography. Ah I keep coming back to it don’t I!)

Although I enjoyed learning about the art of taxidermy and seeing the incredible work the instructor has done, I am not looking for a taxidermy instructor here in Colorado.

The take-aways from all of this: Road Scholars is a really good source for travels with curious like-minded individuals. Door County, Wisconsin, is a great place to visit for a lot of reasons, many of which I have not covered here. And my opportunities to learn about taxidermy and water color painting, though fascinating in their own right, will, I hope, make me a better photographer. Here is the sunset photo I mentioned above, accomplished in about a sixtieth of a second, and a shot of the watercolor it inspired, accomplished in twenty minutes or so. Perhaps photography is my art form after all.

Thanks for being here.

Leave a comment

©️William Bache Brown 2025

I heard a plop in the backyard. Again! The familiar sound of an apple right after it has left the tree. The word windfall popped into my mind - because that’s what frequently happens to those of us who write. Words pop into our minds, grab us by the hand, and say, “Come on. Let’s follow it and see where it might take us.” Windfall took me down several paths. That time during Covid when the government sent us all a check. That was a windfall. Or the time I first encountered windfall apples and was scared to death. More about that later. And the current manifestation of windfall that really isn’t a windfall in the sense of an extra benefit, and probably isn’t a windfall in its original meaning of apple falling off a tree because of wind. This windfall, about which more even a little later, is more likely caused by hungry squirrels and/or very heavy fruit the tree can no longer hold.

My first encounter with windfall apples came when I lived in a country house in Michigan where I was teaching freshman English. I was sitting in the kitchen late at night reading as was my wont. It must have been around midnight. I was reading the latest bestseller of the time, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. It is the fictionalized account of the murders of the Clutter family in Manhattan Kansas, a senseless crime of opportunity. It is a frightening tale of random murder told by a skilled verbal craftsman. And right in the middle of one of the darkest moments, I heard a thump above my head that made me jump. And then I heard another and another. It took me until the next morning after a night of anxious attempts at sleep to discover that apples had been falling off the tree and hitting the garage roof. I had never lived around apple trees before and windfall was not in my vocabulary.

My life now is dominated by apples - at least in mid and late summer.

I’m sitting here typing on the keyboard of my MacBook trying to come up with interesting musings about apples, and then it hits me I’m typing this essay on the keyboard of my MacBook Pro computer. Apples are everywhere. I wonder how the two Steves came up with Apple to name their computers? Or how the Fab 4 came up with Apple for the name of their record company? (Click the links to enter a rabbit hole to find out.) If I don’t stop I’ll be giving my scholarly analysis of the fall of man in genesis. See that’s what I mean about the minds of us word people. We can easily fall into OED rabbit holes, as well as Google trails and never come back if we are not careful.

Whew! I made it back; thanks for waiting. And I remember now what got me onto this windfall apple thing.

It all began just over thirty years ago, when I got the idea that an apple tree would make a nice addition to my back yard, this despite my late night encounter with windfall apples and Truman Capote. As I was searching for ideas about what to get, I came across, in a mail order catalog, a tree that was made up of a trunk with five different varieties of apples grafted onto it. (The number might not be correct, but you get the idea.) Immediately my mind saw this magnificent tree in your back yard giving me Granny Smith’s on one branch and Delicious on another and Fuji on another. (You get the idea).

I purchased said tree, waited for its arrival with as great anticipation as I had as a ten year old once waited for my Straight Arrow Arrowhead, complete with whistle, magnifying glass, and other various cool survival features. The tree arrived finally, and I planted it in a strategic location in my backyard.

The tree has thrived there for all these years. Each year, except for two or three when late spring Colorado snow storms took out all the blossoms, it has produced an abundance of apples, but not an abundance of Granny Smiths on one branch and Fujis on another (You get the idea). Instead it has produced each year an abundance of some kind of hybrid apple, always pale green, never red, so sour you cannot eat them nor even make pie or apple sauce from them. I haven’t tried cider - yet.

