You know why they call it the FIRST amendment?  The Free Speech thing?  It's the first, because it's the main thing.  Back when the Founding Fathers could get into Colonial Williamsburg without having to sit through the orientation movie, the powdered wigs got together in Philadelphia to invent the Constitution. Before 1787, the Continental Congress ran the country in principle, but the states did what they pleased and ignored federal requests for revenue. Our currency was worthless, foreign governments refused us credit, and when James Madison called for all the states to meet in Annapolis and agree to become a real government, only five states showed up. Then, the Annapolis chair recognized Alexander Hamilton, probably from his picture on the ten-dollar bill. And Hamilton called for a constitutional convention, though it was admittedly a hardship to attend a lengthy convention prior to the invention of the mini-bar. 

 

   It was a long sweaty summer in Philadelphia in 1787, and many of the patriots of the late insurrection loathed one another, and imagined the others an assortment of beef-witted morons, but recognized they needed one another, like the cast of Survivor.  And they argued a lot but not over the First Amendment. The First Amendment includes freedom to say what you want, print what you want, and to possess an opposing point of view. And this was the year that Thomas Jefferson wrote to a fellow named Edward Carrington, and he was so hot about the right to speak freely that he dipped his quill in ink to speak freely the opinion that-----in his words----"The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."  Which today we have crocheted into samplers but which back then was consider by convening conventioneers as incontrovertibly unconventional. 

 

   And of the document crafted during that hot summer of 1787, Benjamin Franklin spoke (when he asked his colleagues to sign the final draft on the last day of the convention), using these words: "I confess there are parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them. For, having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise. It is, therefore, that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment and to pay more respect to the judgment of others. Most men, indeed, as well as most sects in religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them, it is in error."

 

   At this point, Franklin injected a joke about a prominent Protestant who tells the Pope, in a dedication, that the only difference between the two churches, in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrines, is that the Church of Rome is infallible and the Church of England is never wrong. Then, to appreciative chortles, Benjamin Franklin concluded the convention with these words: "It therefore astonishes me, sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the builders of Babel; and that our states are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for purposes of cutting one another's throats. Thus I consent, sir, to this Constitution, because I expect no better, and because I am not sure that it is not the best."

 

   Then, as now, there was contention, as, of the 55 delegates who crafted the Constitution, 39 were willing to sign it and several had already quit the city, owing to their unalterable opposition to the document&183;  And after it was signed, it still had not chance of being passed till it included the Bill of Rights---which was the dictator antidote. You know what Iraq has not had that these United States of America are presently there to share with them?  The right to an opposing view, that's what. Iraqis ought to be able to express their opinion that their government is run by knuckleheads.  And so should we all. 

   Prior to reading the Palm Beach Post this week I was not aware that the Palm Beach County public schools prohibit commencement addresses by guest speakers. Superintendent Art Johnson refuses to allow outside speakers at graduation. But students say speeches delivered by local school officials are becoming tiresome. And students at the Dreyfoos School of the Arts are defending the principal of their right to a speaker who is not the principal.

 

   And were I permitted to make history by becoming the first non-teacher to be asked to address the Dreyfoos graduating class of 2008, I would, insofar as I am able, impart to them some hard won wisdom, in the full knowledge that there exists no human who has retained any portion of a commencement address thirty seconds after pitching the mortarboard. I would begin by saying:

 

   To you, the graduating class of Aught-Eight---when, following my address, you receive your scroll, do not consider it symbolic of a task accomplished, but rather as a metaphor for the baton we pass to you as you commence to sprint your leg of the rat race, or, as they say in Buenas Aires, La Carrera de Raton.  Some of you will go on to higher education, continuing in your roles as money-pit black holes, with an attraction so strong as to ingurgitate and engulf all currency in your immediate vicinity and from which nothing may escape; such as gratitude. Others of you will be moving directly into the labor force to begin immediate payroll deductions toward my retirement and eldercare, for which I would like to express my appreciation.

