Blog

Look! A Big Bird with a Bright Orange Breast!

 

My fourth bird-watching expedition was to Hempstead Lake State Park on Long Island, New York. It was a lot of fun — even though I did make something of an ass of myself (something I am getting really good at).

The birding group composed of maybe 20 men and women, some quite old (some maybe dead), some quite smart and some I haven’t figured out yet; all bedecked in their bird watching gear of brown clothes with binoculars hanging from their necks, was an enthusiastic lot.

My wife the Beautiful AP and I were the rank amateurs in every way. Using our brand-new 8 x 42 powered binoculars every time someone said something such as “Look over there (pointing), a tan-breasted marmalade rotund chick flyer!” I’d put the binocs (being cool that’s what I now call them – binocs) to my eyes and try to focus on the bird – mostly where my fellow birders were pointing.

Inevitably I got branches and tree limbs or ground or marsh grass but I could never find the bird. The magnification of the binocs was great. I mean I could really see the stupid leaves of the stupid trees.

Maybe human eyesight and binoc sight are on a different level?

The bird walk took two hours and at the end of hour number one I had seen some birds. But usually only for a few seconds because those rotten birds could fly. Just as my binocs were honing in on them; off they would go! Pfft! That’s more annoying than someone talking during a movie.

All I was doing was basically tramping through the woods, over the tree roots that were above the ground. (“Please God; don’t let me break my ankle.”) I was sweating like a pig (do pigs sweat?) and fearful I would rub up against some poison ivy which seemed to be growing everywhere.

We came to the lake; a nice lake that was a little low on water since Long Island was not getting much rain. I binoced-in on a bunch that were lazing their way along the shore. Oh, yeah!

Other than huffing and puffing, I had not contributed anything to the bird-walk of our South Shore Audubon team except stuff like “I don’t see anything.” Or, “Is that poison ivy here?” “A yellow tufted what?” “The darn thing flew away!”

Then I saw them! Three Seagulls. Right at lakeside. “Look over there,” I shouted. “Seagulls! Three of them.” I pointed at them as if I were a pro.

Then a woman’s voice from the behind me said, “To a true birder there are no such thing as Seagulls. We just call them gulls. Seagulls don’t exist.”

(Oh, for crying out loud! Lady did you have to ruin my moment?)

My default is usually to say something funny in moments such as these and I went right to my default. I pointed to the “gulls” and said, “See, gulls!” There wasn’t a single laugh; not one stinking laugh. I thought “see, gulls” was funny. I was alone in the world on that one.

My other great moment came about 10 minutes later. I was scouring the lakeshore, trying to find some birds I could point to and make up for my “see, gulls” comment. I didn’t want to be on the outs with my new birding brethren. I had to redeem myself.

Then I saw it. A big bird with a bright orange breast; it was magnificent. “Everyone! Everyone! Across the lake. (I pointed triumphantly.) Over there. A big bird with a bright orange breast!”

Binoculars, far more powerful ones than those I had, held by birders far more experienced than I am, trained on the bird. (Oh, yeah; oh, yeah! Take that “see gull” lady!)

Then…

The telescope-man’s voice was kind, “Frank, that’s a pile of garbage.” Everyone laughed.

Listen to me; I still think “see, gulls” was funny.

[Read Frank’s new book I Am a Dice Controller: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Craps! Available at Amazon.com, kindle, Barnes and Noble and at bookstores.]

 

I Will Destroy My Grandkids!

 

My wife the Beautiful AP (known to our grandkids as Grand AP) brought a Scrabble game over when we were on babysitting duty for New Year’s Eve. Our grandkids are a boy 11 (known as Johnny Scobes) and a girl of nine (Dani Scobes). The Scobe name is going to live on.

“We’re going to play Scrabble,” said Grand AP taking out our Scrabble Board.

“Are you sure, my beauty?” I asked. “I mean, I am going to destroy all of you if we play that game.”

“You don’t know that Grandpa Scobe,” said Dani Scobes.

