Kia Kima It’s Influence on One Man's Life

By Mike Bowman

My first knowledge of Kia Kima came in 1963. In March, We had moved to Memphis from Washington, D.C. I turned 11 in May and joined the scout troop at my church. It wasn't much of a troop. There was a lot of close order drill and talk: of demerits. We answered ''yo'' at roll call since our scoutmaster was a Marine captain. There was no talk: of the troop going to summer camp, but my dad wanted me to be able to do things he hadn't as a kid. He found out about Kia Kima and wanted to see if another troop would take me along. I knew kids in other troops from school, but it just didn't feel right, so I declined. That may have been a mistake because I missed Old Kia Kima.

By the next summer, 1964, my dad was the scoutmaster and was determined that we would get to camp. When the process started we were scheduled for Old Kia Kima. The campsites had names, and we picked one that sounded good. By the time summer rolled around, the land exchange had taken place, and Old Kia Kima was history. We came up during the dedication week---remember that? I still have my neckerchief slide and the triangular patch. It was the best experience of my life to that point. We had planned to get an advance party up early on Saturday and get our pick of the sites--it was first come first served that year--but our driver got sidetracked at Ozark Acres--started shopping for land or something and we got there last. I felt like Moses or that diamond ring we used to sing about-- so near the promised land and yet so far. I even remember the evening meal-ham and hominy. We ended up in site 9--that was the last site that year--army wall tents--a really bad one compared to some others.

The week went by quickly. I only got to know a few names. They may have been regular guys, but they were heroes of epic proportion in my eyes. Steve Demster was the program director. We started the week with a second-class coup on inspection, but we cheered as though it were an eagle. He kept finding stuff to gig us on, but by the end of the week we got an eagle and got a first class coup at the campfire. Again--we cheered as though it were an eagle. We were just glad to be there.

Jim (Jimmy then) Bottrell was in the ax yard. -None of us had wielded more than a hand ax, and I remember learning to clear the area above with the ax handle so I didn't hit anything, how to sharpen an ax, and how to carry an ax safely.

David Day worked in the nature lodge--out in the middle of a meadow that year as I remember. I think I can still identify a gray rat snake and wild carrot--two of the questions on the oral exam at the end. Richard Stevens taught camping and was our Unit Counselor. And Wonder Warthog-who was that masked man? He sure could run fast in swim fins.

It took us a day to figure out what the elementary backstroke was, but once we were swimmers, we took an overnight canoe trip. I don't know who guided us, but just at sunset we stopped for a few minutes at a beautiful gravel bar and thought that it would make a great place to stop. We continued upstream until it got dark, and then our guide decided that maybe the earlier gravel bar was the right place after all. We shot the rapids back downstream in pitch darkness. When we got to the site, for the second time, we had to get water at Les Allen's house. Remember Les? He had a pack of hounds that I thought were going to kill us--and when he answered the door, I wasn't really sure that he wasn't going to help them. But we got our fire built and our trail pack cooked and bedded down in military sleeping bag liners. I still have one that was being thrown out. I patched it and used it. They were wool mummy bags that should have been reasonably warm, but I don't remember ever spending a colder night not sleeping. One by one we finally gave up and began stirring up the fire and finally cooked breakfast and headed back to camp. Did I have a bad time? No way! What an adventure to share with the poor beginners and non-swimmers when we got back. Did they miss us? No way! We had two tables in the dining hall, and they set both as though we were still there and like locusts moved from one to the other. I don't think that was the way it was supposed to work, but I've heard it's better to ask forgiveness than permission.

No one had to wear class A uniforms that week so that they would look good on dedication day. It was blazing hot, but I was so proud of my one merit badge that my mother had stitched on the sleeve of my long sleeve shirt (remember you could wear up to 6 there) that I wore it in spite of the heat. There were speeches and then lots of barbecue. I couldn't wait for the next summer.

