The Invitational Week 29: Alphabettering

Write a funny sentence containing all 26 letters. Plus winning ideas for best corporate Trump-pandering.

The English language’s most famous pangram. Now it’s your chance to write a funnier, edgier one in this week’s Invitational, below. (howstuffworks.com)

Hello! For the first time in the storied, seven-month history of The Gene Pool, The Invitational arrives on a Wednesday, instead of on a Thursday. We know what you are thinking: that only something huge and immovable, like Thanksgiving, should cause such a massive rescheduling of such an important element of American culture and national pride as The Gene Pool. Let’s just say we have our reasons.

And we also have our traditions. So, as always, we are going to briefly delay what you are waiting for — details on the new weekly Invitational humor contest, and winners of the one we published two weeks ago — for a frivolous extraneous Gene Pool Gene Poll. Here it is:

Okay. The Invitational begins below. Beyond it, as always, Gene will take questions and answer them, many of them in real time as the chat continues; remember to keep refreshing the page.

So ask us a question. Make an observation. Complain about something. Do it here, with the orange ask button:

The Invitational Week 29: Mining Your P’s and Q’s

He’s quickly devouring beans for extra tailwind in jump zone. (Seth Brown)

Zooey just loved a quickie before waxing her armpits. (John Hiles)

Kvetching, flummoxed by job, W. zaps Iraq.  (Milo Sauer) 

Klutzy carving-up by quack mohels “fixed” a Jew. (Chris Doyle)

Here’s a contest that we did only once before — twenty-one years ago. It’s for a pangram, and we mean its original meaning, not the broader one now used in The New York Times’s Spelling Bee and other word games: For Invitational Week 29:  Write a humorous sentence (or very brief multiple sentences) that includes all 26 letters of the alphabet, as in those above from the only previous time we did this contest. There’s not a maximum length, but obviously it’s more clever to get your pangram into a shorter sentence than a long, padded one.  But more important, the sentence should be easy to read and should sound like actual English.  And don’t forget the funny.

Click here for this week’s entry form, or go to bit.ly/inv-form-29. As usual, you can submit up to 25 entries for this week’s contest, preferably all on the same entry form. See the form for how to format your entries.

Deadline is Saturday, July 29, at 4 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, Aug. 3.

This week’s winner gets a furry little piece of recent American history. It is a plush, machine-washable “Puss Puss Bar Style Cell Phone Cover” — a relic of a bygone era, possibly from roughly 2006, a time when we apparently thought cellphones were adorable and should be bulky, dangling from your belt (there is a clip) and look like a deformed, footless Winnie-the-Pooh. There is also a hole for an antenna. Puss Puss looks very sad, and his or her eyes are closed. He or she is possibly even deceased. Also, the fur apparently will cover the keypad, an apparent flaw that the manufacturers do not explain or otherwise deal with. According to the attached display card, this is the “1st company to bring Cutting-edge plush technology to Cell Phones, TV Remote Controls, and even staplers.” This fine prize was donated to the Invitational by Kathy Sheeran of Vienna, Va.

Runners-up get autographed fake money featuring the Czar or Empress, in one of ten nifty designs. Honorable mentions get bupkis, except for a sweet email from the E, plus the Fir Stink for First Ink for those who’ve just lost their Invite virginity.

Let’s Go Brandin’: Corporate Trumpist-pandering from Week 27

In Week 27 we wondered to what depths companies, organizations, etc., would go were they to be as cravenly pandering to the MAGA cult as most of the GOP continues to be. How might they adjust their products and messages to appeal to the desires, prejudices, ferocities, and ignorances of Trump and his aptly named “base”?

Third runner-up: Impossible Foods unveils a “broccoli,” which is actually made of beef.  (Jesse Rifkin, Arlington, Va.)

Second runner-up: Discovery Networks replaces all home improvement shows with home eviction shows.  (David Kleinbard, Mamaroneck, N.Y.) 

First runner-up: The Washington baseball team is renamed the Nationalists.  (Neil Kurland,  Elkridge, Md.) 

And the winner of the U.S. military reprint “The Al-Qaeda Training Manual”: Southern states must pay reparations to the descendants of enslavers because they may have been traumatized by being told that slavery is bad.  (Diana Oertel, San Francisco) 

Base Medals: Honorable mentions

Mattel announces its biggest doll ever: Barvanka.  (Mark Asquino, Santa Fe, N.M.) 