I bent down and whispered into Johnny Scobes’ ear, “I am going to kick your ass!” I whispered so Grand AP wouldn’t be able to hear me as she dislikes when I do “guy-talk” with Johnny Scobes. Johnny Scobes, of course, smiled as I said the word “ass” and now he felt he could whisper the word back to me. “No, I am going to kick your big fat ass.” Please note my grandson’s creativity. He added the words “big” and “fat” to the threat.

“I know what you guys are doing,” said Grand AP. “There’s not to be any bad talk.”

“He started it,” I lied. Johnny Scobes shook his head no.

By some kind of process of elimination ruled over by Grand AP, I was slated to go last.

And the game began.

“I have never lost in this game,” I bragged.

“You lose to me all the time,” said Grand AP.

“Only sometimes all the time,” I said.

“The rest of the times too,” she said.

And we played. I kept pointing to Johnny Scobes and making a fist. “You’re dead.”

Johnny Scobes laughed.

Dani Scobes said, “Grandpa, if you brag it will be worse when you lose. You shouldn’t brag.”

“Listen kid,” I said. “When it comes to Scrabble I am the king of the universe.”

“What would be a good score?” asked Dani Scobe.

“Anything over one hundred,” said Grand AP.

The final score was:

Grand AP – 150

Dani Scobes – 108

Johnny Scobes – 106

Grandpa Scobe – 78

 

Obviously, the game was fixed.

 

[Read Frank’s book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic! On sale at Amazon.com, kindle, Barnes and Noble and at bookstores.]

How (not) to Stop a Fight

 

[At Lawrence High School in Cedarhurst, New York.]

The girl was maybe 4’10”— if that; slightly built, but she was a tigress. I think she was a sophomore. She had gotten the bigger girl down on her back and she was pounding away, punch, punch, punch.

I knew I had to stop the fight, so I did. In those days, the early 1970’s, I was in great shape, running 10-mile races, boxing, doing amazing numbers of calisthenics. Today, sadly, I am Jabba the Hutt. But then? I was close to a god.

I went behind the tigress and grabbed her, thereby squeezing her back against my chest. I lifted her easily off the bigger girl. I had a tight hold on the tigress.

But tigress was kicking like crazy, trying to break my hold but being small, her feet were where a man doesn’t want someone’s kicking feet to be.

She did a backward kick, a backward kick and then – two feet, one after another, landed on an area I had treasured since I first discovered it — my balls, or in polite terms, my balls!

I can’t let go of her I thought. My other thought was that I’d never have sex again thanks to this tiny monster. I just hoped my private parts didn’t fall to the floor.

I was gasping in agony when the assistant principal came over and took the tigress out of my arms. That’s the first time in my life I wanted a female out of my arms.

I leaned against a desk, breathing deeply, when a female teacher said, “You look so pale Scobe. Are you all right?”

“I’m great; I’m fine,” I falsettoed.

My balls did recover. I did end up being able to produce children. But I will never forget that little tigress. I hope she comes back as a man in the next life. So I can kick her you-know-where.

[Read Frank’s latest book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic! Available on Amazon.com., Kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.]

Waa! Waa! (I Prefer Birds)

 

I was going to write an article about how some people have lost all dignity during the Trump win over Hillary Clinton. But then it hit me when I read a Facebook post by someone who fancies himself a tough guy. He was whining that he will never again speak to anyone who voted for Trump – this included his actual family members. Well, since I didn’t vote for Trump (I didn’t vote for Hillary either) you’d think the guy would want to talk to me.

But no, he gets angry when Facebook friends question some of his silly posts. His masculinity is all show and tell, sadly lacking substance. I’ve questioned my own wife’s posts. I’ve questioned (after careful thinking brought on by my wife saying, “I really think you should rethink what you are writing”) my own posts on Facebook.

It is so embarrassing too seeing people whine and moan.

Think of those riots with the “he is not my President”; recounts that wound up giving Trump more votes; the colleges (bastions of learning!) offering safe spaces, puppies and Playdough for students who are upset that Trump won; then the attempt to get electors to desert Trump (four deserted Hillary and two deserted Trump); now the attempt to get him impeached even before he becomes President and on it goes. Criticism is one thing; whining is another entirely.