This tree annually produces an abundance of fruit, which eventually winds up in the grass, either from the weight of the apples, or the ill feelings of squirrels who hate me for some unknown reason, or even wind. Whatever the reason those apples are not a windfall. They make up a mess that must be cleaned up daily for at least six weeks and make our overflowing trash problem even worse.

If the common belief that it was an apple that caused Eve to disobay God and draw her husband into a big mistake. . . Oh dear I’m feeling the urge again. Bear with me as I crawl back out of that rabbit hole.

There Made it. As I was saying, these apples are no windfall. They are a mess that must be dealt with.

Speaking of rabbits and messes. You should see the messes rabbits can make of the apples before we pick them up.

And that, my friends, is why a windfall can also be a curse. Please note: No rabbits or squirrels were harmed in the production of this musing by the Fallen Away English Teacher.

Leave a comment

When the cup began to jiggle, Spenser slowly lifted it and grabbed the fly , held it on the table, and smashed the fly shaped drone with his fist. Small Plastic shards and tiny electronic parts flew about the patio. Blood seeped from his hand. Those damn blood thinners, he thought.

“Are you okay?” His son Spense asked. “Do you want me to get Mom?”

“Thanks…

Read more

A lesson I learned from my mother when I was six years old has stood me in good stead in its original context as well as many others. I was in the doctor’s office about to receive a series of innoculations required to begin grade school. I was afraid. Never before had I had needles stuck into me. My mother said in a soothing voice, “Just relax. This too shall pass.” I did and it did.

I have never forgotten that moment. Her admonition got me through many more needle encounters, a first time donating blood leading to many others on the way to becoming a ten gallon donor, uncounted regular blood draws for monitoring ongoing health concerns, self-catheterization made necessary by another, and many other situations not involving needles or medical necessities.

Lesson learned: when you find yourself in an uncomfortable situation, take a deep breath, relax, and remind yourself that “This too shall pass.”

There was a situation, however, in the midst of which I was sure a simple “ this too shall pass” would not apply.

I was twelve or thirteen when my dad asked me to help him take a load of trash to the dump grounds (land fill to those of you born in the latter half of the twentieth century or in the twenty first). As we drove along he said, “I’m concerned that something could happen to me on a road trip and no one in the car could drive (my mother like many mid-twentieth century women did not drive; although she learned to after he died.) So I want you to be familiar with the car so you could drive if you had to.”

He pulled over to the shoulder of the gravel road, got out of the car, walked around to the passenger side and said, “Slide over.”

There was no place for me to go but into the driver’s position on the bench seat. Soon, following his instruction I was ever so slowly piloting his prized possession, his 1957 Oldsmobile Holiday 98, down the gravel road. As we approached a cross road he told me to turn left which I did as slowly as I could. A left turn is a very scary thing any time; the first time it’s terrifying. “Come on,” he said, “you can go faster.” Then, “A little too wide, slow down and bring it back.“

I moved my foot to the brake pedal and pressed it, not knowing I had not moved my foot far enough. What happened next happened so fast I cannot even describe it. My foot slid off the break onto the gas pedal and just like that we were in the ditch, but not just in the ditch. The car was leaning on the slope of the ditch in such a way that the passenger door could not be opened.

“This too shall pass” did not immediately come to mind. I expected the full force of my father’s fury to come down upon me like a chapter out of the Old Testament.

I pushed the driver’s side door up and kept it open with my foot and then wedged my way out. My dad grabbed the steering wheel and pulled himself up to the driving position. While I watched from the road, he ever so slowly eased the car back and out of the ditch, a process that seemed to take hours not minutes.

With the Oldsmobile safely back on the road, he motioned for me to get back in. It was with great relief that I saw nary a scratch on the passenger door as I opened it. Regardless, I expected a torrent of anger from this man I once saw almost get into a fist fight over a parking space.

I got in and waited for the fury to descend. He shifted into drive and we resumed our trek to the dump grounds in silence. After several minutes, he spoke without taking his eyes off the road.

“Don’t ever forget that,” he said quietly. And I never have.

It was as if the whole incident had gone according to some plan so he could give me a driving lesson about how quickly things can go bad.

We made it home with my life intact, and we never spoke about it again.

