Not enough beer, maybe?

Well, yeah, that might be one explanation why I have not been posting here. Of course I have kept up my Thursday essays over on the ACS blogg, in a kind of preparation for the tenth anniversary of Subsidiarity, which is on Tuesday March 2.... I don't know exactly what the festivities will include, but I hope to see many of you there. (I don't know where, but perhaps at "Minerva's"... hee hee)

Of course I have been busy writing, and am making progress on two fronts, which is always reassuring. No I am not writing them simultaneously, as Chesterton or Aquinas or Caesar - but I do proceed as time permits. This past week an email from my friends at Loome stimulated some curious cross-linking - the topic was "Books for Boys" - and I decided to act on it. You may already know that in order to get to Stillwater Minnesota when you are coming from Pennsylvania you will most likely take 94 West through Wisconsin, and just after you cross the St. Croix River, you turn right onto 95, and drive through a little town with a very curious and wonderful name... Yes, just as the first thing almost everyone who visits London wants to see is "221 B Baker Street" to perhaps glimpse Sherlock Holmes, so any young person who sees the sign reading "Bayport" will hope to glimpse Frank and Joe Hardy. I am not sure that their Bayport was the one in Minnesota, but I will take what I can get. Besides, maybe they moved. (I am certain that they have not aged, just as Holmes and Watson have not aged...)

And so, with the Hardys on my mind (and as I said, perhaps not having had enough beer) I decided to make an experiment. See what you think. Please don't post with comments about all my mistakes - it's not for a class, but for fun.)

Illi Pueri Hardii
solvent
Res Occulta in Turre Vetere

Franciscus Linus "Digamma" Dixonis IV

(Capitulum I)

Fratri Hardii in navem illarum corrent celeriter in sinus magnus propinqua Bayportus, urbem illorum.

"Joseph," ait Francisus Hardii, "ibimusne ad Vesperas hodie?"
"Non," respondit frater sui. "In venatio ibo cum Chet Mortonis, amicum magnum nostrum, invenire cenam parvior pretium."
"Contemplando semper de gastris vestris," Franciscus murmurat. "Num placent 'Mensam Apicii' in Via Mercatii?"
"Minime!" ait Joseph. "Jus eis salem sufficium non habet, et crustum eis parvissimum est. Non ibimus iterum. Etiam, in noctem Sabbatum, cum ibi vescebamur, pecuniam non habuimus. Et numquam visitare possumus," suspirat. "Et ancilla nostra... pulcra est, cum pili rutili..."
"Tu et ancilla tua!" Franciscus ridet. "Cum pili rutili. Cur non quaeres puella cum capita sub pili rutili sua?"
"Vah, et puella omnis obviam venis, semper illam petes de termini de declinationis sextus?"
"Etiam, frater. Melior puella deformis qui subjunctivam cognovit," Franciscus aqua fratum aspergat, "quam deam qui non potest dicere 'amemus'."
"Desiste!" plorat Joseph. Tum - "Vise!"

Monstrat digito ad collem ultra urbem.

Ibi, aedificatus magnus in collem videant, et ex turre altum lux nictans elucet!

...Pergi...