In my day as an athlete (in a time and a universe far, far away) if you lost you lost. Hopefully you lost by giving it your best. Publically you took defeat like a man. Hell, the girl athletes took defeat it like a man. It was considered bad form to whine and moan. You congratulated the winner and planned how you could get better and hopefully next time beat those who had beaten you .

When Trump starts making policy; fine, you don’t like it, then open your mouth. I will. If you like it; then open your mouth. I will.

Now, birds are an entirely different story. They can fly. They can fly until they stop flying – usually dead from disease, gun shot, or an attack by another bird or a cat (cats kill over one billion –yes that’s over 1,000,000,000 birds a year). I’ve never heard a bird whine and ask for a recount. In that they are far better than some people.

[Frank Scoblete’s latest book is Confessions of a Wayward Catholic which is available at Amazon.com, Kindle and at bookstores.]

I Want to be Lazy!

 

My wife the beautiful AP said to me the other day, “You’re becoming one of these grumpy old men who sits around all day watching TV and spouting off like Archie Bunker.”

I wish. Oh, how I wish!

You see for my life up to now (69 years as I write this!) I have been a Type A personality (make that Type A+). I’ve been working real jobs since I was 12 years old. Some of these jobs were not glamorous: cleaning sewers, cleaning giant roach-infested elevator shafts in public housing, cleaning and collecting trash, sweeping up the debris from drug addicts in public parks, and teaching public school.

I’ve written 35 books. I wrote four in one year for Triumph Books, a division of Random House. Not short books but nice big, fat hefty ones. The year-of-the-four I also continued to write my articles and columns for a thousand magazines and newspapers (well, not quite a thousand). I also wrote a couple of television shows.

How did I do this? By working 12-hour days and not watching much television or even relaxing much. I did shower though, so no one had to smell my fevered writer’s body. I also got really fat. When I was an actor I was a slim, well-built leading man – now I would be the fat, comical neighbor.

I do not (as in do not) want to do that anymore. I want to take a break  like for the rest of my mortal days , and work a lot less, yes, and be (yes! yes!) lazy. I am going to work on being lazy–a lot.

Even when I was teaching, I’d get up early, write like a maniac, go teach and come home and continue my manic ways. I am one full year ahead on my columns for a number of publications, even weeklies! I know, I know; that is ridiculous but I can’t seem to stop myself.

So what I‘ve done these past six (or more!) months is this: I write for three hours, also answer what is becoming a mountain of email, and then I say to myself, “Screw working any longer; I am going to watch a movie (or two damn it) every day.” So I’ve watched movies or an orgy of a given television show such as Breaking Bad to fill the time when I would have been working.

I fidgeted through them for a while, like some drug addict giving up his beloved heroin. But I am now calming down. Oh, baby, I am getting into the lazy thing. It’s great!

Here is a list of how I am being lazy (as told to me by my wife):

  • When I finish eating or snacking I do not put my dirty dishes in the dish washer; I put them in the sink which is right next to the dish washer, but I am now too lazy to bend and pull the door open. That feels so good.
  • Years ago the housekeeper quit, so I replaced her with my wife. When she vacuums the living room I help her by lifting my feet up so she can vacuum under me and my recliner. Same goes for when she mops the floor.
  • I used to thoroughly clean the bathroom twice per week. Now on rare occasions I do it. My wife inspects the job I do and notes that it looks just as dirty as when I started and accuses me of cleaning with my glasses off. (She’s right, but please don’t tell her.) She then re-cleans it while muttering, “Hopeless. Incompetent.”

My friends and readers: I am going to keep practicing my laziness until I get it down pat… or die. I want to become an expert at it.

“Honey, my love, my Beautiful AP, my darling, bring me the remote please! Ouch! Why did you hit me in the head with it?”

[Frank’s new book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic is available on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, at bookstores and at the Vatican — not really the Vatican, he’d be excommunicated if they read it.]

 

 

It Snowed in Denver!