Yale changes its slogan from “Lux et Veritas” to “A Lot of People Are Saying.” (Jesse Rifkin)

McDonald’s introduces its new “Point ’n’ Grunt” menu. (Diane Lucitt, Ellicott City, Md.)

Sex toy shops sell chastity belts under the sign “Lock her up! Lock her up!” (Michael Stein, Arlington, Va.)

Augusta National Golf Course sells burial plots. (Kevin Dopart, Washington, D.C.)

Linens ’n Things sells sheets with pre-cut eye holes. (David Kleinbard)

Bergdorf Goodman soundproofs its fitting rooms. (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village, Md.)

New golf carts are fitted out with gun racks. (Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore)

Workout gyms provide golf carts to go from station to station. (Sam Mertens, Silver Spring, Md.)

Random House prints books on perforated paper to make it easier to remove offending pages. (John McCooey, Rehoboth Beach, Del.)

The American Medical Association announces  that 239 pounds is the ideal weight for men and for women it would be 105 pounds. (Lee Graham, Reston, Va.)

Callaway issues a Baby Seal line of clubs. (David Kleinbard) 

Duraflame offers book-shaped logs. (Kevin Dopart)

Hallmark debuts a line of thoughts-and-prayers greeting cards for mass shootings. (Chris Doyle, Denton, Tex.)

Heinz: EZ-Clean Ketchup.  Won’t stain your walls. (Judy Freed, Deerfield Beach, Fla.)

Home Depot offers a deluxe line of bathroom file cabinets. (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)

Reynolds Wrap would tweet, “Don’t stop at tinfoil hats — we offer full-body protection!” (Pam Shermeyer, Lathrup Village, Mich.)

Smith & Wesson opens a shooting range on Fifth Avenue. (Chris Doyle)

Smokey Bear’s shovel is replaced with a rake. (Kevin Dopart)  

Starbucks offers drinks in Large, Medium, and Small instead of those foreign sizes. (Dave Airozo, Silver Spring, Md.)

The National Enquirer runs a copycat of Wordle in which three of the letters are already filled in. (David Kleinbard)

The next Muppet Movie replaces Kermit with Pepe. (Kevin Dopart)

The South Fork Coal Co. has a new slogan for its proposed mine in Virginia: “Take Advantage of the Great Outdoors.” (Diana Oertel)

The VFW offers a preferred membership rate for people who weren’t captured. (Kevin Dopart)

The Westminster Kennel Club holds an annual dogfighting competition. (Kevin Dopart)

Victoria’s Secret adds a “Garb Them by the Pussy” line of lingerie. (Jon Gearhart, Des Moines)

McDonald’s brings back its clown mascot, renaming it Donald McDonald and changing its hair from red to orange. (Lee Graham; Michael Stein)

CVS offers deep-fried statins. (Kevin Dopart)

Stadiums ensure that everyone stands for the national anthem by electrifying the seats to deliver jolts at designated moments. (Jonathan Jensen)

The headline “Let’s Go Brandin’ ” is by Kevin Dopart; William Kennard wrote the honorable-mentions subhead.

Still running — deadline 4 p.m. ET Saturday, July 22: Our Week 28 contest for short poems or jokes using a word from this year’s National Spelling Bee. Click here or type in bit.ly/inv-week-28. 

See more about The Invitational, including our 2,600-member Facebook group, the Losers’ website, and our podcast.

Now for another installment of our continuing pathetic but somehow charming entreaty: The Gene Pool is successful. We have many thousands of people around the country and globe who read us weekly for free, and many hundreds who pay us a little money ($4.15 a month). Will you take the graceful, gazelle-like leap from the first group to the second, upgrading from “free” to “paid”? We’d be much obliged, and it will help keep us thriving and alive-ing. Here:

Okay, here come your questions and observations, with Gene’s answers. Many of these refer to past entreaties for funny incidents you had with neighbors, or for music lyrics that blew you away, but, as always, the subjects range far and wide. Remember to refresh the page from time to time: As of this point, the Gene Pool is in real time.

