You Make the Call

The BYU TV web site provides this description of its Book of Mormon program series: "Faculty members from BYU Religious Education discuss the writings and teachings of The Book of Mormon prophets in this 63-part series. Each of the half-hour episodes covers several chapters from The Book of Mormon." Today I was looking at the online TV schedule on the Internet, and it included this entry for BYU TV: "Discussions on the Book of Mormon: 1 Nephi 1 (Talk / Tabloid) TV-G CC." My reading of the TV schedule triggered a memory. Scholastic Books had some arrangement with my elementary school. A couple of times a year we students would receive a description of books we could purchase. A favorite of the students was "The Guinness Book of World Records." (For some reason I was enamored with "The Arrow Book of States," which included a page or two of information about each of the 50 states.) Another book that would float around the school, though I can't recall whether we could purchase it through Scholastic Books, was "Ripley's Believe It or Not." The book trumpeted bizarre feats such as someone having 100-inch finger nails, wearing a beard comprised of live bees, and so forth. One night I was watching The Tonight Show, and Johnny Carson pointed out that the title of the book does give readers a choice - - believe it, or not. My recollection of Carson's insight sent my mind in another direction. A few years ago I was on a business trip to Boston. One evening I shared a taxi ride with a co-worker, a very aggressive negotiator whose glibness had been enhanced by a few drinks at dinner. Our taxi pulled up behind a car with New Hampshire license plates, and reading aloud from the plate she said: "`Live Free or Die'? Then die! You shouldn't have asked!!"