 

My God, it snowed in Denver on April 28th and 29th, cancelling the 27th game Jerry “Stickman” and I were to attend on our see-every-stadium-in-America tour. So far this was the only cancellation we experienced in 29 stadiums. (There are 30 major league baseball stadiums,)

Seriously, snow at the end of April!

Should Denver even be allowed to have a major league baseball team? Come on; put a roof over the damn stadium. Also take care of your homeless problem as there were dozens of homeless on seemingly every block in Denver’s downtown area. Hey, have the homeless build the roof as that might help them and major league baseball fans too!

This trip saw us first on a two-day visit where we saw a game at Houston’s Minute Maid Park, a stadium where the lights went zip-zap right into your eyes so that just about every fly ball was un-see-able. Hot, humid, flooding Houston, a city built on a swamp (why build cities on swamps?), and the game was so uncomfortable because of those lights that we left after six innings, blinded and depressed (well, my wife the Beautiful AP and I were blinded and depressed; Stickman and his wife the Sainted Tres didn’t comment).

Next stop was Dallas for a couple of days to visit our niece Melanie, her husband Damian and their two children, their son D3 (Damien III) age 3.5 (you have to put the “point” in—3 point 5—as little kids always want to grow up fast and little do they know most of us grown-ups want to grow-down just as fast) and their daughter Holly, age eight months, who doesn’t have much of an opinion about age yet. These are two happy, well-behaved, joyful kids. And that’s because they have two happy, well-behaved, joyful parents.

Dallas was somewhat different from Houston, it was hotter and wetter and the news was broadcasting that thunder storms, tornadoes and hail the size of D3’s head were probably going to hit us during game time—if there were a game that is. But there was a game that night.

Dallas Globe Life Park was hung with heavy clouds and the scent of death (okay, okay, it was just heavily cloudy; I like to be dramatic). Still, all four of us knew that Dallas Globe Life Park was not the place to be when a raging tornado came down from the sky. In fact, if there were many deaths the name of the stadium would be changed to Dallas Globe Death Park.

Indeed, the Dallas stadium director had the upper deck cleared of fans during the game. Man, these Texans aren’t afraid of death; maybe it’s all that bronco busting.

This game was special to me as it would be my first chance to see my beloved Yankees on the road. Fat lot of good; they were creamed 10 to one by a team not afraid to play life-and-death with their fans and themselves.

Usually Stickman and I root for the home teams to prevent fanatical home-team fans from taking the opportunity to pummel us for not doing so. We learned this in Philadelphia when the drunken Philly fans were shouting to kill the visiting team’s fans. Philadelphia fans are notorious for being notorious.

But I had to root for the Yankees! I just had to! But my friend (my friend, my pal, my buddy, that traitor), the Stickman, stuck with the home team. His team won. My team got clobbered.

Next morning off to Denver where our plane dipped so far and so fast that the flight attendants, who were serving at the time, had to hit the floor after almost hitting the ceiling. They stayed prone on the floor for about 10 minutes until given the all clear by the pilot. Drinks and food went flying all over the place and my wife was relieved that she had ordered water and not coffee.

That should have alerted me to the fact that Denver was to be the game that would not be.

We had a good time in Denver (kind of). The snow, mixed with a thick-snowy-kind of rain did postpone the baseball game at Coors Field to a time that we couldn’t attend. Although, the precipitation continued non-stop for our three days, we got to see a great little National Baseball Museum and an amazing Denver Nature and Science Museum with the best dinosaur bones I’ve ever seen. I’m all for bringing dinosaurs back ala Jurassic Park. And the Beautiful AP got to visit the seven-story Denver Public Library that has its own social workers to help the homeless who try to make a home out of the library.

Our wives returned home and Stickman and I headed to the last two ballparks for this trip, St. Louis’ Busch Stadium and Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium (one of the top four stadiums we’ve seen).

Both of these teams, the Cardinals and the Royals, lost to the current National League juggernaut, the Washington Nationals.

