School starts tomorrow. Why do I keep thinking about this Charlie Brown book I used to have to read to my babysitting charges when I was sixteen: the last line was something like, "It was kind of a short summer, wasn't it, Charlie Brown?"

Good Flashback Friday over by MB re father-son relief efforts.

Randomness: when I get a chance I'll type in this startling passage from The Adventures of Augie March: describes him taking his brother Georgie, who is retarded, to an institution. Actually, there's a fair amount re disability that's well-handled in that book: caring for Einhorn, e.g., cleaning up the bathroom after him; Georgie's off-handed beauty and odd gait. There's some parallel, presumably, b/w the treatment of Grandma later on ("she got hers") and Georgie, but that doesn't interest me nearly as much as imagining what kinds of social services would have been available for a poor family with a retarded child in the 1930's.