Q: I once lived in a garden style apartment in Vienna, Va. My next door neighbors were probably breaking apartment complex rules as there were at least 8 people living there (the limit was 5) and they included one woman and about 5 men and a few kids. I assume the men were working in construction or some similar type of work as they’d leave in the mornings before sunrise and would return in the afternoons looking dirty like they’d been working outside in hot and dirty conditions all day. Our neighbors were quiet and respectful and if I ever asked for help moving something heavy or digging my car out of snow, they were helpful and appreciated being paid in beer or cash for services rendered. However, they spoke no English, only the woman that lived there spoke English so I’d have to talk to them through her. Every day when they’d come home from work, they’d sit outside on the steps leading up to the apartment building and crack open a six pack and sit outside quietly talking until dinner time. 

 One evening I returned from the gym and stepped out of my car and they were all in their usual spots. I smiled and waved and then went to the trunk to get my gym bag and work bag and when I turned around there was nothing but disturbed air where they had been sitting, and they were all running in different directions. I saw the back of one man slip around the corner of the building as another tore straight across the parking lot at breakneck speed. I was baffled. They even left half of a six pack unopened behind on the steps. 

I looked around thinking they’d perceived some threat I’d missed like maybe a meteor falling from the heavens or a rabid dog approaching. My mind was spinning trying to figure out what could have inspired these men to just all run off at once. I got into my apartment still questioning what had just happened. I ripped off my sweaty gym shirt and tossed it on the laundry basket, which is when I realized what had happened.  

I’m a former firefighter.  I love and wear FD T-shirts, and my grandfather knew that; he used to give me work-related T-shirts he collected from his job, which required him to deal with people in different government agencies.  In the laundry basket was the T-shirt I’d been wearing.  It On my bed was the T-shirt I’d been wear where the giant gold letters “INS” stared back at me from the back of my gym shirt. 

I never wore that shirt again. I ended up cutting it up to use for dusting rags. I tried to talk to them but they never answered the door.  I feel like I chased them into hiding in their own apartment because they never sat on the front steps enjoying after-work beers again.

A: Good, sad story.  I started growing my mustache in 1969, at Woodstock.  I was 17.  A few weeks later, it looked hastily grown, sparse, and a purposeful disguise.  At parties people I didn’t know avoided me.  They thought I was a college informant narc. 

TIMELY TIP: If you’re reading this right now on an email:   Click here to get to my webpage, then click on the top headline (In this case, “Alphabettering…”) for the full column, and comments, and real-time questions and answers. And you can refresh and see new questions and answers that appear as I regularly update the post from about noon to 1 p.m. ET today.

Q: Back when I was young and an idiot, I once scowled at a politician and told him I didn't like his warm-up story, which was obviously not true. He told me I was an idiot (more or less) and that there was no harm in warm up jokes that are obviously false. But at what point of importance (if at all) do you think that crossing the line between truth and falsity matters? 

A: When I was editing him, Dave Barry taught me that if you are writing humor, and tell an anecdote, it must be true. That’s because part of the humor – much of it, actually – is dependent on the fact that the reader understands that this really happened.  The central engine of humor is that life is absurd. If you make something up, without telling the reader you are making it up, and they suspect it is made up, which they eventually will, it poisons every other attempt you make at humor.  When I was editing Tony Kornheiser’s humor column, he and I had disagreements over this from time to time.  We both were adamant. He was wrong.

Q: Do you ever think it is a Good thing for a politician to lie?

A: Absolutely. I think they are times a politician HAS to lie.  I’m glad Obama lied about his thoughts on gay marriage in 2012; he felt he needed to, to win reelection, was a much better president than Romney would have been.  There are different kinds of lying, though.  That was negligible, about his own thought processes. LBJ lied about our prospects for winning in Vietnam, so the brutal, futile war would keep public support.  Thousands died needlessly because of this. 

Q: The designated hitter…yes or no? I am a big NO! If you play in the field, you hit.

A: I’ve said this before: I am a doubting, qualified “yes.” I deeply dislike having a person in the lineup who cannot hit for squat (usually) and whom other teams can play around (walk the guy in front of him with two outs. But I see the flaws.

Q: If Shakespeare read your headline formulation “Weed It and Reap,” for a story on gardening, he might have written one of those indignant letters to the editor pointing out that:

 The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet
Though to itself it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity;
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
(Sonnet 94)

A: It’s gorgeous.  Of course he respected weeds.  Found beauty in the discarded, disowned and disrespected.  He’s a playwright. 