 

   But there are a few universal truths which I can, as a global village elder, offer for your rumination. Keep an assortment of batteries of all sizes, and never allow yourself to be impoverished of duct tape or WD-40.  Corporate advancement will likely be slower for those whose cubicles are decorated with ceramic animals. You can economize greatly by parking in a lot which collects payment on the honor system. Never put oysters in the stuffing. Do not put pineapple bits in the cottage cheese.  Don't give the finger on the roller coaster, in that amusement park policy is not to sell that photograph and it ruins it for the other riders.  Memorize a half-dozen axioms so that you will be thought clever when you observe that, "The fish dies because it opens its mouth."  Should you aspire to management, your umbrella should be black. 

 

   Know, when speaking with your elders, that your children will one day roll their eyes when you recall the time before 3-D Holographic TV.  If you wonder whether you need a haircut, don't ask a barber.  When quoting Confucius to an Asian audience, do not begin, "Confucius say."  At a time when young people are faced with an almost limitless availability of easily accessible pornography on the Internet, it is worthwhile to be reminded that pornographic magazines remain the best value in terms of price and portability.  

 

   Do not patronize dining establishments where the ketchup is neither Heinz nor Hunt's; when there is skimping on the condiments, chances are the Cole slaw will also be considered an afterthought.  Do not feel ashamed, or queer, or abnormal, or that there is something intrinsically wrong with you, should you find yourself experiencing the troubling feeling that much of what Elvis Presley recorded was lame. You would be surprised how many people suffer in silence feeling the same way you do.  It is likewise true that Abbott and Costello were, in truth, no matter what others may say, quite terrible.

 

   To those among you who aspire to fame and immortality, though your talents be unremarkable: Keep ordering the swordfish. When it soon becomes, as experts predict, extinct, fortune may smile on you to the degree your obituary headline may one day read, "Joe Doaks; he ate the last swordfish." 

 

   In closing…To you, the graduates of the class of 2008, should you retain only three things from my words to you here today, I suggest they be—One: When considering making a life commitment, don't forget to ask about your intended's feelings pertaining to Fidel Castro. Two: It is polite to always give the appearance of having attempted to hold the elevator. And three: it will not be necessary to retain any memory of Pythagorus because he will never come up again.

   Scientists are people who look for the answers to the questions we have not asked; as in, "Did the Neanderthals talk?" which Robert McCarthy says they did.  He is an anthropologist at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, who has constructed a computer model of Neanderthal vocal characteristics based on fossil evidence of Neanderthal throat structure discovered in France.  Here is what McCarthy says a Neanderthal would sound like pronouncing a long E:

 

(You'll have to click through the MySpace anti-phishing filter and then return here)

 

http://media.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/av/dn13672A1.wav

 

And this is what a human sounds like pronouncing a long E:

 

http://media.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/av/dn13672A2.wav

 

But of course you could have saved yourself clicking that link by simply pronouncing a long E.

 

   And so it would appear that early Neanderthal man's speaking voice was very like that of early Popeye. Language researchers have long believed speech did not evolve until 40 thousand years ago, whereas Neanderthal man lived more than 200 thousand years ago. And musicologist researchers also credit Neanderthal with an IQ high enough to create music, because of the discovery, in a Neanderthal cave, of a femur bone of a cave bear with four holes in it which can be played like a flute, with notes conforming to the Mi, Fa, So, and La part of the diatonic scale.

 

   And sometimes it takes a non-scientist, not as close to the subject matter, to stand back far enough to take in the entire picture. So, having considered both points of view, I am postulating here the theory, which has never before been offered by researchers, that, if the Neanderthals had the facility of music, and if they had the facility of speech, then I propose to you it follows that they could sing. And, using just the four notes on that primitive bear-femur flute, the Mi, Fa, So, and La, they could have performed the first four measures of Strangers in the Night, or the first five measures of Chapel of Love.

 

   And of course having said Neanderthals could speak, the question arises, "What did they talk about?" Were they the Oscar Wildes and Noel Cowards of the Homo era? And lest there be sophomoric sniggering, let it be remembered we are all of us homos. Most of us are homo sapiens, which means, recent man, while others could be called homo sapient, or wise, homos, like Oscar Wilde and Noel Coward. Or were the Neanderthals conversational bores, prattling on tediously about how rare the meat was or how bright the sun was and other troglodyte trivia.

