Dear Mr. McGee, or may I call you Tits?

Well, my friend, you've done it again.  I finished Narrow Dog to Indian River and feel alternately like a moron and the world's most brilliant and intuitive reader, which is a quite pleasant feeling and I enjoy it, until, inevitably, I cycle back around to moron.  Why do I feel like the world's most brilliant and intuitive reader?  Because I am challenged by the blend of poetry and prose but ultimately I can keep up, because I get the jokes, because I learn about my own country and its history and wars and paradoxes, and because I am able to nod knowingly from time to time and say, "yup, yup," which makes my husband wake up and look at me funny before rolling back over and returning to sleep but makes me feel like one of the cool kids.  Why do I feel like a moron?  Because WRH + stream of consciousness + visitations from deceased yet wise and affectionate author-mother + creative punctuation = Say wha now?  Not your fault, Mr. Mcgee, or may I call you Tits?  I take full responsibility.

I will not make the same smart-ass error I did when I reviewed Narrow Dog to Carcasonne and pretend that I was irritated with the fruits of your labor(s) and then begrudgingly acknowledge your mighty skill.  Instead, I'll just cut to the chase:  I laughed, I cried, I was both mortified and proud to be an American, and I'm now spending my time trying to figure out how to get you back here so we can take you for a sail in a proper boat of regular dimensions more traditional craft and feed you Yankee cuisine entirely devoid of pork, barbecue sauce, or deep fat fried breading instead of spending my time with other pursuits, like raising my children and paying bills.  Also I'm hoping you'll bring Jim because the neighbor's cat keeps pissing in my basement window wells and I sense that with proper motivation he could dispatch it with ease.

Still and yet, Mr. McGee, or may I call you Tits?  I am confused about your latest epic - and make no mistake, friends, the esteemed Tits McGee does crank out an actual epic, complete with heroes, peril, and a veritable army of archetypes - I thought I was reading a yarn about a clever Welshman, his divine and tattooed wife (Really?  A dragon?!  I am humbled before you, Gulfstream Rose.  You, like my first love C.K. Dexter Haven, have unsuspected depths), his exhausting and either idiotic I mean this with love or brilliant and eminently tummy-scratchable dog and their rollicking jaunt through the waterways of the American South.  But noooo....turns out I'm reading a ethnographic study of the aforementioned American South and accompanying commentary and analysis of the American people as a whole thinly, very very very very thinly - thin as American crap beer in fact - disguised as a yarn about a clever Welshman, his divine and tattooed wife...you get the idea.

I do want you to know, however, Mr. McGee, or may I call you Tits? When asked, I will share the following observations about your ethnographic study of the American South - aforementioned, natch - to my vast readership of six family members and paid employees and will, without hesitation or reservation, recommend they hop, skip, jump, fly, or sail to the nearest bookstore and get themselves a copy:

The Observations

I was impressed by your tenacity and your willingness to take on the lovely Mon and convince her to make the expedition, especially in the face of such observations about America as this, "However much you like the US, their people are not our people and their gods are not our gods."  True, this.  Our gods, at least those that we advertise - and advertise we do, as surely you know from your marketing days, tend towards the ostentatious and critical.  They are most distinct from your quiet Anglican-type deities who go about their business offering succor and ritual and only occasionally indicate displeasure with a slight wrinkle of the nose.  As Monica also noted in her expression of fear that you would both get "fat" upon visiting the good ole U.S. of A. (and why the hell shouldn't you, WE had to, didn't we??!!) we tend to do things Large around here.  Including religion.  And by "we," of course, I mean most specifically "not me."

Not all American beer other than Sam Adams is undrinkable.  You were just in the wrong part of the country. 

You know more about American history than 98.6% of all Americans.  If this does not distress you, please rest assured that I won't be sleeping tonight.  And I thank you for enlightening me on multiple topics related to military history.  Seriously.  Also, I completely agree with you about the relative irrelevance of the space program. 