After the Royals game which ended about 10 p.m., Stickman and I walked the 10 miles back to our hotel (okay, okay, it was a half mile, but I was tired) and we had to awaken at 2:30 a.m. to get to the Kansas City International Airport in time for my 5:30 and his 6:30 flight. Stickman likes to get to the airport early since (as the old saying goes) “You can’t miss a flight by being early,” although he actually did once miss a flight when he was early because he fell asleep in the terminal.

Stickman drove our rental SUV to the airport. Since it was 3 o’clock in the morning there were not too many cars on the highway. Thank the Lord!

Now, Stickman is a good driver. He is. He is a very good driver. In fact, he is an amazingly very good driver. Oh, yes, and, uh, fast. A very fast driver. Lightning. And a daring driver. A very daring driver.

And when he is not a 100 percent certain where to go he uses his GPS device.

You would consider that a smart way to drive, right? Yes, of course; except he holds it in his hand and has to constantly look down to see if his direction is correct. Driving about 1,000 miles per hour, in the night, without his high beams on, he reads his GPS.

And when the car drifts to the right and sometimes to the left and sometimes into the next lane, he corrects its direction when he bothers to look up.

And me? What of me? What am I doing when he’s doing what he’s doing? With closed eyes I often pray to Jesus, God, or any divine being that would let me live.

But we make it to the airport (thank you, Lord, thank you, thank you) and the damn place is closed! I’m not kidding. At 4 a.m. the Kansas City “International” Airport is closed! Do “international” airports close?

And add to this the fact that the whole huge complex that houses all the car-rental companies is open, but no one is there. We just leave the keys on a desk. Again, there are no human beings around. I wondered if we were in a zombie apocalypse.

But the shuttle bus was there, with a living driver, and he took us to the Delta terminal which had miraculously opened. Two TSA agents were outside the building smoking. They saw us and hustled inside.

Stickman was heading to Memphis via Detroit and I to New York via Atlanta. I’d go home to hug and kiss my wife whom I missed as if I had been away from her for two years instead of two days.

But in Atlanta two women, young, pretty and bejeweled like Cleopatra, got on the plane and for the one-hour and 39 minutes of our air time, they talked about nothing but how rich their husbands were and how much money they had.

Every chance they got, they flashed their huge (read: HUGE) baubles at the flight attendants while demanding more service. I couldn’t sleep on the plane because their behavior fascinated me in a repulsive way.

I got home. Kissed and hugged my wife and then…fell dead asleep.

Yes, it snowed in Denver.

[Read Frank’s new book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic! On sale at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle and at bookstores.]

The Titmouse and My Grandson

 

I have three squirrel-proof bird feeders outside the large windows in my office. As I write I can see these “little schweeties” as my wife calls them, flying, eating and squabbling out there in my corner of nature.

I know I will never be a birding expert. For example, we have a host of different kinds of sparrows that come to the feeders and although I can see differences among them, I am hard pressed to identify each and every kind. I just point and say, “Man, look at all those different kinds of sparrows!”

But I can identify a number of birds. One that I love, for example, is the tufted titmouse. It’s a pretty little creature that comes to my feeders even in the dead of winter.

Now, in addition to my birding hobby, another hobby of mine concerns my grandchildren. I happen to like them, a boy 11 and a girl nine. Not all grandparents like their grandchildren, mind you, no matter what some grandparents proclaim.

I want to talk about the birds to them (not the birds and the bees) and include them in my new hobby, but I hesitate. My granddaughter would at least tolerate me going on about our feathered friends; but my grandson might be a different story.

You see, he’s a boys’ boy and that means he is interested in all the things we boys’ boys are interested in–come on, I don’t have to spell it out for you, do I? Bodily stuff like farts, vomit and poop, yes. But above all else, sex stuff – any stuff to do with females.

I’ll give you an example: Ever since he heard the word “wiener” he’s been using it nonstop to describe his own wiener and anything he can attach the word “wiener” to. He is as interested in his wiener as is Anthony Weiner, but as far as I know he has not texted an image of it to anyone. And all that stuff about women? Forgetaboutit!

So here’s what will happen when I tell him about my love of tufted titmice.

