From Gramps

I feel the need to write an addendum to my most recent entry in the family blog, in the form of an apology to Mick. His presence in Bolivia makes us already an international family without resorting to a removal of Nana and I to Paris. However, Mick may not qualify on one count -- the fact that we all speak and write in a common language. Mick no longer writes in English. After only eighteen months posted in a country way south of the border, he writes in Spanglish -- a language not easily recognizable by either Hispanics or Anglos. By November, I suspect that he'll be totally monolingual (Spanish only) and will recognize, when he arrives home in Mapleton, the pleas of his parents to live at home rather than in a BYU dorm and not to even THINK about marriage until he is 35, only by the sounds of worry in their voices, with no understanding of the actual words they speak. He will be required to register at BYU, or whatever school he chooses to attend, for English 101 and to pass it before being admitted to the junior class, for which he qualified at UVSC before graduating from high school. His re-entry into the English-speaking world will be slow and painful. But Mick is well acquainted with pain. He has, however, no acquaintance whatever with "slow." He'll probably accelerate it, as he has with everything else he has done -- except dating (to his parents' great delight!) This is way longer than I had planned. Put it down to senility and the propensity of old people to take unfair advantage of the young, who don't want to offend us for fear of being taken out of our wills. My advice to you all is: Don't sweat it. Say what you think. By the time we die, there won't be anything left for which to hope.