In 1965 we were in site 5, now "Whispering Rapids" I think. We thought this one was the best. I got my Soil and Water Conservation merit badge that summer. I remember building check dams on Erosion Hill at Cherokee with a guy named Dale Roark. I even took a picture of one. I still have the blue merit badge card that he signed. That year we got an Eagle coup because we knew how Demster thought. We even had a patrol that won the Adventure Trail. I still remember one of the map symbols that we had to identify--a circle with lines pointing inward. We hadn't seen that one before but decided it must be a pit. I shot the bow and actually lucked into a bull's-eye. Buzz Young was our unit counselor. Buddy Osborne watched over us at the free swim beach and walked through our campsite each day. He always wore sunglasses and went by the nickname "Hollywood." He wore a small piece of wood tied to his ankle with a thong which he told us was shark repellent to keep us from getting killed by the man-eaters in the river. I have a picture of Buzz and Buddy mugging for the camera when they were in the site at the same time.

In 1966 I was kind of lost. My dad had been ordered to Vietnam, and I was having trouble working out all the conflicting emotions of a very sheltered 14 year old who was now supposed to be the man of the house. Camp was a welcome escape. James Lusk was our D.C., and I got my canoeing merit badge from Buddy Osborne at Cherokee. The river was so low that year that all waterfront activities except free swim were at the lake.

I have tried to explain to my wife and daughter what a wonderful place Kia Kima was for a camper. My daughter's experiences with the staff at her Girl Scout camp weren't as positive.

But I don't remember campers ever being mistreated by Kia Kima staff members. When working with campers, they were always models of what a scout should be. I read an article about summer camps recently. A parent told his son that they would have to cut back on the number of camps the kid could go to that summer--in theory only one. The kid forced the father to compromise with two---Pinecrest, a church camp, and Kia Kima. The father relented admitting that each served a different purpose and each represented the best of what a summer camp should be.

I think I had a fine time in 1966 until my scoutmaster came up and told me that he was getting me on the staff How? I was no epic hero. I hadn't tried out. I didn't know how to be on the staff I had never even considered the possibility of being on the staff---EVER.

Over the years I have made some sense out of what happened so fast with so little involvement from me. I had been a really bad trumpet player in my junior high band (I had just completed the 8th grade). My parents gave me a bugle for Christmas, and I had picked up the camp calls by ear--even got a merit badge for it and bugled for my troop. Somehow that qualified me (someone thought) to be the camp bugler. It's one thing to bugle for the benefit of site 5--it's another to try to be heard all around the camp. Besides I was really bad. But Steve Demster was tired of having to do it and without even a tryout I got the offer. I should have declined. My dad later said he wouldn't have agreed to it. I wasn't old enough or mature enough. And more importantly I hadn't earned the position as everyone else had. He was exactly right. But there was no way I could walk away from this opportunity. Could Phaeton decline the opportunity to drive the chariot of the sun? For both Phaeton and I there was a bad wreck coming, but neither of us saw that far ahead. And in fairness to Phaeton and me, his epitaph reads, "Greatly he failed, but he had greatly dared."

So my mother was called from the trading post---there was no administration building then-- and I begged her to say yes--which she did. Mr. Young talked to her and warned her that she might have sent a little boy to camp but a man would be coming home at the end of the summer. I don't know about the man part--I think I finally got there around 1995 or so--but it was definitely a life altering rite of passage.

I never remember a camper being abused by the staff, but once a person walked past the KEEP OUT sign that marked the limits of the staff area, things changed didn't they? We didn't abuse "civilians and innocent bystanders, " but boy couldn't we dump on each other?

For the first few days everyone was exceedingly nice to me. I found out later that they had been told that my dad was in Vietnam and could get killed at any time. That was true to a point. Anyone who went knows that no place was entirely safe, and for a while I hadn't known exactly where he was. He had been an infantry company First Sergeant, an Amtrak company Sergeant Major, had worked in coding in Washington, had processed recruits at Parris Island, had processed aviation students at Pensacola and Millington--so he could have gone to any kind of unit anywhere in the country. When everyone found out that he was at First Marine Air Wing Headquarters in DaNang (affectionately known as Rocket City for the frequent devastating rocket attacks) and was not out humping through rice paddies in the direct line of fire, the kid gloves came off, and the fun began. But that's the funny stuff (at least now it's funny-some of it-sometimes), and maybe I'll get to share those stories with you at a more appropriate time.

