#0069: To Sail Beyond the Susnet, by Robert A. Heinlein

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To Sail Beyond the Sunset
by Robert A. Heinlein
p.2 I've shared beds with men before, and women, and cats who demand most of the bed, and (once) with a barbershop quartet. --Maureen

p.17 The Ten Commandments are for lame brains. The first five are solely for the priests and the powers that be; the second five are half truths, neither complete nor adequate.--Ira Johnson

p.26 "You'll be a preacher's wife yet."
     "Oh, God, Father, I'd rather be a whore!"
     "The two are not incompatible."
     --Maureen and Ira Johnson

p.31 "Why is there a rule against coveting your neighbor's wife but not a word about coveting your neighbor's husband? Was it an oversight on Jehovah's part? Or was it truly open season on husbands in those days?"
     "I don't know, Maureen. I suspect it was simply conceit on the part of the ancient Hebrews who could not imagine their wives wanting to jump the fence when they had such virile heroes at home. The Old Testament doesn't place women very high; it starts out with putting the blame on Mother Eve... then it gets worse. But here in Lyle County, Missouri, we do have a rule against it... and if any wife catches you making eyes at her husband here, she's likely to scratch out your pretty little eyes."
     "I don't intend to let her catch me. But suppose it's the other way. Suppose he covets me, or seems to. Suppose he pinches my bottom?"
     "Well, well! Who is he, Maureen? Who is he?"
     "Hypothetical case, mon cher père."
     "Very well. If he hypothetically does it again, you may hypothetically respond in several hypothetical fashions. You may hypothetically ignore him, pretend to a total lack of sensation in your gluteus maximus sinister--or is he left handed?"
     "I don't know."
     "Or you can hypothetically whisper, 'Don't do that here. Meet me after church.'"
     "Father!"
     "You brought it up. Or, if it suits you, you may hypothetically warn him that one more hypothetical pinch will be reported to your hypothetical father who owns both a hypothetical horsewhip and a hypothetical shotgun. You may say this most privately or shout it loudly enough for the entire congregation to hear it. Lady's choice."
     --Maureen and Ira Johnson

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#0070: Farewell to Manzanar, by Jeanne Watatsuki Houston and James D. Houston

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Farewell to Manzanar
by Jeanne Watatsuki Houston and James D. Houston
p.7-8 They got him two weeks later, when we were staying overnight at Woody’s place, on Terminal Island. Five hundred Japanese families lived there then, and FBI deputies had been questioning everyone, ransacking houses for anything that could conceivably be used for signaling planes or ships or t hat indicated loyalty to the Emperor. Most of the homes had radios with a short-wave band and a high aerial on the roof so that wives could make contact with the fishing boats during those long cruises. To the FBI every radio owner was a potential saboteur. The conspirators were often deputies sworn in hastily during the turbulent days right after Pearl Harbor, and these men seemed to be acting out the general panic, seeing sinister possibilities the most ordinary household items: flashlights, kitchen knives, cameras, lanterns, toy swords.
   If Papa were trying to avoid arrest, he wouldn’t have gone near that island. But I think he knew it was futile to hide out or resist. The next morning two FBI men in fedora hats and trench coats--like out of a thirties movie--knocked on Woody’s door and when they left, Papa was between them. He didn’t struggle. There was no point to it. He had become a man without a country. The land of his birth was at war with America; yet after thirty-five years here he was still prevented by law from becoming an American citizen. He was suddenly a man with no rights who looked exactly like the enemy.

p.58-59 That's how I remember him before he disappeared. He was not a great man. He wasn’t even a very successful man. He was a poser, a braggart, and a tyrant. But he had held onto his self-respect, he had dreamed grand dreams, and he could work well at any task he turned to: he could raise vegetables, sail a boat, plead a case in small claims court, sing Japanese poems, make false teeth, carve a pig.

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