some; a little dirty — yes, not nice, and they’re not nice, I’m not nice to them — in ways boys aren’t, with girls, I mean. I’m sure I wasn’t clear there, and probably intentionally. Anyway, that’s all I’m going to say about it — ask Mommy the rest, though she might kill me for saying as much as I did. But — so what happened, I was trying to think before, but I guess I lost track of it,” and Julie says “About what that happened?” and I say “Wait, I didn’t hear that, a bus just passed, what?” and she says “That track that happened, you said, and got lost,” and I say “Was I referring before, meaning was I talking to you before about what I was thinking way before, about…regarding…something about civilized life in cities and around them and what happened to it? I don’t quite remember, but certainly lots about cities have changed. Maybe it’s the overcrowdedness, not only in subways — there’ve always been rush hours and dirty men — but everywhere, and people just don’t know how to deal with it as well as they did. That clear?” and Margo says no and I say “Anyway, it’s ironic, though, because — you know, a strange twist, a reverse of what was to—” and Margo says “I know what ‘ironic’ is; we learned it in English,” and I say “Well, then that’s a positive part of life today—‘positive: good,’ Julie,” and Julie says “I know ‘positive.’ ‘The man is positive. The nurse is positive,’” and I say “So, there again: another slice of the good positive part of life today. You both know the word ‘positive’ and one of you at ten knows what ‘irony’ is while I didn’t probably know it till I was fifteen, or even seventeen, eighteen. I probably was first taught it at fifteen but it didn’t sink in and it maybe could have been till I was twenty till it did, and the truth is I’m not so sure I even now know what it means or at least could give a good definition of it. I was not well educated, you can say, and most likely because I hated school. Uh-oh, I wasn’t supposed to say that,” and Julie says “Why?” and Margo says “‘Irony’ has something to do with that opposite-to-what’s-expected thing again,” and I say “School’s — I’m avoiding an answer to Julie because I don’t want to give either of you reasons for hating school too — school’s just more fun today and the teachers are better paid and the classrooms are brighter and airier and everything’s less regimented in the safer schools, it seems. And the blackboard’s green and magnetized in spots so things can stick to it instead of falling off and something else it has where everybody doesn’t get full of awful chalk dust, and instead of solemn Presidents George and Abe on the wall you have gay posters of flashy TV and music stars. And what else? Lots else. Reading corners, Disney movies in classrooms, cheery librarians and a principal who merrily races through the halls calling you ‘sweetie’ and greets you with a good morning at the school door. While we had stiff-lipped principals and screwed-down desks and ugly textbooks, and teachers — Mr. Feeny and Miss Brady, call for Mr. Feeny and Miss Brady and his five ruler smacks on your palm and her single face slap if you spoke out of turn or for a second, while they were speaking, turned your back — who often used corporal punishment. That’s—” and Margo says “We know, you just said,” and Julie says “I don’t,” and I say “It’s when an army corporal punishes you in basic training,” and Margo says “You’re not funny sometimes, Daddy,” and I say “Vat’s dat? Anudder bigische bus just vent past and I dint hear,” and she says “No it didn’t and one didn’t before. It’s when people,” to Julie, “hit your body as punishment but not to kill you. That’s capital punishment,” and I say “Now that’s something. You know it, now Julie does and may continue to — can? may? — while I—” and Margo says “May,” and I say “Good, while I probably did think when I was your age, and probably at Julie’s never even heard the term — phrase? — that it was a corporal who punished you in early army training. But I’m also almost sure I didn’t know the difference between them, capital and corporal. In fact I might have thought — somehow this is all coming back — that capital punishment took place in the nation’s capital or even in that capital’s Capitol building, and probably not till I was sixteen or so did I think otherwise — and quick, on your toes, tell me the difference between those two capitals or capitols, and for a bonus Q, what two U.S. bodies meet in the Capitol building, which are toughies but winner gets something sweet,” and Julie says “Let me think,” and Margo says “One’s an