Grandson: “Tit, oh, ho, ho, tits! Ha! Ha! Grandpa Scobe said tit! Tit! Tit!”

Grandpa Scobe: “No, that’s just its name. Tufted titmouse.”

Grandson: “Tits, tits, tits, yeah, yeah!”

I can imagine that during the entire day (and then some) he would incorporate the word “tit” as much as he could. That’s just what I’d need, my grandson telling my daughter-in-law that Grandpa Scobe had been talking about tits. My son would kill me.

But my grandson is not the only one. When my wife the Beautiful AP first told me the name of that pretty bird, I responded: “Tit? Ha! Ha! Tit! Tit! I have a tit at my feeders.”

Beautiful AP: “Scobe, come on, titmouse is its name; not just tit.”

Scobe: “Ah ha!”

Beautiful AP: “Grow up.”

Scobe (whispering): “Tit.”

So I am going to figure out how to get around telling him about titmice. He will see several when he comes to my house and looks out the window, so I have to figure out something when he asks, “What’s that bird?”

I am just hoping there isn’t a bird called “tit-wiener” because then we will never hear the end of it.

[Check my books at Amazon.com and bookstores.]

My Guppy Is Gay

 

I have four fish tanks in my house: a five gallon tank with a Beta and five guppies (this sits right here on my desk); a 20 gallon tank with 18 guppies and 12 neon tetras; and a 55 gallon tank with eight really big angel fish and about 14 platies. Then I have the monster, the 205 gallon tank with an assortment of fish.

Platies are live bearers and, although this is gruesome, my angels have gotten huge because they devour the platies’ constant supply of babies.  Between the flake food and platy babies my angels have a good, clean, healthy diet. The 55 gallon tank is right behind my desk in my home office.

So the five, the 20, the 55 and the 205 gallon tanks are in my office.

Today I got in an order of 12 more really, really fancy guppies for my 20 gallon tank, four males and eight females You always need more females because the males are maniacs when it comes to sex—they must have 100 orgasms a day! Then I noticed something—one of my new, magnificently beautiful male guppies is gay, I kid you not.

After they got used to the tank, which for guppies takes about five minutes, the other male guppies were nailing the female guppies all over the place. These fellows have constant boners. They are like 12-year-old human males.

But this particular guppy didn’t go near a female. No. Instead he’d go under the male guppies and try to copulate with them (dare I say this?) anally. I mean, guppies do have, uh, openings and you should see how long and fearsome their do-do’s are but this guy was going for the exit. He totally ignored the females. (You cannot mistake a male guppy for a female. They are two totally different looking fish.)

I watched for a good half hour and not once did he give a damn about the females scurrying all over the place trying to escape the rapaciousness of the other male guppies. This guy just kept trying to plow the other guys. I’ve never seen anything like it. A gay fish! It has nothing to do with his upbringing or a desire to turn his sexuality in a different direction. His DNA simply said, “Yay, gay!”

Then I noticed something else—something amazing—one of my new female guppies is a lesbian, I swear to God. What the hell was going on? There was one female Guppy who fought—and I mean went head to head—with the male guppies trying to, uh, court her. She was a tough gal. The male guppies were much smaller and actually afraid of her. Of course, the raging boners of the males made them go to her time and again and she just violently shoed them away.

The male guppies had to avoid the jabs of my gay guppy and then they had to be really wary of the big female guppy who seemed to have murder in her heart.

It is possible that this is an evolutionary breakthrough—although I don’t know how the gay guppy and the lesbian guppy will reproduce more of their kind. I only have this to say, God created these guppies so He must approve of them and want them to (you know) do whatever the hell they do.

(My new book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic is now available at Amazon.)

 

 

Mommy Weirdest

I have now read one of the nuttiest decisions a court has ever made when it comes to a five-year-old child and his thieving mother.

You see, the mommy created her own two–person gang, that being her and junior, dedicated to robbery.

Alas, her gang was caught. She was arrested when she and junior stole $2,700 in goods from Bloomingdale’s.