As I tell this story I have to wonder if this was really as much a life lesson as it was a driving lesson. Over the course of my life there have been many ditches in many areas of life, personal relationships, financial matters come to mind, into which I’ve slid and was able to get back out relatively unscathed. Never forgetting them and being able to realize that this too shall pass has helped me avoid perhaps even deeper ditches into which I could have slid.

The lesson: When you slide into a ditch, take a deep breath, say “This too shall pass,” and then back out slowly onto the road and move on, and never forget what happened.

I also never forgot that my dad was able to not slide into a ditch of anger where his reaction could scar an innocent boy for life. It was a lesson for both of us.

Footnote - It was my grandfather who eventually taught me how to drive as I related in one of my earlier postings on this platform on October 2, 2024, where I presented a poem about my grandfather. (press on date for link)

Thanks for being here for these musings.

Until next time

Bill Bache Brown, The Fallen Away English Teacher

Leave a comment

Author’s note: Although, as you will soon see, AI (Artificial Intelligence) is a key factor in this narrative, please understand that the words here are all those of the author, except where AI might be used for editing or research purposes. The lone exception so far is the government memo that you will see in this scene. I composed the memo to convey i…

Read more

We had just arrived at Five Guys Burgers and Fries to celebrate my grandson’s latest achievement, his acceptance into the Conservatory program at Valor Christian High School, where he had just completed his freshman year. In this program, he will have the opportunity to further his mastery of the piano. And so I did the only logical thing; I invited him to share a hamburger meal at Five Guys Burgers and Fries because that is where his adventure with the piano began half his life ago.

Seven years ago I was pondering what to give Landon for Christmas, and his dad told me he had a CD by the Piano Guys he listened to a lot, and maybe he would like more piano music to listen to.. So while he and I were enjoying a burger at Five Guys I brought up the subject of piano music. I asked him if he had any interest in learning how to play the piano. His excited response told me I had hit a wonderful note. So I told him I would lend him my keyboard as long as he took lessons and practiced diligently. Easy enough except for two things: I did not own a keyboard, and I was pretty sure music lessons were not in his parent’s budget.

Soon, however, I acquired a keyboard thanks to our friends at Amazon, and I agreed to subsidize lessons.

Hanging over the archway in our dining room is a ceramic plaque which says:

“Every meal shared in love is a feast.”

As far as I am concerned a meal can be anything from a huge turkey with all the trimmings for Thanksgiving to a simple burger on a bun.

I am especially fond of a good hamburger. I have even been accused of spending my life on a quest for the perfect hamburger, one equal to my childhood favorite. When I was 10 or so, my dad introduced me to Jack Lyon’s Hamburger Stand in Bismarck, my hometown. It is legendary amongst us who grew up there in the first half of the twentieth century. I have never found a burger as good as those served at Jack Lyon’s. My dad always said the secret to a Jack Lyon’s hamburger was the large flat-top that was never cleaned and thus had decades’ worth of grease to flavor each burger. I suspect the secret for me is nostalgia.

A jack Lyon’s burger was served in a narrow hole-in-the-wall establishment that had the aforementioned flat-top griddle behind a stool lined counter. There were no tables. And there were no French fries either. As you sat at the counter, your back was to a narrow aisle that held a pop cooler of a kind I haven’t seen for years. It was a rectangular lidded tub of ice that had strips of metal inside forming channels from which hung long-necked bottles of soft drinks, Coke, Pepsi, Orange Crush.

In the early nineteen-fifties, when I was a regular customer, a burger cost 20 cents, a bottle of pop was a nickel. For 25 cents, you could have a feast. I feasted almost every Saturday, as long as my meagre allowance held out, with the little extra my mother would give me with a wink. My buddies and I had a routine on Saturdays. We would go in the morning to play basketball at the high school gym. If we were lucky enough to have “tennis shoes”, we had an advantage over those who didn’t because they had to play in stocking feet to protect the floor. I was lucky in my high-top black Keds. But I digress. After playing basketball until just about noon, we would walk downtown, about nine or ten blocks, to Jack Lyons, where we would feast. I always had mine the way God intended a hamburger to be, with ketchup, pickle, and raw onion. Though I can’t quote chapter and verse, but I’m sure it’s somewhere in the Bible, probably Leviticus.