 

   We can assume that among mankind's first spoken words was profanity, because early man would have been first to experience being struck by a rock or burning by fire, or anal rape. And it is undeniable that nocturnal cave-dwelling would have been conducive to the stubbing of toes.

 

   Taken together, these studies dramatically transform the Neanderthal we thought we knew; the low-browed, grunting, brutish moron cousin of early man, into a sophisticated raconteur and musically talented bon vivant; the life of the anthropological party. Perhaps they sat around the fire in the cave in the Neander Valley near Dusseldorf and performed paleolithic poems like:

 

A Neanderthal flutist named Dave

Said, "Think of the time that I save

By not taking vacations

On homo migrations

I can practice notations

To standing ovations

And evolve adaptations

Of crude orchestrations

And poop while I shave in my cave."

A student of the verse form once divided limericks into three types: limericks to be told when ladies are present; limericks to be told when ladies are absent but clergymen are present; and Limericks.  Most would agree with Professor Morris Bishop who wrote:

 

The limerick is furtive and mean;

You must keep her in close quarantine,

Or she sneaks to the slums

And promptly becomes

Disorderly, drunk and obscene.

 

In 1846, the modern Limerick verse-style originated with what were then called nonsense rhymes, and Edward Lear published an anthology of them which was enthusiastically snapped up by no one. However, twenty years later, at its reprint, the British humor magazine Punch seized upon the form and began the fad that had everybody doing them.  In the United States, talentless writer but successful copycat Charles Leland used the form as political satire during the civil war.  According to limerick scholar G. Legman, who spent years in the collecting of 1700 of the verses in the most extensive anthology of Limericks ever gathered together (cementing his reputation as someone never to invite to a party), the name Limerick was probably applied to the form in the 1880s, after a series of ribald rhymes ending with the chorus, "Won’t you come up to Limerick." 

 

Even though popularized by the English and the Americans, the meter of the stanzas in the classic five-line Limerick was commonly used in songs in the Irish language throughout the 1700s. But the limerick poetical pattern, ending with two short syllables and a long, can be traced back as far as the 1300s.  An argument has been made that one of the oldest poems in the English language, "sumer is i-cumen in""contains limerick-like rhythm, thus:

 

Ewe bleateth after lamb,

Low’th after calve coo;

Bullock starteth

Bucke farteth

Merry sing cuckoo!

Which is what passed for great literature in the dark ages.

But a Limerick barren of at least one word which would catch in the throat of a bishop is not worth the reciting of it. Even if its heart is in the right place, as with:

 

On the chest of a barmaid in Sale,

Were inscribed all the prices of ale

And on her behind

For the sake of the blind

Was the same information in Braille; or,

There was a young lady in Reno

Who lost all her dough playing Keno

But she made so much Jack

From her work on her back

That now she owns the casino.

 

And I could fashion a verse which would pass Federal Communications Commission scrutiny such as:

 

A young man from Newcastle West

Had a bullseye tattooed on his chest

But, lest he be a target

He’d for two more dinar, get

Tattooed with a bullet proof vest.

 

Which is ultimately unsatisfying, as Newcastle West would be far more interestingly paired with breast, or molest, or ingest, or HIV test.  Five finely crafted lines of spondaic hexameter with lines three and four generally containing amphibrachs and amphimacers, are still unworthy of the name limerick without the presence of a spoken word violating several federal decency guidelines. The F-word or the C-word, or the S-word or the one in the verse that goes:

 

A lass from Kilcornan begat

Three brats, name of Nat, Pat, and Tat

T’was fun in the breeding

But hell in the feeding

When she found there was no tit for Tat

By which, of course, I mean this for that or quid pro quo.

   Today is March 16^th and the time is upon us once again to celebrate the memory of perhaps the patron Saint of drinking occasions and I am speaking, of course, of Saint Urho.  For non-Finns unacquainted with St. Urho, he was made up in 1956 by the manager of the Ketola Department Store in Virginia, Minnesota, home of the World's Largest Floating Loon, half way between Duluth and International Falls, about fifty miles from the Canada border as the crow flies, or 85 miles if the crow follows route 53.