Q: Lyrics? I'll refer you to the genius of "My Dick" by Mickey Avalon:

 "My dick needs no introduction
Your dick don't even function
My dick served a whole luncheon
Your dick, it look like a munchkin."  

A: Thank you.  We at the Gene Pool accept all brilliance, including brilliant crudity.  

Q: Interesting story about your former publisher’s views on crime.  The rich being assaulted by the poor, eh? That's ... rich. Years ago, when my sister was near the beginning of her career in big city ER nursing (she's on the other end of it now,) she was trying to help a middle-aged woman who had been brought in by her paramour ("boyfriend" just is declasse.) They had been partying, as one does, and she had passed out and been hard to rouse, so he brought her in. Well, she woke up and was none too pleased at being prodded and poked by my sister. She stood up and wearing nothing but a fur coat and a manicure, slapped my sister in the face. My sister didn't name names (not that I would have known anyway) but she was from the Elite Class, the picture-in-the-paper-a-charity-events class, the fancy-penthouse-living class. Nothing was done about it, my sister just continued on with her work. I'm sure the hospital would have discouraged pressing charges, etc. But it's a real example of how we all regularly get slapped in the face by the wealthy, now more than ever. Eat the rich? All we have to do is eat one billionaire and I'm sure the rest will start falling into line.

A: Thank you.  That last idea is kind of Saddam Hussein-y – one public hand-grenading is a deterrent to other disapproved behavior – but I get it.

This is Gene. I just want to say I am surprised — and buoyed — by the Gene Pool Gene Poll results, so far. I would have said 90 percent. Maybe I am going to the wrong restaurants.

Q: You want an excellent song lyric? 

Jupiter’s passed through Orion  / And coming to conjunction with Mars. /  Saturn is wheeling through infinite space / To its pre-ordained place in the stars. / And I gaze at the planets in wonder /At the trouble and time they expend  / All to warn me to be careful / In dealings involving a friend. (Flanders & Swann)

A: They were a very good 1950s-era mid-century British comedy singing duo. 

Q In the mid-1960's we lived for a time in new duplex unit in a suburb of Buffalo. Our neighbors were a couple with two young children and a a hoard of noisy relatives and friends randomly coming and going, The dad had an irregular work schedule, but it seemed to pay well, I couldn’t help notice the difference between our second-hand and budget furniture and their rather grander “suite.”. We were friendly but not close. Then after a particularly noisy night with a lot of coming and going we awoke to find the place empty. We kidded about a possible business opportunity, “Midnight Movers: Discretion guaranteed.- cash in advance.” A few weeks later a man called on us, asking if we knew where they’d gone. “No, but if you find them, my husband would like his power drill back”. His FBI identification appeared genuine. He allowed that the family was known to him but didn’t elaborate beyond saying the wife’s mother was a stripper, He was looking for them, he said, because “Business was light and he was doing a favor for “our Canadian counterparts, looking for an associate of the departed family who had jumped bail north of the border. Our new neighbors were less interesting.

A: Thank you. 

Q: In the photo you published a few days ago how many times has the car been trashed by MAGAs? Or is the wordplay too subtle for them? 

A: This is in reference to this picture. 

A: (cont.)   I have a theory about this.  I think part of the of the Maga folk is that they respect insolence and provocativeness. I think they’d let this car alone.

Q: I had a neighbor who was a raging homophobe.  We got along otherwise.  Big guy, large family, nice wife. He and I used to play horseshoes together in a field nearby, and one day, when his rants and ridicules got too, well, ridiculous, I started a strategic new conversation with him.  It went like this: 

Me: It’s interesting they bother you so much. 

Him: Who?

Me: Gay people. 

Him: They don’t bother me.  I just think that they … 

Me: No, but what I mean is, you know. 

Him:  What?

Me: Well, you know, they say that when someone has irrational anger against something, it often results from an unexpressed fear. 

Him:  I’m not afraid of them! 

Me:  No, I mean a personal fear about oneself.  Anyway, never mind, I was just, y’know, spitballing and..  

Him: WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

It went on like that for a while.  I never quite came to the point, didn’t say it outright, and he couldn’t quite ask me what I was getting at.  He left spitting mad, I think, but hiding it.   I’d like to say it ended our friendship, but we kept playing horseshoes; it was fun.  That day did pretty much end his tirades, though. 