After chowing down and arguing the merits of Coke versus Pepsi, we would walk a few more blocks down to Main Avenue and the Dakota Theater where, for twelve cents, we would watch magenta tinted westerns starring Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, or Hopalong Cassidy, and the like. The westerns were usually preceded by a serial episode that kept us coming back week after week because of the previous week’s cliff hanger ending, such adventures as Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers (not related to Roy), and the Perils of Pauline, from which I believe the term cliff hanger comes, as Pauline was once or perhaps many times left at the end of an episode clinging by her fingernails to a cliff. This was our life before television.

But once again I digress. It is hamburgers we were talking about.

The hamburger has an interesting history. It has become America’s greatest contribution to cuisine, vying with pizza as our favorite food. (And just to muddy the waters, isn’t it interesting that we also have hamburger pizza?) Yet, the name itself comes, some say, from Hamburg, Germany, for a popular sandwich made there many moons ago. Others claim, however, that the name comes from Hamburg, New York for the same reason.

There are lots of food items named after places in Germany. My home town of Bismarck shares a name with a jelly filled pastry. (Bismarck is the second name for my hometown, having been changed in the nineteenth century from Edwinton to attract German immigrants to North Dakota). Oops, another digression. I wonder if Bismarck is another name for the same pastry known as a Berliner, which according to an internet search is “ a traditional German doughnut (also known as a krapfen) that is round, filled with jam or custard, and often dusted with powdered sugar. Unlike American donuts, Berliners typically don't have a central hole.” Sounds like a Bismarck to me.

Those of you who are old enough to remember John F. Kennedy will recall when he got a lot of ribbing, when expressing his solidarity with the people of Berlin he declared “Ice bin ein Berliner!”, in effect calling himself a jelly filled doughnut. Fortunately, he was not speaking to the people of Frankfurt and declaring himself to be a hot dog, which, by the way, not a few Americans at the time would have agreed with. Or he could have been in Hamburg, and now we have a digression within a digression which returns to our original topic: the hamburger.

Hamburgers are usually made from ground beef, though there are turkey burgers and lamb burgers, among others. I have never seen a burger made from ham, however.

“What got you onto this rambling about hamburgers?” you might ask. Good question. For the answer, move your eyes to the top of the page and re-read.

And that, my friends, from the Piano Guys to Five Guys, is the power of the hamburger. I wonder if Beethoven and Mozart had favorite hamburger joints in Berlin or elsewhere.

Es lebe der Hamburger! (For you French speakers - Vive les hamburgers!)

The second episode of Spenser’s Choice, in which Spncer shares with family members the dire dictate he has received from the government, will be posted in a day or two for paid subscribers. Thank you for your patience as the muse sometimes dallies.

I look forward to your joining me next time,

Bill Bache Brown, The Fallen-Away English Teacher.

Spenser’s Choice Chapter One, Scene 1

Read more

A year ago a doctor looked me in the eye and said, “We can’t cure it, but we can buy you some time.” But what does “buying time” mean? Time is that one elusive reality for each of us that begins when we take our first breath and ends when we breathe our last. We talk about it. We measure it. We regulate our lives by it. We try to save some of it by changing our clocks a couple of times a year. We waste it. We while it away. We pass it. We even kill it. We wait. We hurry. We notice its flight, but only after it’s flown. We accumulate its ravages.

But how do you buy time? It’s not like a piece of land you can purchase maybe to build on someday. Time by its very nature is self-consuming. It’s not an investment you can watch grow and then pass on to your kids. No, even if you buy it, you have to consume it immediately. A good American philosopher would tell us we have to make our time productive. Build something. Read something. Fill our time with useful activities. Do something meaningful. Write something.

How much time can we buy? Enough to do all the things we could have done if we hadn’t wasted time, whiled it away, found ways to pass it, killed it?

And what is the price we pay to buy time? Well in the case of the time the aforementioned doctor said we would buy for me the price is ironic. The drugs that effect the purchase destroy the energy you would hope to use filling the time with activities to make the time worth having.

