"you know"

By Jim Riva

Imagine if FDR had said, “Yeah, well, I mean, the, uh, only, you know, thing we, um, have to, uh, fear, is, like, fear itself.”

Cassandra Hanesworth, a retired chair of the Department of Communication Studies at Denver University, gets fed up with people using interjections she calls “speakos” and is willing to pay the price to make the point that spoken language is an art form that should not be denigrated.

She kidnaps a host at Colorado Public Radio and forces him at gunpoint to apologize for setting a bad example—and then refuses to plea-bargain in order to use a trial to draw attention to her organization, the Language Defense League.

While she is incarcerated, a local poet, sympathetic with her cause, engages in a publicity stunt on behalf of the Language Defense League by embarking on a 500-mile, pogo-sticking journey from Plymouth Rock to the Lincoln Memorial—with a little, old lady who has a double-dominant personality as his sidekick.

Cassandra’s daughter takes over as director of the Language Defense League and answers accusations that the organization is into language-shaming by saying that they are only trying to help people overcome bad speaking habits and refers them to support groups like You-Knowsers Anonymous.

Clashes between the Language Defense league and its main opposition group, the Freedom of Speech Alliance, turn violent and result in the deployment of the National Guard. From this point, things get a little, you know, out of control.

This farcical story is intended to create a conversation, hopefully an eloquent one.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jim Riva
• Release date: Sep 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005045401

Jim Riva

Jim Riva was the class clown in his boyhood days. He became a serious student of philosophy at the undergraduate and graduate levels before coming to the philosophical conclusion that the best outlook on life is to take humor seriously.An off-the-beaten-track world traveler who spent the better part of fourteen years in Japan, Jim has written nine novels that fall into the Humor category and more than thirty-five audio sketches that are on The Champion of Reason Podcast.He lives and laughs (and continues to write) in Oregon with his Japanese wife and their daughter.

Book preview

you know

Published by Soaring Sparrow Press at Smashwords

Copyright 2020, Jim Riva

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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you know

Chapter One

Cassandra Hanesworth’s gray ponytail swung as she walked lithely toward the exit of the Hamilton Building at the Denver Art Museum, where she had gone to see a Native American exhibit. She was thinking about how interesting it was that ‘Cherokee’ was originally a Creek word that meant people who speak a different language when she heard a man say to a woman, Yeah, well, I mean, it was, uh, just, um, like, you know, basically, um...

Cassandra, who had recently retired from her position as Chair of the Department of Communication Studies at Denver University, stopped walking; her pony tail stopped swinging. She stared at the man before saying, Are you kidding me?

The man and the woman looked at her bewilderedly.

You just butchered the English language, chided Cassandra.

You don’t have to listen, said the woman in defense of the man.

There’s a difference between listening and hearing, lectured Cassandra. I couldn’t help hearing. There is an Apache blessing, ‘May you walk gently through the world and know its beauty’. I try to do that, but you just subjected me to audible pollution.

What’s your problem? blurted the man.

My problem is that the English language is being denigrated.

Well, I’m sorry.

No, you’re not. Good day.

It was a cold day in early December, so Cassandra, who usually rode her bicycle here and there, had come to the museum in her Tesla. Upon getting into the car, she took a deep breath and sat introspectively for a couple of minutes. She had become increasingly irritable since her husband, Gregory, a cellist with the Colorado Symphony until he could no longer play, ended his ordeal with muscular dystrophy. It had now been almost two years since he took his shotgun with him to their rustic cabin in Winter Park and blew his brains out. At least he did it outside instead of leaving a bloody mess in the cabin. He was thoughtful that way.

Cassandra started her car and drove to Cherry Creek Wine & Liquor. She needed to buy some wine to host her book club, which had begun reading Moby Dick, a book she hadn’t read since her college days.

Cherry Creek Wine & Liquor was her favorite place to buy wine because she liked the wine guy, Paul Mugot, a wine connoisseur although he was first and foremost a poet and a small-press book publisher. Operating under the name Red Rocks Press, the 38-year-old bachelor had published one book a year for thirteen years, alternating between books of his own poetry and anthologies of poetry by other local poets.

Despite being well-known and highly respected in poetry circles in and around Denver, Paul had never turned a profit for his standard print-run of 1,000 paperback copies. To cover his losses and keep himself going in his Spartan studio apartment, he worked at Cherry Creek Wine & Liquor. He could have saved a little money if he didn’t spend so much on fine wines. Once a week, on Saturday, he treated himself to an outstanding bottle of wine and drank it all in a single day. The rest of the week, he drank nothing but water, keeping his palate clean so that he would be able pick up all of the complexities and thoroughly enjoy his next bottle of wine.

Cassandra respected Paul not only for his wealth of information about wine, but also because of his appreciation for the English language. He once broke up with a woman because of her misuse of adverbs. (He broke up with another woman because she couldn’t tell a Pinot Gris from a Chardonnay.)

Paul was a good-looking man with a full head of