Q: This is not a neighbor story, but I think this is an issue that should be presented by Pat & Gene in a Pool-Post, and not just by some random reader (like me) in a comment: according to the Daily Cartoonist, Bob Staake's artwork will be presented in a show on Cape Cod:  

A: Thanks for writing in, Bob. 

Q: Are there any good, deep lyrics by Buddy Holly? 

A: I was just listening to Buddy last night!  No.  Buddy was about voice gymnastics, music, phrasing, not about lyrics.  “Heartbeat / why do you skip / when my baby’s lips / meet mine?” is not genius.  

Q: Is this an aptonym? 

A: Good grief, yes.  A disturbing one. 

Q: Neighbors. Upon arriving at a foreign posting, many times the government is completely unprepared for this arrival even though you've been "in the pipeline" for over a year. So you and your family - in this case me and my cat - were placed temporarily in an apartment building with a very skinny old elevator. We were on the 5th floor of 8. My cat, Maxine, was very much used to being outside part of the day. This all-inside living was difficult for her, and she would let me know by meyowling at the door and windows. This was an annoying and effective tactic. One day I took The Great Complainer, put her on a leash, and clutched her tightly as we rode down the stodgy wood-paneled elevator to the lobby and out to a patch of grass in the front yard. I sat down and let her look around. This was downtown in a large city, very near the US Embassy, so a noisy major road was just on the other side of our front yard. She freaked, heard a car horn, and hastily retreated to my lap. As that appeared not to be safe enough, she crawled inside my jacket. 

Managing to get up with her still inside my jean jacket, I felt her shift and move into tighter quarters under my arm. The jacket had very wide sleeves at the shoulder that ended with elastic at the cuff. I was trying to get her back in front of me, but as cats do, she preferred the dark and tight space and crawled into the sleeve itself. Thus in order to walk and not smother her face down in my sleeve, I had to hold my arm straight out, like a zombie trawling for brains.

To note for those who don't have cats, you cannot pull said animal backwards if they can get their claws into something and hold on. She would not be dislodged. I got through the front door by going through sideways, and called the elevator. Cat was at least 14 pounds, and my arm was already tired, but we'd be home soon, I thought. The tiny elevator door opened, and two of my neighbors, an older couple, were inside already coming up from the parking in the basement level. I tried to wave them on but they were already making room for me, not really noticing - yet - my weirdly bulging straight left arm. I kind of twirled my way in, pushed my floor button with my free hand, and smiled like the embarrassed, weird American that I was. We had a slow ride, and I was only two feet away from them, their eyes wide. We did not speak the same language, but I made a stab at it. "Cat," I said, pulling out part of her tail from around my neck. "Aaahhh!" they laughed. "Kochka!" and nodded. Universal understanding, cat owners know a language all to themselves. Thence forward I was "Madame Kochka" to my very sweet neighbors, and Maxine made no further forays until we moved into permanent housing with a yard.

A: Cats!   I like “meowled.”

Q: If you discovered that a doctor, dentist or any professional that you regularly see and have been satisfied with for years, was an ardent Trumper and a Tweeter of anti-“different” positions, would you discontinue using their services? If your answer is yes, do you normally research one’s political position before deciding whether to use their services? My feeling is that most of us (me) don’t. Kind of like saying, “Well, it’s okay if my doctor is a racist, as long as I don’t know about it.” This could be a question for the Gene Pool, or not.

A: This happened to me around 2017.  I jettisoned my financial adviser, a guy I liked and trusted for years. 

He told me why he had voted (or was going to vote) for Trump.  It was almost entirely about his trust in Trump to make the economy better, and his distaste for Democrats, whom he considered fiscal wimps. He didn’t care about the vicious things Trump said, his infantile behavior, his poisonous view of the poor and disenfranchised.  He was a money guy!  I sort of made fun of him, and it didn’t please him.  Underneath, I was bothered.  Then he started getting sloppy on my tax returns – it cost me money – and I began, insanely, wondering if he was sabotaging my liberal ass. These were fraught, hypercharged, conspiracy-larded times. I am sure now he was not sabotaging me, but I am also sure I was highly suspicious of everything about him, and that his Trump love had to indicate a deeper dysfunction.  Eventually we were discussing an extraneous issue involve a relative of mine who also used him as a financial adviser, and he opined that women were irrational.  And that was that. G’bye, guy.  

