See, you don't wanna be a Jew. Too much work--there's a lot of holidays but it's even more work. It's sanctioned oppression, it's God's tyranny.

Kids without dads are desperate and jealous. Those with dads can be uppity and sharp.

Sundays normally were hell. Or just the church pat of it, actually. It wasn't that I was afraid of God, or had anything against Him. It was just that having to be there for two to four hours made me cross, hateful, and blasphemous. Plus it seemed to me that the regulars, the good God-fearing folks, who didn't have diddly-squat, liked to pretend they had a lot to flaunt -- whereas the ones that had a whole lot showed up on holidays and funerals, in fancy cars and dressed to kill, all made possible by money they didn't tithe away every week. That's where Sunday-based faith got you -- broke and with a sore butt!

My ultimate authority would be the school librarian Mrs. Greenbacher.