And the worst part was, his Momma had no idea who Johnny Cash was, or why you might name a boy Sue.
He grew up in the Badlands, somewhere out by the eastern edge of the mountains. No one else called them the Badlands, that was just his pet name for them, they were actually foothills, would be the technical term for them.
He had a sister, also named Sue.
He had a sneaking suspicion his Momma was just lazy, and not malicious or anything. As he got older, he studied literature, scads and scads of literature, most of it baby books, because his town was famous for a resident who had written a best selling series of baby book back in the seventies that were all but forgotten now by the general population of the world outside the general vicinity of the town. Luckily, this resident, who wrote under a male pen name but was actually a woman, wrote a good deal on baby names, and what they meant in Greek, what flower corresponded to what name, which famous people shared a certain name, what jewel, what saint or otherwise religiously affiliated figure, and many other connections names had to various disciplines, to try and help parents choose the most suitable name for their baby.
The boy named Sue found Alex and Tyler and Morgan and Riley and Mason and Chase, all of which could be applied equally to boys and girls, without too much of a fuss.
By the time he reached seven, though, he'd largely forgotten all about his name quest, and instead started to focus on chemistry, for which he exhibited a particular talent. Sue, his sister, well, she was five, and precocious, and largely untroubled by her own peculiar name, because she idolised her big brother, and thought it quite lucky that her name was his, as well, that way she could pretend to him, especially on the phone, or at least until he hit puberty. She, too, had read lots, down at the library, where they had an embarrassment of riches, when it came to books pertaining to raising a teenage child, written by the same best-selling baby book author, who did remarkably less well when it came to books about teenagers.
"Market forces," was how the publishers explained it, but she couldn't make much sense of that, as the market should, by all accounts have moved on to wanting books about raising teenagers, the same way the market had wanted baby books when the babies were first born twelve to thirteen years ago. The publishers understood her position, they understood it very well, and they didn't understand it (the market), themselves. "Perhaps no one wants to read books about teenagers," they suggested.
They possibly had a point there, said the author.
And so this vast treasure trove sat in great quantities in the library, and the librarians joked about it. They would say to each other, and any one who took out any of the local author's books -- "Ohh... let's hope you haven't got the last copy, there, we get lots of people in, asking for that title."
They wouldn't joke as much with the children who would take them out, as most of the children, including Sue and Sue, would take them down from the shelf for local authors, the one near the very front desk, bring their few selections over to the small reading table made out of brightly coloured plastic for kids, and curl up or lay out on the equally brightly coloured mat on the floor beside the table and flick through them, one by one. And far be it from the librarians to disturb kids reading. In fact, the librarians were content to observe the kids and think of their own, all grown up and at the high school, reading things like Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller, Moby Dick by Herman Melville, and no longer content to lounge around the floor of the library, where they had years ago under the watchful eye of the previous librarians.
No, it wasn't the Badlands. It was only the Badlands if you had an imagination. And then who knew what that meant?
disclaimer:
Hmm. It is the end for our caped crusader. Go figure.
For those of you that enjoyed the latest series that, eventually, was about nanotech (at least that's what we claimed... and kept typing, so it must be true), or enjoy nanotech (and perhaps didn't enjoy the latest series, because you couldn't quite see so much nanotech in it as you might like), you might want to try reading Howard Lovy's Nanobot. Howard's the news editor at Small Times, and always finds some interesting stuff to write about, if you're interested in nanotech. Which you might be. Even after our series.
So thus endeth another series, and we get back to weekly things, so we don't strain your attention span too badly.
This issue is post-dedicated to Johnny Cash.
1932 -2003
Yer Weekly Horoscopes.