Jack, never one to resist improving others' grasp of the vernacular, heard this story from our neighbor's brother Saturday night. Our neighbor's brother is also named Jack. Neighbor's-brother Jack lives in deepest, rural-est Utah, where he and his wife are raising four kids*. Once, awhile back, their family took a trip in their van. I don't know where they went, but on their way back home it got dark, and as they came up over the top of a hill a small town was spread out in the valley beneath them, and all the kids pressed their noses against the windows and gasped, Look at all the lights!

Jack's wife counted: there were seventy-five lights.

"That's when I knew," said Jack, "that I was raising a bunch of hicks."

"No," said my husband Jack, "you're raising a passel of hicks."

*Two of whom are ballroom dancing champions.