My new favorite quote.

"If you don't write the book, it ain't gonna get written."  Tom Clancy.

They had a bit on PBS about a New Deal program that sent a bunch of homesteaders from Michigan and Wisconsin  to  Alaska in the '30's.  Now I know why my grandmother always said she wanted to go to Alaska.  From the sound of it, it sounded like an experience into moving into Hell.

I think I saw a solution to my housing problems the other day.  I'll see tomorrow.  Tomorrow I'll check it out real close.  The more I think about it, the more I begin to see ways to make it work.  It's a place I looked into once before and dismissed without a second thought because they don't allow dogs.  Well, Petie died of old age, Gromit got terminal cancer when he was close to 14 which is old age in a dog, his eyebrows were plenty grey.  When I got busted up in May, I went through some changes.  All of a sudden, I grew old.  All of a sudden I started looking at life in terms of worrying about even being able to take care of myself.  Maybe some day I'll be able to have a dog again, but that busted knee broke that marriage to a dog sleeping on the bed.

A story came to my imagination, modern, scary, and plausible.  The first paragraph can grab a reader by the throat.  The first page, and first chapter will also grab.  And it's so plausible it could be rejected by a publisher on the basis of it's too doable.  Something that terrorists have simply never thought of.

Terrorists?  Sure.  Clancy's first book was The Hunt For Red October.  The bad guys used to be the Soviet Union.  Supposedly they'd bury us Americans.  I read it a long time ago, and I've seen the movie.  Imagination candy, a good yarn that doesn't stick in your memory.  Good entertainment for a week reading it, or 2 hours watching it.  My yarn isn't about a Soviet boogie man.  My yarn will be about a bunch of young religious zealots (morons, but I'll be polite).  There are plenty of them out there.  The 9-11 attacks, which I remember pretty vividly, were done by such people, and we've still got them running around in the United States, and a lot of other places.  They're proud of hating America and Americans.  I wonder what they'd to give their lives meaning if American ceased to exist.  Those Imams would find someone new to hate, that's what they're basically about from what I've ever seen.

Speaking of Middle East American haters.......  All of a sudden Iran is back in the news.  Back in 1979 I had a good friend who was an illegal alien from Iran, his name was Whoshang Arrapour.  He had the rottenest teeth I've ever seen.  I remember another Iranian asking him about politics, and threatening him.  The same guy threatened me, and to this day I'd like to get a chance to discuss the matter with that f*cker man to man in a dark alley... Oh well....  Anyhow, I asked Who (Whoshang) what the Iranian equivalent of the American saying "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow I shall fear no evil for I am the baddest son of a bitch in the valley!" would be.  Who spoke very good English, he knew the saying and it's meaning immediately.  He replied, "I have taken 100 thirsty men past the well and returned them thirsty."

Why does that Iranian saying matter?  Why do I think of it now, all these years later.  Who went on to explain that in Iran being a real sneaky SOB is considered cool.  The guy who could lead 100 thirsty men past the well without them noticing the well and drinking must really be a big time leader.  So this new guy who says he's a reasonable Iranian leader, well I don't think he should be trusted.  But that can be the basis for yet another great yarn, how about a Tom Clancy style CIA guy looking into the dishonesty of Iran in modern times........  I must think about that, perhaps.....