To James,
My Prince and Super Genius

Way, way back when I was a kid, there was no cable or Internet or YouTube or DVDs or even – gasp – videos. Nothing. Your craving for a particular movie or a certain episode had no relevance whatsoever to the flow of the universe. You simply had to wait until some minor executive at whatever stations your television happened to receive (ours: two) decided that it might be worth broadcasting this bit of genius. Which is why my sister and I arose at dawn every Saturday (until the television crashed completely, but that’s another story) to wait for the zweebos in Hartford to air Bugs Bunny. It was through Bugs Bunny that we, like every other red-blooded American of that era, learned Swan Lake and Wagner and the Arthurian legends. Better yet, when the planets aligned we got to see the one single episode in which Wiley E. Coyote hunts Bugs Bunny and in which, not coincidentally, Wiley E. Coyote actually speaks, gloatingly describing himself as a super genius. Then the steam engine flattens him.

Well, I just loved this line, and at some point in my children’s lives I bought them a collection of Bugs Bunny cartoons in order to relive it. Then our family moved (with said video), and I had to redecorate a bathroom, and I ended up in a very nice tile store in Manayunk, PA, and in the heat of passion during a long design session told the very nice saleswoman that she was a super genius. “No way!” she said. “I thought only I knew about Wiley E. Coyote, Super Genius!” It turned out that Angie (who had a Vitamin D deficiency, but that’s another story) also relished this episode. Which made me love it even more.

But just so you know, James is a super genius even without the coyote.

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