N: Tell me again, what happened your first year at Utah State and why didn't you finish it?

G: Well, it was like this . . . you see, . . . what was your name again?

N: Trixie

G: No, that was my first wife's name.

N: Among how many?

G: As I recall, between Trixie and you, there must have been at least three.

N: We could call Janet and ask her.

G: Yeah, but then she might start asking questions about who her REAL parents were.

N: Maybe she ought to know.

G: Maybe, but she'd probably call Michele -- and you know what that could lead to!

N: You mean the Bly question?

G: Yeah, and Bernie Smirch, the football coach who was hired to coach at a school that didn't play football but was wild about basketball, about which he knew nothing, and asked me to be his assistant and actually do the coaching.

N: What does that have to do with Janet, who wasn't even born yet? In fact, five of our twelve kids weren't born yet.

G: Shhhhh. The last five don't know anything about the first seven. See what I mean? Better to let sleeping dogs lie.

N: Where did that "sleeping dogs" thing come from?

G: Well, my love (an endearing term used when an actual name doesn't come immediately to mind), there was this dog named Princess. She loved to sleep by the fireplace and had poor eyesight. Now, those two things normally wouldn't have much connection. The third thing that would seem to have no connection with the other two is that, when Corey was anywhere within dog-hearing distance and would whistle, Princess would quit doing whatever she might be doing at the time, including sleeping, leap up and take off at slightly under the speed of light toward the sound of the whistle. Sometimes, if she was indoors, because of her bad eyesight, she would miss the door on the way out. We had many unusual scuff marks on both sides of our front door at the house in K Falls. We also had a brick fireplace. Now, put it all together: Princess sleeping by the brick fireplace; bad eyesight; Corey whistling outside as he returned home from school. Dog nose meets bricks at high rate of speed, large pain at point of impact, followed by yelps and then soul-rending whimpering and Corey tears followed by parental counsel, "Son, let sleeping dogs lie!"

N: That never happened.

G. Well, you asked. I answered. My story is as good as anyone else's.

N: You didn't answer my first question.

G: What happened my first year at Utah State is over half a century old. How could I possibly remember?

N: You can still remember every word of the Prolog to the Canterbury Tales -- in Old English -- that you were required to memorize for Senior English in your last year at Utah State, which was also over a half century ago. Why not what happened the first year?

G: Selective recall -- or else I'm too tired and will try to remember it next time we have a similar stimulating conversation, Trixie.