The Vulture

Dear R., "I've been out of town for awhile," a goateed man confides to his cell phone, on a Rural Transport bus. The 3rd Amendment to the Constitution prohibits troops from being stationed in American houses. If you've ever noticed, there are no soldiers in your house. I wonder where the goateed man went out

of town.  Vancouver, BC?
Hippopotamonstrosiscryptalia - fear of long words.*
Patiently,
Sparrow

*a 14 year-old boy told me

Joke
Q: What did the vulture bring on the airplane?
A: Carrion luggage.

Carlo,
Yesterday I went to the local high school as a "special guest poet," leading exercises such as "Palindrome Training." [A palindrome, of course, is a word, sentence, or birth certificate which reads the same backwards and forwards.] I showed several of my palindromes:

lion oil
Bonk a knob
Elope, Pole!
Draw, O coward!

(I was shocked that no one knows what a "fink" is anymore.)
Next I revealed "a simple trick for writing palindromes."
I had someone write on the board:
"My best friend is Sid N. Eirftsebym."

The kids were amazed how much this resembled a name. I told them to write some variant on this, and they worked hard - but few showed me what they'd written.
One guy told me:
"My sister is a siretsisym."

Here are the ones I wrote:
"I miss you, Ouy Ssimi."
"I love to eat Aeotevoli."

Pearls were brought to the West by Alexander the Great
(it is believed).

Do you realize Bill Gates has lost $53.4 billion since 1998? (The Feb. 27 Kingston Freeman explains the new Forbes list of billionaires.) Gates is down to a mere $46.6 billion. This is amazing luck. If anyone else (me, for example) had dropped that amount of money, it would be a disaster. It happened to the only person in the world who wouldn't mind!