 

   It began when this department store manager, by the name of Dick Mattson, was consuming alcoholic beverages at a St. Patrick's Day party and declared to the gathering that St. Urho had it all over St. Patrick. And when his companions confessed their ignorance of particular holy good egg, Mr. Mattson proclaimed him to be the Patron Saint of Finnish vineyard workers, by virtue of driving the poisonous frogs out of Finland, and further embellished St. Urho's legend with expansive tales of his miraculous achievements.

 

   And the inhabitants of northern Minnesota, where the winters are long, embraced the legend of St. Urho as a felicitous cause for celebration and justification for intoxication in a double-dose of drinking in tandem with the Irish patron's day. And department store co-worker Gene McCavic composed a legend in the form of an Ode to a boy named Urho who obtained his super-strength from a diet of fish soup and sour milk. As the legend spread across Minnesota, a Finnish college professor named Sulo Havumaki revised the story thusly: 

 

   Before the last glacial period, when wild grapes were abundant in the fertile fields of Finland, the grapes were threatened by a plague of giant grasshoppers. We know this from ancient pictograms etched into the thigh bone of an extinct giant bear. The boy who would be saint, Urho, stood in the grape fields and shouted, in a voice described as "splendid and loud," "Heinasirkka, heinasirkka, menae-taalta hiiteen," which means, "Grasshopper, grasshopper, go away."  This spell drove the grasshoppers into the sea, saving the wine crop. For this reason Urho is the patron saint of Finnish grape growers, of which there are presently none. 

 

   In the 1970s, the Minnesota town of Menahga, which is Chippewa for "blueberry," commissioned an artist to carve St. Urho from a one-ton block of oak, but the woodcarver is reputed to have taken the money and vanished.  In 1982, the town fathers gave the oak block to itinerant chainsaw sculptor Jerry Ward, who crafted a 12-foot figure of the saint, clutching a pitchfork skewering a giant grasshopper, which stands on the east side of U.S. Highway 71, about 40 miles from Bena, home of Minnesota's only restaurant inside a fish.  Actually, the St.Urho statue tourists get their pictures taken with today is a fiberglass replica, the original being so highly thought of it is sheltered from the weather, locked up in the mausoleum in the Menahga cemetery. 

 

   It is too late for one to get up there for the big St. Urho's dance tonight at the VFW Hall, but there's still time to make the parade tomorrow, which steps off at one, followed by ice golf on Spirit Lake.  Take route 12 out of Minneapolis, through Darwin, home of the World's Largest Ball of Twine, and turn north on route 71. Menahga is but a half-hour drive from Nevis, home to the World's Largest Tiger Muskie; Hackensack, home to the giant statue of Paul Bunyan's Girlfriend; and Pequot Lakes, home of the World's Largest Fishing Bobber. 

 

   So, this evening, let us lift a glass and speak the words of Gene McCavic and Richard Mattson, who composed the definitive Ode to St. Urho, which goes, "Ooksie kooksie coolama vee--Santia Urho is the poy for me.  He chase out the hoppers as pig as birds. Neffer pefore haff I heard dose words. He really told those bugs of green. Bravest Finn I effer seen. Some celebrate for St. Pat unt hiss nakes--But that Urho boy got what it takes.  He got tall and strong on feelia sour--And ate culla Moyakka effery hour.  Tat's why da guy could chase dose beetles. What crew was thick as jack pine needles.

So let's give a cheer, in our best way, On this sixteenth of March, St. Urho's Day!" 

 

   The original text of this Ode to St. Urho was written by hand on a piece of wrapping paper, and is now on display at the "Iron World Museum," in Chisholm, Minnesota, eighteen miles from Eveleth, home of the World's Largest Hockey Stick.

   I save "Old Farmer's Almanacs," which First Officer Spock would call illogical, because, just like calendars, when the year is expired they cease to be operational.  But I save old "Old Farmer's Almanacs," because old "Old Farmer's Almanacs" always contain pithy kernels of wisdom such as "Anxiety is Interest paid on trouble before it's due," or, "If you ain't the lead horse, the scenery never changes."