What I really want to get to, and I sort of hate to put this burden on them, is to say that the old heads on the Kia Kima staff took the place of my father when I really needed an older male influence in my life. I came to want to be like you. So I set about trying to emulate each of the people that were influential in my life right then. Unfortunately that doesn't work. I have since read my Emerson. "There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse as his portion." I have since come to understand the parable of the talents. Some of you have been given 10 talents, some 5 talents, and some of us have only been given 1 talent. We just have to play the hand we've been dealt as best we can. But in 1966 I hadn't learned these things, and the harder I tried to be like you the more dismal the results were. Everything I touched seemed to go to pot (that didn't necessarily end in 1966 either). But none of you ever gave up on me. There was always a lesson that you taught me (whether you realized it or not) while you were cussing me or shaking your head in disbelief at what I had just fouled up. You were the fathers that I wanted and needed right then. The lessons that you taught, directly or indirectly, were planted like seeds, and I assure you the seeds eventually grew. I do think I need to mention that I didn't have to make the last trash run my first year-or any year unless I was driving. I think my first year I remember David Logan and Boyd Billingsley on the last run. I don't know why they were there, but as my mother and I were driving out the gate, I think I remember Charlie Holland yelling out, "Logan! Billingsley! Where'd you go wrong?" But now some serious stuff.

Mr. Simonton- I wanted your approval and to be like you so badly. I even wrote an essay about you in high school. We had to write about the person we most admired. I wish it could have been my father, but he and I were not on the same page then. Later in life we would find each other, and I have found things to admire about him, but from 1966 to 1970, you were the man. I can remember writing that I thought you were the coolest person that I had ever known. I defined my term--not cool as in hip or with it---but cool as in calm and perceptive. I wrote that I had never heard you raise your voice to make a point (my father and mother "discussed" things with me and each other by screaming at the top of their lungs) and that I had watched you react to serious situations in a rational and careful manner. Remember when the old staff area caught fire and burned the cabin that contained the hot water heaters? Never having been able to really talk to my own father, I didn't know how to talk to you then. I was in awe. You never yelled at me. But any time you looked at me without smiling, I wanted to be anywhere but there. And when you did smile at me, I became tongue tied and clumsy (or should that be clumsier?). Oh, how I wanted to be like you. You never seemed to make a mistake. You must have seen something in me that I didn't because I haven't forgotten the raises I got--and you had to have approved them. I couldn't figure out how to tell you how important you were to me then-I'm glad I can do it now. By the way, I have tried really hard to keep the yelling out of my home and my classroom.

Steve Demster--- You were always in control so organized and intelligent. Who wouldn't want to be like that? You made me feel so good when you actually noticed me and even nicknamed me -The Whirling Dervish. You said in my enthusiasm that I appeared like one of those middle eastern dancers who seem to be running on nuclear power. I know I was glad to be on the staff, but I didn't realize that I ever exuded that much energy. You made me feel so good. When we were out moving platforms one day. You and I were standing there and you said, "Why don't we get this one ourselves?" I was even shorter then (I don't think I'm even 5'4" now), and I couldn't have weighed more than 110 pounds. You grabbed one side, and I grabbed the other and gave it all I had and we lifted it. We didn't just lift it--we were headed for the Big Orange truck when I backed into a stump and fell. The platform dropped on me, but I wasn't hurt. I was getting in position to pick it back up, so that WE could finish when three or four people grabbed it with you and headed for the truck. That was a disappointment. I had a chance to shine. For a moment I felt I had your confidence and approval, and then the moment was gone. I'll bet you don't remember Wit. It was only a moment. But I have never forgotten how I felt about myself in that moment. I have tried to find a way to give that feeling to all the inept little kids that have passed my way since.

Boyd Billingsley-To me you were the ice man-really cool in the hip and with it way. I wanted to be like you, too. You actually talked to me man to man one time. I got my clock cleaned by Charlie Collier, and you later sat with me and explained things about survival that my father should have. You warned me about the two words that have gotten more people into more trouble than any others--"Make Me." You explained that no matter who you are there will always be someone who can make you, and will make you, and will enjoy the opportunity to make you. You gave me some advice on how to avoid unnecessary confrontations and even better advice on how to make sure the other guy did the bleeding if a confrontation couldn't be avoided. I never forgot the lessons. You probably don't remember that, but I do. You came back for a visit in 1969. When you saw me, you actually recognized me and said, "Bowman, you're not as ugly as you used to be." Thanks for noticing. I have used the "Make Me" advice with my students and daughter for the past 31 years.