According to the court, junior wore two stolen coats under his clothing plus a pair of really, really nice boots. Mom was convicted. Nothing happened to junior because he was just five.

So you figure the court would take the kid from her. Or make her take “honesty” classes. Nope! Kid stays with mom and…

The appellate court of New York ruled that the mother cannot have her career cut short by her thieving ways or by making her little boy part of her criminality and…

The court ruled she should be allowed to work in her chosen profession (take a deep breath, remain calm, because here “it” comes) – her chosen profession being child care. Yes, yes, yes, mommy dearest will continue to be allowed to care for children! That is her damn career – child care!

I can see it now. She could draft dozens of the little kids she cares for and form one of the biggest gangs in New York.

Child care? Child care? I’ll bet she doesn’t even work cheap.

[Read my new book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic! ]

Huck Finn and The Declaration of Independence

The school board of a Virginia school has decided to take Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn out of its curriculum because someone complained about the use of the term “nigger.” This district isn’t alone. Since its publication in 1888, the book has garnered a lot of criticism, not just for that term but for the cruel and racist life it shows in the Antebellum south. It is probably the most banned book in America.

Banning this book is the equivalent of banning the Declaration of Independence, as I will explain.

But first, a precise and accurate quote by Ernest Hemingway: “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.”

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a hilariously satiric tale of a vagabond boy (Huck Finn) who travels America with Jim, an escaped slave who is looking for freedom and to then buy his family from their slave owners. The book is told by Huck in his common dialect. It is like stepping back in time to hear Huck and Jim and others of that epoch speak.

At its core, what is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn about? Oh, certainly it is a sendup of hypocritical values and the folks who have them. It is also the gradual opening of Huckleberry’s mind to the reality of what his society is – a society where he is one of the lowest of the low, being a poor, abused white kid whose father is a truly evil man, and it also tells the story of an individual, Jim, who is even lower on the social scale, if he is even on the social scale – because Jim is a slave, a piece of property, in a world that has little compassion for his station.

How were blacks viewed in those days?

When Huck is making up a story for Aunt Sally, he weaves a tale of a shipwreck he experienced.

Aunt Sally asks “‘Good gracious, anybody hurt?’”

Huck’s response: “‘No’m, killed a nigger.’”

Aunt Sally sums it up: “‘Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt.’”

There you have the southern society’s attitude perfectly stated. No people were killed because a “nigger” isn’t actually a part of the “people” world. Huck doesn’t think twice about his statement nor does Aunt Sally. But the reader certainly does!

In the pivotal scene of the book, where perhaps the greatest American literary line was ever penned, Huck struggles with his conscience over helping Jim to escape. He has been taught that slaves are not actually people and that Jim is the property of someone else. Huck knows, because he’s been well-taught, that helping a slave escape is terribly, terribly wrong:

“So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn’t know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I’ll go and write the letter – and then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a feather, right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote:

“Miss Watson your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send.

“ HUCK FINN

“I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn’t do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking – thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking.

“And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me, all the time; in the day, and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a floating along, talking, and singing, and laughing. But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind.

“I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him agin in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me, and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had smallpox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he’s got now; and then I happened to look around, and see that paper.

“It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:

“‘All right, then, I’ll go to hell’” – and tore it up.”

This is the moment – “All right, then, I’ll go to hell” – when Huckleberry Finn, a prisoner of society’s false notions of racial inequality epitomized by the institution of slavery, makes his personal declaration of independence and frees himself. This young man is willing to go to Hell, to eternally burn for his sin of seeing Jim as a real person, a friend, a mentor. Huckleberry Finn was compelled to make the morally correct decision. Yes, he has broken with the past. He will go to Hell but in reality he saves his soul.

In this scene, Huck Finn represents America at its best.

Now to the schools and libraries that have banned the book; to the individuals who only read the word “nigger” in the book without any idea of why it is used and of how the reader should actually feel as the book progresses, I can only say I wish there were a Huck Finn in your conscience; a person who could tear up the letter of your mistaken notions and your sad desire to squash one of the greatest books of all time.

[Read my new book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic!]