GOOD GIRL/BAD GIRL

In this post Theory Corner considers the question of nature versus nurture. Are we shaped by genetics or by culture and experience? I don't know the answer but I can relate a story I heard that might be helpful.

It begins with twins born in a peaceful little cottage, nestled in the hills. 

Both girls were cute as a button and nice to a fault. They attended Church regularly and did well in school.

On weekends they cooked brownies together. Everything went fine until one day....

...puberty struck.

Gladiola hardly noticed. She just drank a glass of milk and went on with her life.

Mildred, on the other hand, developed a disdain for milk and discovered that she preferred other drinks. Her parents didn't know what to do.

Under the influence of raging hormones Mildred became less and less interested in brownies.

One day she up and ran off to New York. She just packed up and left, without so much as a note left behind.

She never made it, though. The car she was in crashed and she was taken in by hillbillies.

Fortunately for her, the man who found her was the King of the Hillbillies. He treated her like mountain royalty but unfortunately he was fatally kicked by a mule and Mildred found herself on her own.

Without a way to make a living Mildred drifted from relationship to relationship.

Finally she made it to New York but she had no money and no friends there. Life was hard.

Years passed. One day her Dad was browsing the lurid paperback stand in his local pharmacy and he found a book about, of all things, his daughter. That's when the family finally learned what happened to her.  Later a friend of hers mailed them Mildred's pasties. That's all they had to remember her by.

So that's the story. Gladiola continued to drink milk and prospered. I guess I haven't resolved the nature vs. nurture question. Maybe no one ever will. If there's a lesson to be learned here it might be about the generative power of milk...life giving, eternally delicious...milk.

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BTW: Thanks to the anonymous person who who grafted the two women together on the title card.

ADVENTURE STORY

"Hey, I was rummaging in some old boxes in the garage and 

dug up an adventure book I thought I'd lost . You want to hear a few paragraphs?  I gotta warn you...it's not for the feint of heart.

"Yikes! A spider! I'll just shake it out."

"Okay, here goes: 'On a night when the moon is at the full and the taboo of the rice feast is forgotten, a live hamadryad..."

"...um, that's a poisonous snake, I think..."

 "...a live hamadryad is thrown into a kettle of boiling blood, blood which is drained from the body of a young Dryad girl. Into the mixture are thrown the teeth of nine crocodiles and the skull of a female orangutan."

"The potion is stirred with a golden parang...slowly...and the scum spooned off and allowed to dry. It is ground to a powder then and blended with the thorn of the Klubi, the swamp plant..."

"Whew! This is pretty intense stuff!"

"See! I warned you! You didn't believe me, didja?"

"Maybe we'll skip ahead to another chapter. Something a little milder, something like...THIS."

Yikes! It's about snakes!

Good Lord! I HATE snakes!!!!!

"That background, that misty darkness, was an undulating blanket of horror. Out there, wriggling, crawling, crossed and interwoven like the design of some colossal tapestry, was a compact mass of snakes....they were watching him with a thousand pairs of eyes, and they were advancing slowly nearer."

"Then it happened. Before he could flail his arms forward, before he could throw his weight to the side, his legs buckled under him and he fell to the floor.

He screamed then shot a frantic glance over his shoulder."

"Like a man in an hypnotic trance he felt himself powerless to move. What he saw was the snakes.  With a slow and inexorable movement the snake mass crossed the intervening distance, and, cold and clinging, began to slide its coils over his body."

"That's it!!! I can't take any more!!!!!!!!!"

Holy Cow! 'Another spider! I gotta clean that garage!"

THE TIME TRAVEL STORY (PART 1)

EXT. NEW YORK CITY: THE GIRL TIME TRAVELERS EMERGE FROM MACY'S WEARING EXPENSIVE CLOTHES:

ISABEL (VO): "That was fun. Where's Tony?

CLARE: "He's coming! I see him. Hey, look at this...a satin and tulle swing dress for only 5 dollars! And gloves for two dollars! That cleaned me out!"

KATHY: "I got this round collar jacket for 4 dollars. Can you believe that? But that cleaned me out, too. How about you, Irene?"

IRENE: "Mine cost a little more than that, but I still have lots of money left."