 

   And I revisited 1997 today, perusing March, to discover that the 15^th, in which we today reside, fell on a Saturday. And it is, of course, from this date that the famous line was spoken, "Beware the Ides of March," which was not meant to be a heads-up that the aging rockers will be resurrecting "Vehicle" yet again, but a quote made famous back when Brutus and the Backstabbers slayed at the Forum.

 

   And it is just another in the perpetually incomprehensible vagaries of the Roman calendar, because the Ides is the 15^th in March and May and July and October, but the Ides falls on the 13^th in all the other months for no good reason. Reading on, there were three recurring days in the Julian Calendar; Kalends, Ides, and Nones. Each month began with the spotting of the new moon, and Kalend was the first day of every month, on which was paid the interest on outstanding debts. Kalend means, "I Cry" and the town crier would shout, "Kalend," in the streets, to show off he knew Latin. And Ides means "to divide," and was supposed to divide the month approximately in half and fall around the full moon. The Nones was always eight days before the Ides, so it fell on the fifth or seventh day depending on the month. And one got the current date by counting backward from the next key day, so that tomorrow, for instance, in Roman times, would be called Kalend 16, meaning, 16 days before the first of April. And Julius Caesar introduced this complicated Julian Calendar in 45 BC, and in 44 BC was stabbed 23 times and small wonder.

 

   And the coming week is, to the Old Farmer's Almanac, a time of the year in which recurring events repeat themselves year after year.  The vernal equinox. The swallows returning to Capistrano. The college kids returning from spring break, or, as the Mexicans put it, "El stampedo, intoxicado, los estudiantes jerkwipes." And there is a reassuring cycle of predictability in the certain knowledge that, for instance the buzzards are returning today to Hinckley, Ohio. 

 

    And animal behaviorists will tell you that the reason the buzzards return like clockwork, every March 15, is because more than one hundred years ago, the rural inhabitants of Hinckley were feeling put upon by wild animals, and so as to make their children and crops safe from predation, they threw a big hunt, and hundreds of people came from all around to shoot everything on four feet, and for days they killed every living beast in field and forest to eradicate the vermin from their vicinity.  And they piled up the carcasses; thousands upon thousands of them; until they all became rotted and rancid and decayed and putrefied and afforded a buzzard delight in every bite and was a scavenger taste sensation to beat all carrion smorgasbords. And from that day to this, some genetic engram imprint stringing through generations of buzzards has led them back, season after season, to the time and place where their ancestors enjoyed the best gluttonous feeding frenzy in the history of buzzard-hood.  And one might write this off as stupid and futile animal behavior, and consider these buzzards boneheads for continuing to—year after year—generation after generation—fruitlessly revisit this memory of past glory, on the outside chance history will repeat itself.  Which it never does.  But do not imagine that the buzzards are the only creatures which return year after recurring year, in a delusional continuum of baseless hope and expectation to the place where they once, very long ago, experienced delirious and glorious exultation, and I am not only speaking of the season ticket holders who just received their Florida Marlins or Chicago Cubs season ticket invoices in the mail.

 

You…like the buzzards…discover upon your annual return that there is nothing really exciting awaiting you.  But you go anyway, because, what if, just once, you didn't go, and that's the year of the enormous kill when they pile up the corpses and it's all you can eat.  Then wouldn't you feel stupid.

I went to Publix this morning to buy some marshmallow peeps. The Easter candy has been on the shelves for a month already because this is one of those years when Easter falls in March because it's one of those Marches with five Sundays in it. It happens that the last Sunday of March will be the first Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring Equinox, which (as declared by the Council of Nicea in 325 AD) is the chief qualification the HR department looks at when considering a Sunday applying for the job of Easter. And whenever I see the Easter candy appear in the grocery store, it occurs to me to pass along my annual reminder about how to have "Fun with Science.

