Bartleby -- I would prefer not to --- Joan Benoit --- Picasso --- Guernica --- The humble Farmer

The grandchild Avalane is visiting us for a week.

Avalane is a two-year-old Bartleby. No matter what anyone asks her to do, she would prefer not to. “Avalane, please come to the phone and say hi to your father.”

No, she doesn’t scream or raise a fuss. Avalane exhibits her indifference to the most reasonable of requests by turning away from the speaker and calmly chewing on the leg of a small stuffed horse.

Her response is the unassailable 2-year-old’s equivalent of Bartleby’s, “I would prefer not to.” It matters not to the child that her mother is an iron woman who swims in icy ponds before dawn and nips at the heels of the likes of Joan Benoit in marathons.

Which reminds us of the exact opposite life style of the child’s grandmother, my wife Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, who cooks veggies in butter until they are like mush. I’m not a chemist so I can’t even begin to describe the forces that must now be raging in her grandchild’s body, having been unleashed for the first time by generous gobs of sugar and fat.

I suppose I should tell you what brought Avalane to mind in the first place. This morning Marsha dragged the child off to a petting zoo where her hands will come in contact with the kind of bacteria that can multiply almost as fast as our war debt. I was left behind to do the dishes. While picking up several hundred crayons that were scattered on the floor I realized --- that had Picasso had been faced with the choices available in the paint box of a modern two-year-old child --- he wouldn’t have lived long enough to paint Guernica.

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Did you know that Robert Skoglund, The humble Farmer, stands on stages and tells funny stories?

Ask humble to entertain you and your friends with dry stories like these:

http://www.thehumblefarmer.com/PortlandA.html

You can hear humble's radio program for this week:

http://www.thehumblefarmer.com/ThisWeek.html

You can visit humble and Marsha at their Bed & Breakfast on the coast of Maine.

http://www.thehumblefarmer.com/BaB.html

Robert Karl Skoglund (November-April)
260 Hamlin Drive
Fort Myers, FL 33905
207-226-7442
humble@humblefarmer.com

http://www.TheHumbleFarmer.com

You are invited to stop by for supper anytime.

785 River Road (summers)
St. George, ME 04860
207-226-7442
humble@humblefarmer.com