Q: That story you published Tuesday by John Dorschner, about the Hatfield-McCoy feud in Florida?  Wow.  I desperately want to read the rest of it!  Can’t find it online. 

A: That’s because it’s not online.  It’s why I was only able to cut and paste the top.  Several other people are asking for this, so at the end of this Gene Pool, I will cut and paste the rest.  It’s a truly great story.   The first part of the story is at the end of this Gene Pool.   You can pick up the rest of it at the end of this current Gene Pool when we are done.

Actually, I am declaring us done. My dog, Lexi, has made the decision for me with a rather urgent appeal based on a pressing matter. Thank you all. Here comes the rest of the Dorschner story. (there might some overlap) Meantime, please send in more questions, observations, complaints, anecdotes, here:

The Dorschner story starts at the end of the last Gene Pool, here.

Here is the rest.

he homes on Cherokee Street tend to be smallish -- two- bedroom, one bath -- built in the '40s and '50s, with assessed values of around $65,000.

The Kellys' house is tan with burgundy trim, with a decade- old Ford Maverick in the driveway. A bougainvillea tree shades the front living-room window and a cluster of shrubs -- crotons and dracaenas -- run along the left property line, forming a green barrier, separating the Kellys from the Mitchells.

The Mitchells house is pale pink, with a gravel driveway for their Chevrolet Caprice and Toyota Corolla. Their yard is devoid of shrubs.

"We saw them after they moved in," said Robert Kelly. "We said, 'Is there anything we can do?' And we invited them in for coffee. They looked at our house and -- I believe -- they looked with envy. I think that's the whole problem right there: They looked with envy."

He and his wife Ros were sitting at their round dining table. They are in their mid-50s, with the sturdy bodies of physical education teachers, which they have been most of their lives. Bob now teaches work-experience classes at Palm Springs Junior High, and Ros is retired, though still active in substitute teaching.

The Kellys had welcomed the journalist effusively, showing him around the house Bob had bought a quarter of a century ago, pouring out their story as if they have been waiting to tell it for years, all the while, rushing through anecdotes -- how Margaret Mitchell often sits up in her backyard tree and screams obscenities, how she has been arrested a half-dozen times, how the judge has ordered her to undergo a psychological evaluation, how many of the neighbors side with them, the Kellys, and despise the Mitchells. The Feud. Bob Kelly leaned closer, face reddening, eyes widening with the horror of it all. "Everything was fine until the Mitchells moved in."

The Mitchells are younger than the Kellys -- mid- to late-30s -- and less formal. Ed met the journalist at the door wearing a white T-shirt, shorts and black socks. Margaret was in a flower-print house dress. Their 4-year-old daughter, Mary, lay on the sofa, half under a bedspread tent she had made, sucking on a bottle.

Margaret is a math and computer-science teacher at Miami Northwestern. Ed is a quality control manager for an aviation company. Margaret did most of the talking.

"I do sit up in the tree," she said, "with my daughter." She has a ladder going up the backyard mango tree and a small wooden platform among the branches. It's a tree house, she explained. She likes to sit up there with Mary, watching cars go by.

Margaret said The Feud is about her civil rights, not jealousy. Twice, she said, her voice tightening, she arranged for mediators at the Citizen Dispute Settlement Center to hear the case. Once the Kellys didn't show up. The other time, she said, they came, but nothing was accomplished. Actually, she said, the problem was not a neighborhood dispute, but something far more complex and nefarious. She couldn't say much about it, she explained, but her attorney had recently sent out letters, threatening a federal lawsuit against the city of Miami Springs, the former mayor, several Springs councilmen, the Springs chief of police, the Dade County School Board, the state department of education, the Springs building and zoning department, and the Dade County government. Plus the Kellys. She believed all these people and entities had violated her civil rights.

The Kellys, she said ominously, "have so many people protecting them."

bedspread tent she had made, sucking on a bottle.

Margaret is a math and computer-science teacher at Miami Northwestern. Ed is a quality control manager for an aviation company. Margaret did most of the talking.

"I do sit up in the tree," she said, "with my daughter." She has a ladder going up the backyard mango tree and a small wooden platform among the branches. It's a tree house, she explained. She likes to sit up there with Mary, watching cars go by.