ISABEL: "That's because you Xeroxed your money. We had to buy old dollar bills at collectors prices, the kind that are silver certificates."

TONY WALKS INTO SC.:

TONY: "Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Irene, you Xeroxed your money!? I told you that everything we took back to 1952 had to be from that era. You said you understood that. If that fake money changes something in 2015, I could lose my job for taking you here. We could all be arrested!"

THEY CROSS THE STREET:

IRENE: "Calm down, Tony. Nobody said anything. They all took it and gave me change, so what's the harm? Even the gun store took it."

TONY: "Gun store? You bought a gun?"

IRENE: "Yeah, from that store. A cute little revolver. They're legal in 1952.

TONY: "Throw it away. Toss it in a trash can. Get rid of it. I could lose my job."

IRENE: "Stop with the job, already. Everything's fine. Don't be such a wimp."

THEY PASS A ROW OF PANHANDLERS:

TONY AND THE GIRLS WALK PAST THE PANHANDLERS, PRETENDING NOT TO SEE THEM. ONE OF THEM GETS UP AND CHASES IRENE. HE PASSES HER THEN BLOCKS HER WAY.

BUM: "'Just a dime. That's all I'm askin' for. Won't ya help a guy out?"

TONY: "Um...Irene, I have a dime. Here, take it."

IRENE: "I don't want your dime."

BUM: "C'mon, take it. Do a good deed."


.........CONTINUED IN PART 2  [this entire story and text (not photos) copyright Eddie Fitzgerald 7/30/2014]

THE TIME TRAVEL STORY (PART 2)

IRENE: "Why, you pathetic little fool. Get out of my way."

BUM: "Look, all I'm askin' for is a dime, lady. A pretty lady like you...it's not gonna break you."

KATHY: "Haw! It looks like you have an admirer, Irene."

IRENE: "Oh yeah? Well let him admire this."

BAM! BAM! SHE SHOOTS HIM, AND TOSSES THE GUN DOWN A SEWER.

WITNESS: "Oh, my God...she shot him!

A PASSING AMBULANCE STOPS:

AMBULANCE TEAM: "He's dead...a bullet through the forehead! 'Anybody see who did it?"

WOMAN: "I saw it! That lady over there did it. They argued about somethin' and she just took out a gun and shot him."

TONY (DISTRAUGHT): "Wh...why'd you do it Irene? You promised you'd be careful. YOU PROMISED! That's why I took you along. You promised you wouldn't speak to anyone in this time. You promised you wouldn't allow anything you do, no matter how insignificant, to influence anybody in any way. And now this."

IRENE: "Oh, there you go being a wimp again. Nobody cares about him. He was just a bum. And besides, most of these people lived their lives and died long before 2015. What you're seeing are just shades. It doesn't make any difference what you do to them. They're not real.

CLARE: "I don't know, Irene. They look pretty real to me."

 IRENE (CONT): "Anyway we'll be out of here in an hour."

IRENE (CONT) (VO): "There's our ride home now."

CROWD: "You ain't goin' anywhere, Lady! Somebody call a cop!"

IRENE: "Get your hands off me! Don't touch me!"

SHE TAKES SOMETHING FROM HER PURSE AND QUICKLY UNFOLDS IT.

IRENE: "Okay, people...let me introduce you to 2015!"

TONY: "IRENE! Where did you get...you weren't supposed to..."

ZZZZZRRMMM! A LASER BEAM THEN AN EXPLOSION THEN A SERIES OF NAPALM-LIKE PLUMES OF FIRE OBLITERATING HALF A CITY BLOCK: 

CROWD: (SCREAMS OF PANIC)

MORE DESTRUCTION AS THE BEAM SWEEPS ACROSS BUILDING TOPS:

CROWD: (MORE SCREAMS OF PANIC)

TONY DRIVES UP IN A CAR, SCREECHES TO A HALT, SHOUTS TO THE GIRLS:

TONY: "Get in! Get in! We've gotta get to the airport!"

This entire story and text (not photos) copyright Eddie Fitzgerald 7/30/2014)

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I'd need parts 3 & 4 to tell the whole story, where the "Cleaners" come in, but I think I'll end it here. Finding pictures to illustrate what I wanted to say took hours, and I still didn't get the photos I wanted. *SIGH*