Charlie Holland-I can still hear you. "That's it! That's it!" I wanted to be like you. Nothing seemed to fluster you either. You took me with you my first afternoon on the staff (Sunday of the second week) to move racks and mattresses. We drove around from site to site in the Carryall. It's hard to believe, now, that in 1970 I would be driving the Carryall around and you would be riding with me. But you talked to me like a regular guy. It was like riding and working with a dad. It felt good. I never got any grief from you. I did have to wash your clothes a few times. But that was OK. because you said, "Bowman, as long as the quality of your laundry services remain at this stellar level, there will always be a place on the Kia Kima staff for you." Talk about a warm feeling. A few years later I learned the meaning of the words hyperbole and sarcasm, but at the time I thought we had a verbal contract for life. I was one of you. The only problem I did have was with your shampoo. Wow, did that stuff stink. I think I remember Steve Demster asking you why you just didn't dip your head in a bucket of creosote. It really did smell like creosote, Charlie. Did you ever get your sign at field sports? It was to say, "Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here." Dante and the Divine Comedy would probably have been lost on those who entered there anyway. Did you ever write your book about your experiences on the Kia Kima staff? The title was to be Bury Me Face Down Boys For My A** Is Tired.

Frank Mund-- I don't think I really got to know you very well until we were taking camp down. You and I were working at field sports. I really humped it that day, and you recognized it. I never let up, and you told me I did a good job. What a switch from the rest of my performance evaluations that summer. They can't be repeated in the company of children. You even tried to get me to slow down some, which I refused to do. If I was on a roll doing well, I was not about to let up then. You treated me so well every year after that too--at camp, at conclaves, at my Vigil ceremony, at the Scout office, after Bottrell had finished griping me out yet another time. That got to be sort of a ritual. Bottrell would chew me out. You and Doug would console me. I finally put up a sign on the front upright of my tent that said, "I consider the day a total loss unless I catch H*** from someone." Jim scratched out the "someone" and changed it to "Bottrell." I don't know if anyone remembers that, but it was funny even then. In 1967 I knew that I was going to have to miss camp that summer because my dad was being transferred to California. I don't remember the occasion but we were at camp before the camping season. I don't think it was a tryout weekend, but all the new equipment was stacked up in the dining hall including some Indian fire pumps, and everyone else, it seemed, was preparing their work area. You actually suggested (only half in jest) that I work that summer anyway. I could either join my parents at the end of the camp, or if they were moving back, go ahead and start school in Memphis. Someone would let me stay with them until my parents arrived. I have never forgotten that. You really wanted me on the staff. I think you had something to do with my raises, too. Why wouldn't I want to be like you?

David Logan---I can still see you sitting in your tent smoking a pipe--wise (to me) and calm and manly--giving me the business a little from time to time but nothing terrible. I came into the dining hall one evening wearing swimming trunks and a scout jacket-exactly what you had on having come from one of the swimming areas. At first you were irritated and asked me what I thought I was doing (assuming that I was trying to pass myself off as a waterfront man I guess). When I told you that all my clothes were in the wash, you let it go. It was true that all my clothes were in the wash, but it was also true that I showed up dressed like you because I wanted to be like you. "If I dress like him, maybe I can be like him." I also had never been "given the business" so much, by so many people, so often, and for so long. In frustration one evening as I was standing near you and Jim Seale, I just finally blurted out, "What do I have to do to make you people like me?" Both you and Seale looked at each other, shook your heads, and then explained, I don't remember who spoke, ''We do like you Bowman. If we didn't like you, we wouldn't even talk to you." I had never thought about that before. All I could say was, "Oh." There was an uneasy silence, and then I think you both called me some nasty names and kicked dirt on something or me that made me feel better than I had in a long time. You've probably forgotten that moment, but I haven't. I try to "twist the tail" of each student in each class at least once during the year so that they will know that I like them.

Since then I have often compared that astounding moment when someone that I revered actually said that he liked me with a scene in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Benedict overhears that Beatrice loves him. He turns to the audience and asks incredulously, "Love me. Why?" I didn't---couldn't question it then, but when I think about the "epic heroes" at Kia Kima who actually seemed to like me, I am often left with the question, "Like me. Why?" You may not know. For me it's enough to know or at least believe that you did and maybe still do.