Your inquiries about race relations in the American South were most often met with dodgy responses and evasion and half-truths from well-intentioned and polite Southerners.  I'm hoping that you figured out that the dodginess of the responses speaks volumes more than the words those well-intentioned and polite Southerners uttered.  We've got a long way to go.

You had me at, "It was a nothing experience, like Celine Dion."  Bwah ha ha ha.

Please tell Monica that we're not all THAT bad.  I got a little worried when she went off about how assbackwards we are as a nation, "I don't think the Americans are in control of their country and sometimes they act as if they don't understand it.  Have you noticed how they can't name their animals or birds?  Their weather forecasts are wrong, their cities get blown up or washed away and they stand helpless - look at New Orleans.  They go off to war and then change their minds.  They elect liars and fornicators as presidents.  There is a looseness, a cog missing, a knot that has come untied or has never been tied up properly..."  At the risk of sounding flippant, Mon, my response is this:  Well, duh.  We're not remotely in control of our country.  Our acknowledgment of this is part of our charm;  I would even go so far as to say that those of you who think you ARE in control of your countries are a little deluded.  But that's actually beside my point.  The important thing to remember here is that George Bush is no longer president, so most of the above is now moot, except the whole fornicators thing, and truth be told, we don't just elect them to be president, we elect them to everything from governor to dog catcher.    There is more than one cog missing and there is a massive "looseness."  It's a big country.  Think of your friend with the 8,000 acres.  We can't predict the weather, because we're too busy figuring out how to make Doritos nacho chips cheesier.  It's really just a matter of priorities, you see.

Regarding the wildlife, I expected you three to be a little heartier.  You think it's bad here?!!  Have you read Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country in which he points out that out of the ten deadliest animals on  the planet, eleven live in Australia?  You can be killed by an unoccupied seashell in Australia.  I'm pretty sure that there are breezes in Australia that can kick you in the shins, make love to your wife, and steal your car.  Toughen up.  The gators didn't get you, did they?  And if you'd heeded solid advice and painted your legs with nail polish, the chiggers wouldn't have done much damage, either, now, would they have?



Rule #1 of drinking:  unless you are in Provence, do not drink pink wine.

You depicted southern hospitality so gorgeously that I want to go to the swampland.  Not really.  But it was nice to read about.

I've spent some time in the part of Virginia/North Carolina where you had surgery and I want you to know that I had to read that section with my eyes closed.    I'm glad you're still with us.

Nobody understands Florida, or, more significantly, the lure of Florida.  Sanibel is a pretty magical place (I made my husband take me there for my first anniversary because I was five months pregnant and NEEDED, do you hear me??!! NEEDED to dig a hole in the sand and lie on my stomach so I could sleep for heaven's sakes), but the rest of it is just plain weird.  I can't explain it except to say that the combination of green, light blue, and white that, minus the bazillions of condos and cars and strip malls, equals Florida is a bit like a narcotic.

You remain, Tits McGee, a poet.  "First the channel, waves flashing and spitting, then yellow grass for ever, standing in water, the wind stroking it, sometimes a creek running away. Seas, seas of grass.  Far off, to the east, higher ground before the ocean, then a scrubbed sky and an attenuated cloud ten miles long like the sketch of the first cloud ever.  Light, and more light, and blue and yellow and white and a touch of dark in the distance, and air, the first air, a wind that none has breathed."  Thanks for that. 

Despite our pork scratchings and fat asses and watery beer and loud voices and addiction to cheap construction and deep fried everything, we've got a little something special here. 

But you knew that, didn't you.

Yours, in envy and intracoastal dreams,

the Well Read Hostess


p.s.  ""  ""  ""  ""  ""  "" "" "" "" "" ""    I noticed you were short on some these, so I thought I'd send some of my extras along.

p.s.s.  Sometimes I crack myself right up.  You are encouraged, but not required, to agree.