A Knife for Danny

Sounds like the name of a children's book.My son Dan turned 33 thother day and I was looking for a great present for him. His late father used to buy him great books, mostly history or war books. I recently told Dan I watched the Bill Moyers Show and his guests predicted another recession, even worse than this one, in a dozen years. Make sure you have plenty of money tucked away, Dan, and that you're an expert in your computer field so if, god forbid, you lose your job, you can find another one. People don't listen to predictions, I said, cuz they're off in the future and see only what's in front of them, so please be forewarned.

BTW, I asked him, dyou ever talk about the recession at work?

Nope! he said. Except when I bring it up.

YOU bring it up? I asked. What's the reaction.

Basically no one's interested. They don't think about it.

But YOU do? Good for you, Dan. Well, you do love your history. You're probly one of the best educated people at your office.

I am, he said. I'm also one of the oldest. Dan is 33 and the others are in their early twenties, the computer geniuses! I told him I'm proud of him.

In Ocean City over the weekend there was an Arts n Crafts Fair with hundreds of merchants. A demo caught my eye. Jean-Pierre from The Congo was demonstrating a handmade bow-knife hand made by his wife's family company. I sliced a tomato, a potato and a bagel. Hmmm, I thought, this would be perfect for my homemade breads and slicing those tricky slippery onions and also the green peppers that are still growing outside.

Perhaps I could also get one for Dan's 33rd birthday. I told J-P and his wife Eileen I'd think about it while I visited other booths and then stop back. Actually on the way back I couldn't find their booth but I had their order form and called them today at their studio in Albany. J-P was at his job as a research scientist for NY State. I ordered two knives and mailed out a check.

I spent a ton of money in Ocean City. I've never paid a cent of interest on my credit card and never will. Instead, my credit card pays me. I got a half-price bathing suit as my current suit is ready for the rag bin. When I paraded in my new suit in front of Scott he whistled.

Find yourself a good boyfriend who appreciates you!

Tis better to have no man at all than a bad one.

Scott and I talk about everything.

"You actually have the nerve to tell me I sneeze too loud!" I said to him.

"Well, you do! You wake me up in the middle of the nite."

I told him I hadn't realized that and that I'd muffle it next time. And suffocate to death.

Christian Barth was sitting outside the Atlantic Books on the Boardwalk signing the book he wrote earlier this year: The Origins of Infamy.

Oooh, I said when I saw the book. Ted Bundy is my favorite serial killer.

Bundy, executed in Florida in 1989 at age 42, confessed to 30 murders tho doubtless there were more including 2 unsolved killings at the Jersey shore. Barth's book is an imaginative account in the form of a first-person narrative of Bundy's life as a Temple University transfer student and his trip to the Jersey shore to pick up girls.

I read half the book when Scott and I drove home from the same shore where Bundy may have murdered the unsuspecting women. After I bought the book, autographed, by Barth, I looked w/suspicion at all the possible schemes a good-looking fast-talker like Bundy could've pulled. I went to one of the public restrooms that was all by itself. Scott was nearby but as soon as I went in I was aware that someone could be hiding in the stalls. Bundy would do something like that. He was a sneaky voyeur and an exhibitionist. The author makes a great case for how his maternal grandfather, thru extraordinary meanness and cruelty, inadvertently trained Bundy and germinated the fires of rage that had been fuming inside since Bundy was a small child.

Are sociopaths born or made?

I love this book and recommmend it to anyone who likes a good crime novel. Its title is perfect: Origins of Infamy. Send me an E and you can borrow it when I'm done.