Ministers Son

The Hall of the Ivy featuring Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Goldman. Welcome again to Ivy. Ivy College, that is, in the town of Ivy, USA. It might reasonably seem that after many years of experience, the opportunities and import universities of a college president's life would have become so standardized and so repetitious that all problems could be settled by rule of thumb.

But the trouble with using a rule of thumb is that it's too frequently one knuckle short of adequacy. As Dr. Hall, Ivy's president says to his wife, the former Victoria Cromwell of the English Theater.

Uh, Vicki, do you know what my father used to say? But I've heard a great link in your father's youth to say, darling. Although I'm sure you often confuse what he used to say with what you are about to say.

The only thing that says no confusion, he really said it. Said what? He said the uses of adversity may be sweet, but they are definitely not fascinating. That's fascinating. Well, that's very good. From what you tell me of your father, Tottie, Confucius was just an oriental Milton burl by comparison.

I'd hardly go that far, my darling, although they probably did have one thing in common. But your father in Milton burl? No, no, no, no. My father in Confucius. Oh, yeah, well, both philosophers, huh?

Well, yes, but I was referring rather to my father's fondness for the Chinese game of Ma Zhang. Confucius, wasn't that like saying Napoleon played a hard game of gin-rummy? It may be a slight anachronism, but the Chinese have played mahjong for eight centuries, at least.

When they pick up a fad, they hang on to it, don't they? A very tenacious race, and one which I have long admired. Compare canasta and mahjong. In only two or three years, we have introduced canasta, changed lurus, added variations, improved it, transformed it into a game called Samba, and we'll probably live within a short time discard it.