Jim Bottrell -You came and got me at site 5 and walked with me to the T.P. to call my mother and talked about what I was in for that summer. "Sometimes in the evening you're going to be so tired that you'll reach around and feel just to make sure your butt is still there." I wanted to be like you, too. Not just that first year, but also every year. I tried to make my Indian costume look sort of like yours. I tried to learn "The Rattle Dance." I bought the record albums you listened to. I used your expressions, i.e. "How bad is that?" Heck, I even married a girl named Jenny. Once again, though, the harder I tried to do things the way I thought you would do them, the more I messed up. But in spite of my ineptness, you were always a mend to me. No matter how many times I fouled something up, you always accepted me back. When I tried out for staff in 1967 (coming in the front door this time) you took time to explain what things I had done wrong the year before and what you looked for in a staff member. I worked like a Turk that spring to measure up, and I think I did. I think you and everyone else had decided to give me another shot. I know that in 1968 you didn't require me to try out but hired me directly. Year after year you put opportunities in my path and talked very personally to me. Not that you didn't get frustrated with me and dump on me to relieve the frustrations as I mentioned earlier--but that was OK. You answered a letter I sent that summer when I was in California so that I would be up on all the things that were going on. You also enclosed an interesting crest design in that letter. Of all the good things you did for me, the best came in 1970. I was driving the Big G moving platforms. We had gotten back in one site (2 or 3 I think) and had the truck loaded. Winding my way in empty had been difficult~ and getting out loaded was even more difficult, but I cut back and forth and finally eased out into the open. You said, "Way to go Gear Jammer--- Virgil couldn't have done any better!" I'm not ashamed to tell you that my eyes watered as I typed that--first because it was the most wonderful compliment you could have given me and second because I miss Virgil. Whether you remember that fleeting moment or not, I do. I hope you know how much your friendship means to me. If not, let me say it plainly. Thank you for being a mentor to me and never giving up on me when I really needed you in my life. I try to remember how you treated me (minus the dumps) when I am about to write a student off as a lost cause. I try never to give up on them.

Doug Whitney - I saved him for last because I waited too long. But he and I have talked in our own way this summer. I think he heard me. I wanted to be like you, too. You were always smiling-always seemed happy. When I was cussing Bottrell, and Frank wasn't there to console me, Doug was. He either called me Benny, a nickname stuck on me by Tom North, or BowMAN, accent on the man. He would call out, "Hey everybody, it's Benny-Benny the Ball (a short, round character in the cartoon Top Cat for those of you who don't know) and grin widely. He picked up where Steve Demster left off. He and I made a trash run by ourselves. He drove and I humped the cans-alone. That might not have been much of a feat for others, but remember back then I wasn't the chiseled, rock solid, manly specimen that I am now. We did it in record time, too. At least that's what Doug told me. The only time he had to help me was when we got to Rosenbush's campsite, and he had loaded the can with rocks and logs. Doug and Rosenbush had a discussion that was neither polite nor refined about the appropriateness of doing that, but I don't think Doug was really mad, and Rosenbush was laughing loudly. I remember bringing the outpost Scoutmasters back from a meeting at main camp-oops, Osage. They were in the back of the Big G. As we hit that long climb at Erosion Hill, they were ready to be thrown to the floor when I downshifted and popped the clutch on them. But Allen Cook, yes Allen Cook, had taught me how to speed shift both up and down so that there was no jerk, and it sat well with everybody in the rear. As soon as they were unloaded, Doug was right there with a compliment, "The scoutmasters were impressed. Way to go BowMAN." He later told Danny Trudell and me that we worked together better than he and Buzz McCormick ever thought of doing. That was in 1970, also. Maybe I had finally gotten up to speed or found my niche. Or maybe Doug had a way of finding the best and bringing out the best in a person. I miss you too, Doug. I'll try to smile and find the best in my students.

A crowning moment in my life came, I think, as a result of my staff experience, and that was when I was tapped for the Vigil Honor. I'm sure there were at least 50 other people besides me who were shocked when my name was called and the medallion placed around my neck. Once again I was asking -- "Vigil Honor. Why?" You people must have seen something that I didn't. I think you often saw things that weren't there. Trust me, as short as I am, when you really delve in, there's even less here than meets the eye. But I thank you once again in spite of your bad judgment. My mother once asked my dad whom he thought was more significant, Eagle or Vigil. He told her Vigil. His theory was that anyone with enough tenacity could by his own choice become an Eagle. Vigil was out of a person's control. The best people chose others to join their ranks because they viewed those others as the best also. I hope you were right.

