I Saw a Naked Man

In a children's picture book. . .

It was The Emperor's New Clothes, but STILL.

When I was growing up, every copy of that book I ever read showed the emperor in his underwear, and that was quite scandalous enough.

This picture not only showed his completely nude backside, it was depicted in the most realistic manner, complete with a shapely physique and a tan line.

Good grief!

I could just imagine the SHOCK on the faces of the sweet little girls with whom I had intended to share this book when their innocent eyes beheld the naked man.  And what would their mother have thought of me?  Ugh!

I am enormously grateful that Emma read the book herself first and thus prevented disaster.  It's going back to the library, and I won't be checking out any others without going through them page by page and line by line.

From Full Skirts to Disposing of Chicken Carcasses

Gathering eggs in a full skirt pegs out my joy meter.

It's definitely on my top 10 list of Simple Pleasures, neck in neck with flopping down in the pasture on a sunny day and having a cat search you out and rub all over your face.  Oh, dear.  I must not forget the delightful endeavor of chasing chickens back in their pen while swooshing my skirt from side to side with both hands.  I don't know what it is about gathering up one's skirt and doing something purposeful that just pleasures me no end, but it does.  Then there's dumping a potful of used-up chicken stew bones in our two Black Labs' bowl and hearing them crunch like mad while my chimes float notes of delicate beauty upon the air.  Yes, I know you're not supposed to feed dogs chicken bones.  However, I've seen our Cowboy and Spats kill and eat chickens feathers, innards, and bones, so I don't worry my pretty little head about that.  Maybe that rule is intended for Chihuahuas.  It certainly doesn't apply to our Labs.  They inhale the bones, masticate like a commercial food disposer, and swallow. They don't give a fig about pausing to savor the nuances of flavor.  Terribly businesslike in their attitude toward food, they must be the capitalists of dogdom.

Catholic Confusion and "The Reform of the Reform"

I have often wondered what the "reform of the reform" would be like. Now, I think I know. Last Sunday at the indult Mass, I saw a lady in the communion line who was wearing thin, clingy, gray knit pants--possibly exercise pants--and a t-shirt. On her head was a beautiful veil.

A Southern Gentleman Speaks on Modesty

An excerpt from a letter written by Jefferson Davis to his wife Varina.


Paris, 7th Feb. 1869

. . .My opinion of Paris as a place for education has not changed for the better, but rather for the worse. The tone cannot be delicate where living objects and inanimate representations so glaringly offend against decency; and it is to be doubted whether the many advantages found here for intellectual cultivation counterbalance the demoralizing influences which co-exist. I know we cannot expect to command every thing which is desirable, and am prepared to make the best of a hard case; but in my estimation a butterfly that has lost the down of its wing is not in a worse plight than a girl who has been disrobed of her modesty. The shops have been unusually brilliant in their windows of late, as Lent approaches, and crowds of men and women are gathered in places where prints and toys are exhibited, and occasional observation has taught me that whereon the number of gazers is great one may expect the presence of prints of nude women and toys expressive of amorous passions. The population which remunerates for such work and the exhibition of such types of general sentiment cannot be favorable to the cultivation or preservation of modesty. This would no doubt be regarded here as fantastic or rustic, perhaps barbarous; but I am thankful my wife was reared beyond the contact of these "refinements," and many others of which I forbear to make mention to you. . .