I decided a year ago to invest some of the bought time to send out to you my thoughts on language, literature, and life because the act of writing itself is a kind of time-buying, the hope that words will outlast the writer.

My little place in the Substack world was what I decided to do with some of that bought time. I thank you most deeply for giving them a landing place. Of late the posts have not been as regular as I had hoped, but they will continue as long as I have time, both ramblings and my story Spencer’s Choice, the first segment of which will be presented to paid subscribers tomorrow.

I can hear them all now saying, “It’s about time!” Or is that the voice of my conscience?

A portion of that first segment will also be presented to every one of you subscribers to these verbal wanderings of mine in a shameless attempt to pique your interest in subscribing to the paid part of this platform so you can read the rest of the story.

If that is not your choice, you will still find here more wanderings through language, literature, and life by the Fallen Away English Teacher.

Thanks once again for wandering with me.

More next time - as time permits.

Leave a comment

I hate exclamation points. They have become the Chicken Littles or the Boys Who Cried (wolfs? wolves?) of the writing world. But what can you expect in a world where f-bombs have become punctuation marks? It may surprise you to learn my topic for this brief foray into language, literature, and life is not about exclamation points, f-bombs, or werewolves (again!). No, I just couldn’t figure out how to, well, exclaim about my topic because that under-dotted vertical bar thing is used so much these days …. Sorry, I guess I am making it all about exclamation marks. Let’s hit the restart button and, well, cleverly restart.

Have you noticed that the world is all abuzz about Artificial Intelligence (hereafter referred to as AI)? There are apps to help you write. There are apps to create pictures for you. There are apps to find just about any piece of information you want. There are now apps that correct your writing - even to the point of changing what you have written to make it more effective, even if it sometimes changes your intended meaning.

Did I ever tell you about my first foray into dog ownership? Probably not. Well anyway. Many years ago I acquired a cute little Malamute puppy. If you are familiar with Malamutes, you know that “little” is a relative term. I learned quickly that dogs do not come equipped with human language and for them ”No!” is a relative term. But I did learn that Malamutes come equipped with a brain that makes them think anything you tie them to magically becomes a sled that needs to be pulled. Footlockers filled with heavy dishes. Stakes in the ground. Swing sets. You get the idea. People would ask me, “Where do you walk a dog like that?” My reply, “Anywhere it wants to go.” Bear with me. I am setting up a metaphor here. (Metaphors Be With You!)

Even those who began creating AI are now saying, “There is a danger that we have created an enormous dog that can (metaphorically speaking) take us anywhere it wants too.” They are warning us we all have to take control of AI before it takes control of us, to learn how to use it as a tool for whatever we do or for the worker who does if for us. And even then there are naturally intelligent people (hereafter referred to as NI) who are afraid we have already unleashed a Frankenstein’s Malamute. They fear that when AI becomes ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence), it will become smart enough to cause humans to be obsolete and will make us eliminate ourselves. 1. Herenote (Why send you all the way to the bottom of the page to feed you more info?): as I was typing the phrase Artificial Super Intelligence, before I could type super the built in AI had already laid down the word Intelligence, and I had to edit it. End herenote.

I have decided to try to get ahead of AI, to make it a tool instead of my eventual master. 2. Herenote: I once thought that my advanced years would make it unlikely I would see the day when AI takes over completely, but there are many who put the likelihood in years, not decades. End herenote. (AI does not like coinages and just corrected me again as it did above in my first use of the term.)

As my paid subscribers already know, I am writing a serial novel to be presented to them. It is based on the danger of AI, and the human spirit that can fight it and other things. But in writing it I am also using AI as a tool to assist me, not to write it, oh no, only to research and suggest. The book itself, however, will be totally written by me.

There are certain watershed moments in human history, events that change everything.Think of Eve taking a bite out of that apple or whatever kind of fruit it was and then handing it to her husband. I would like to think it was a peach, but that’s just me. Or how about when someone conceived the idea of the pump that could move water out of the ground? Now that was a groundbreaking development! (I know, I know.) Without the pump, there would be no mining of metals. Just like that no bronze age, no iron age. And Guttenberg printing the Bible. Without that, there would be no Reformation. Just like that, no 95 theses. No peasant revolts. I could go on. Kitty Hawk. The Manhattan Project. AOL. All those moments that changed the trajectory of history forever. Every such list will from now on have to include AI. Our world will never be the same. And like everything since Eve had peach juice running down her lovely chin, AI has potential for great good or as a tool for evil. Just what we need on this planet - more evil!