There are so many more people that I could go on with: Virgil Allen, R B. Middleton, Dora Reed, Tommy Bentley, James Lusk, Tom North, Claud Brown. There are others that I consider more my peers and I hope they know how important they are--Rick Schmid, John Fletcher, Calvin Minner, Steve Whitney, Ron Naro, Tad Fowler, Tom McAdams, Danny Trudell, Bill Penney, Mark Follis, Rick Bendall, Chris Scott, Steve Pendleton, Gene Osbahr, Steve Williams, and on and on. Even Allen Cook. I wish I could remember every name. They all shaped the man that I have become.

Success is measured in different ways by different people. I see myself as a successful man. I see my success in the lives of the students who have passed through my classes for the past 31 years, for the 31 anniversaries I've celebrated with my wife, and for the woman my daughter has become. I understand so much more about them and what my role needs to be in tbeir lives because of my Kia Kima experience. I understand more clearly the "planting the seed" concept and the concept of giving back. I think the movie Pay It Forward expresses the idea well. I often only find out that I did something right when I run into a student from the class of '7' who tells me that I made difference to him or her, or when someone compliments my kid, or when I realize that 31 years is a long time to spend with one woman.

I think I'm still OK with my wife--no divorce papers--yet. My daughter still cashes the checks I send to her at Middle Tennessee State University each month, so she's not too down on me. But right now I'm not sure how I did with my students last year. When I walked into my room at the end of school, a student had scrawled "Mr. Bowman rocks!" on one board. On another board in another hand was, "Mr. Bowman sucks!" ---so I guess I'll have to wait awhile to see how that turns out. Oh, well, I think I recognized my principal's handwriting on that last one, and I'm not really worried about him.

Justice

In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth. He created Night and Day-Moon and Sun. The oceans, rivers, and lakes were created by Him. The forests, grasslands, and deserts them He created. The fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, the beasts of the field created He them. He created man. And when He was finished, He was pleased with his work and rested.

But Man in his blindness lived without law. He deceived and cheated and stole from his fellow man. And God saw that this was not good. "I am a vengeful God in my wrath, and a just God in my punishment," quoth He. Seeing that the world needed this justice God said, "Let there be dumps.." And there were dumps. And God saw that this was good.

"But who will deliver my dumps?" God asked. "Who has the wit, the cunning, and the showmanship to correct the behavior of evildoers for the entertainment of others?"

Now there were giants in the earth in those days.

And God found Perry Gaither. And God said, "Perry. Thou art to deliver my divine retribution and bring justice to an unjust land. Thou shalt dump." And Perry dumped. And it was not just good, it was great. And God said, "Wow, Perry. Way to go. I, verily, would never have thought of that and I'm God."

And Perry Gaither begat Steve Horne. And Steve dumped. And it was not just great-it was amazing. And God said, "Holy Moses. And I mean that literally, Steve. Nice job. Thou maketh me proud that I thought of this dumping thing."

And Steve Home begat Neal Talley. And Neal dumped. And it was not just amazing it was sometimes nasty. And God said, "Neal, that was not just vengeful, that was downright gross. I may be God, but right now, thou art truly the man."

And Neal Talley begat Jim Bottrell. And fun dumped-usually on Mike Bowman. He dumped swiftly and often. And God didn't say anything because he was laughing too hard. When God finally regained his composure, He said to Jim, "Well done good and faithful servant. Take a rest and let the kid up for air." And Jim and God rested. But God often woke himself laughing for ages to come.

And Jim Bottrell begat Mike Bowman. And Mike dumped. And God said, "What was that? That wasn't a dump. Do you know anything about dumping? Who ever told you that you could dump. That's the poorest excuse for a dump that I have ever seen, and I've seen them all. Bowman, I swear to Me, you could mess up a divine dream." Wait a minute is this God or Bottrell? It's hard to tell. Anyway, finally God said, "Well it isn't much, but I shall giveth thee a pass for the effort." And Mike as always persevered and dumped on. And his dumps grew in cunning and crudeness until finally God said, "OK. That's not bad. Take a break." And Mike said, "Watch where you sit God, I learned from the masters."