I would be remiss in neglecting to remind all that now is the time to nuke a peep. Place a marshmallow peep into the microwave and set it on high for thirty seconds, and, as you hum the theme from 2001 Space Odyssey, by the time you get to the DUH-DUH part, it will have swelled to ten times its normal size like the Amazing Colossal Man/
Woman—before mutating into a lumpish puddle of unidentifiable white and yellow goo.

Oh—by the way---the microwave thing works with Circus Peanuts, too.

   I know that there will be a number of people who, like me, come away from a very enjoyable weekend at the Renaissance Festival at Quiet Waters Park in Deerfield Beach (just off the turnpike) frustrated by wrongheaded laws prohibiting the murder of minstrels following one around singing Elizabethan rounds with lyrics such as "Hey, ho, the rattlin' bog, bog down in the valley-o." Or misquided societal constraints against kneeing the jester in his codpiece. 

 

   Until it is legal in this country to assault individuals who regularly use the word, "Fie," in everyday conversation, we must content ourselves with imagining it in our heads.  Which is what members of NERO do. The New England Role Playing Organization is a national organization of people who dress up like extras in Lord of the Rings and play-act medieval fantasy games. Florida has a chapter up Orlando way.  They are having a to-do at the end of the month, which is where they gather at a campground and switch on the fantasy Friday and it's not over till the fat friar sings.

 

   Each adopts an identity such as a serving wench or a wizard or a Black Knight with a varlet as a valet. And for the entire gathering one must remain in costume and in character in a storyline handed out on arrival. Perhaps you will be hired by some farmer in a local tavern, who enlists your aid to slay a foul necromancer and his legion of undead, to win the farmer's comely daughter with the ten-pound bosoms laced into the five-pound bodice. Heroes have to have armor, and the more authentic it is the more protection points one is awarded, because each hit with a foam dagger or broadsword subtracts body points, and game marshals are the final arbiter of who is dead, and the game proceeds without pause, and, whether one is eating or sleeping, the action continues around you.  

 

   And for a profanity-challenged individual such as myself, the epithet opportunities in arcane English are boundless, and as you slip the dirk between the ribs of the jolly monk, the last words he hears before the marshal declares him dead might be, "Expire, gorbellied, dog-hearted hedge-pig. Ruttish, clapper-clawed ratsbane. Beslubbering fen-sucked clotpole."

 

   And, in our 21^st century gnat sphinctered climate of political correctness, isn't it reassuring to know there is a place one can go to mock a dwarf?

It has been 12 years since Wendy Guey brought the National Spelling Bee championship trophy back to Palm Beach County. Last year, local champ Claire Zhang made it to eighth place when she was knocked off by urgrund, which I define as an anagram of drug run. And today there are four survivors of 72 spellers who competed in the Palm Beach County spelling bee, and they will go on to the regionals March 10.

 

I'm a fan of spelling bees and I always read the word lists when they appear in the paper in the event I am called upon, as I have been over the years, to be a word-reader at the competition. I have enjoyed the experience of getting up on a stage with 50 fresh-faced, bright young people, and having, at any given moment, the ability to crush the living spirit out of them with a single word.

 

And when it comes down to the final two and the word is scaffoidous, you know one of those youngsters will be carried out on the shoulders of his peers and graduate summa cum laude and win a Fulbright Scholarship and return from Oxford to a full partnership in a prestigious brokerage house and will date Sports Illustrated swimsuit models and have a winter home in Tortuga; whereas the other will slink off the stage and his family will have to move and change their name and will wind up wearing a paper hat in the food service industry.

 

But again I say, I have been the man at the lectern who has dealt the death blow, in the form of nyctalopia, which may or may not be the obsessive inability to stop predicting out loud how the movie will end. And it was pointed out to me that perhaps I ought not participate in the bee as word reader, because it turns out that this is an event where, at its conclusion, I will be despised by every person in the auditorium save for one child and his nuclear family.

 

But I do enjoy looking over the words. It is a vocabulary builder, when one encounters bloygommetry; a disorder marked by the inability to stop carving radishes into flowers. Or oleajonist; one who experiences a thrill eating cottage cheese way past its expiration date. And one has to wonder whether the contestant will correctly execute spaggyetude; the uncontrollable compulsion to make motorboat noises in the soup at French restaurants.