Just think what could happen if a schoolboy who has gotten used to having Chat-gpt writing his school papers rises to be in charge of government and decides it would be cool to have the same AI make the major decisions of governence. Now you’ve really got something. Well, at least you have a story called Spencer’s Choice, a novel in serial form soon to be available to paid subscribers.

Next time I will post Chapter One so you can decide if you would like to subscribe and read on!

Share Bill Bache Brown

Read more

Disclaimer: It is also not my intention to be political, though my choice of subject matter may make it seem so. I have been wanting to write about this week’s subject, denotation and connotation, for some time. When the news story I refer to came up, I knew it contained a perfect example to examine, one that shows the importance of the denotation and connotation of words, how recognition of such can show the amusing, the interesting, and the dead serious nature of words.

Recently the governor of Wisconsin proposed that, for legislative purposes, the word “mother” be changed to “inseminated person.” He, er she, er they - my hesitation here is because I’m sure the use of preferred pronouns is important to the governor and I really don’t know what the governor prefers. When I was an English teacher the choice would have been easy - “he” would be the choice. Not so today. But I digress, and my intent is not to rant about pronouns; my intent is to discuss denotation and connotation in nouns. So “he” it shall be.

He ( the governor of Wisconsin) defended his proposal as necessary when talking about IVF (in vitro fertilization).

"What we want is legal certainty that moms will be able to get the care they need," he said. "That's it, end of story."

Notice, however, his answer did not say “inseminated persons” will get the care they need. He said “moms.”

This, to your fallen away English teacher, is a perfect example for a discussion about the denotations and connotations of words, a subject that has been on my list since I began these musings. What a word denotes is what it means at its most basic level. For our current example, “mother” means “a female who has given birth”. What the word connotes, however, is much bigger. It has associations which are cultural, social, and personal. Think of a word as a paint-by-numbers kit. The denotation consists of the canvas with lined spaces that show the picture in abstract. The connotation consists of the colors that are put into the spaces to show the picture in its fullest rendering, an effect that could vary depending on the steadiness of the hand that fills it in, the memories triggered by the viewer, and the cultural biases associated with the scene. Almost every word we use has its own denotation and connotation. What separates great writers from good writers and good writers from ordinary writers, is their awareness of these two aspects of words as they put them together.

Notice the governor used the word “moms” in his response, a word that has connotations similar to but different from “mothers.”

On one level, “inseminated person” is perfectly logical as bureaucrat-speak. Ever notice how often police department spokespersons refer to a “deceased person” not a “dead man” or even “dead guy.” Those three terms all mean the same thing, “a human being who has died”. But also notice how each evokes a different feeling when you hear it. What you know is the denotation. What you feel is the connotation.

Why, I wonder, if the governor wanted “moms” to get their due, did he not propose the term “inseminated woman”? Could it be because a large number in his constituency do not want to make such a narrow distinction, believing that sexuality is fluid and any person can have a baby? But being the astute politician he is, he also appealed to a different part of his constituency by using “moms.”

Anyway, I doubt Hallmark will be coming out with a new line of cards for May 11 declaring Happy Inseminated Person’s Day. Just doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it! The vibe is just not right. In other words, the connotation is all wrong.

Of course we haven’t even considered another layer to this consideration of words - context. Well, we did a little in mentioning bureaucracy, politicians, and Hallmark.

All of this is why I find language so fascinating and an endless source of amusement.

A final thought: a wise person once admonished me to “Choose your battles carefully.” After my decades of experience on the planet I can add: “Choose your words carefully or battles may choose you, “denotation” could quickly turn to “detonation.”

- - Ye Olde Fallen-away English Teacher.

Those of you who are paid subscribers will get a message tomorrow concerning a special new project coming your way.

Share