Margaret said The Feud is about her civil rights, not jealousy. Twice, she said, her voice tightening, she arranged for mediators at the Citizen Dispute Settlement Center to hear the case. Once the Kellys didn't show up. The other time, she said, they came, but nothing was accomplished. Actually, she said, the problem was not a neighborhood dispute, but something far more complex and nefarious. She couldn't say much about it, she explained, but her attorney had recently sent out letters, threatening a federal lawsuit against the city of Miami Springs, the former mayor, several Springs councilmen, the Springs chief of police, the Dade County School Board, the state department of education, the Springs building and zoning department, and the Dade County government. Plus the Kellys. She believed all these people and entities had violated her civil rights.

The Kellys, she said ominously, "have so many people protecting them."

The seven thick police files on the Cherokee Street War begin innocently with a report filed June 17, 1981 concerning a complaint from the Kellys about the Mitchells' dog running loose. "The subject (Margaret Mitchell) was very cooperative and understanding," the report concluded.

Not for long.

As tempers tightened over the location of the property line, police files began bulging with complaints that were somewhat less genteel. The Mitchells griped that someone had sprayed water into their bedroom windows. The Kellys alleged that someone had "vandalized several cactus plants" and cut two garden hoses into "approximately 20 pieces."

Then came The Battle of the Swale. Each side has its own version of how it started, but the result was indisputable: In front of the Kellys' house, on the swale area -- the public land next to the street -- the feud had escalated into bloody violence. From the police report, Oct. 19, 1981, 7:48 p.m.: "On arrival found all four defendants . . . on the ground fighting, kicking and pulling at each other."

The Kellys, two decades older than their adversaries, fared badly. Bob Kelly was bleeding profusely about the face and was taken to the hospital. Ros Kelly's face was so battered and bruised that she had to stay home for a month.

Two months later came The Shooting. Ros and Bob Kelly went out to dinner at Wag's, and when they pulled the car back into the carport, they told police, they saw Margaret Mitchell standing in her bedroom window aiming a rifle at them. Ros climbed out of the car, then Bob. He was hit in the left shoulder blade with a BB pellet. Another shot zinged past his head. The cops came, saw the small hole in his shoulder and arrested Margaret Mitchell for aggravated battery. She denied knowing anything about the incident.

That was when the Kellys decided to protect themselves by erecting the six-foot wooden fence -- the highest that Miami Springs will approve.

The fence did not stop the shouting, which was becoming frequent. On the last day of 1981, at 10:55 a.m., Robert Kelly called the cops and complained that Ed Mitchell had just yelled at him: "You Irishman, you married a Jewish whore."

Other neighbors say they have also heard Margaret shout "Jew-whore" at Ros Kelly. More lies, Margaret says. Ros, who is Jewish, says, "I think she is an anti-Semite." Not so, says Margaret. In any case, both women agree that anti-Semitism is not the reason for The Feud.

The next year, 1982, was a quiet one. Margaret was pregnant, and all the neighbors were focusing on Margaret's felony trial on the BB gun shooting. But no BB gun was ever found, and the only witnesses against her were the thoroughly unneutral Kellys. A jury found her not guilty.

In July, Margaret gave birth to Mary Theresa. Things were relatively quiet until October. Until The Sign.

It appeared suddenly, about 9 o'clock one evening, a broad slab of plywood propped on the side of the Mitchells' house, facing the Kellys', announcing in two-foot high red letters:

HI WHORE.

The Kellys, of course, called the cops, who came, stared and couldn't figure out what ordinance it violated. So it went for several nights. Police officers noted that the sign was "illuminated by floodlights."

To the Mitchells, that was the point: The floodlights belonged to the Kellys. They were attached to the carport roof, and they shined on the Mitchells' bedroom windows with a blinding brilliance. The Mitchells had complained to the police a half-dozen times, but neither the police nor the Kellys had done anything about the lights, which the Kellys maintained they kept on for security.

The Mitchells did not choose "whore" for its literal meaning; they just wanted to get the Kellys' attention. "We only put it (the sign) up at night," says Ed Mitchell. "So it's only being illuminated by their spotlight. So the logic was, they would turn off the lights, right? Naw! They call the police."

"Of course," says Ros Kelly, "we wanted to leave the floodlights on. So that the public could see. . . . I thought it would show people what a nutso-crazo she was."

Finally, the city decided the sign violated an ordinance concerning the size of signs in residential areas, and the Mitchells were persuaded to take the sign down. The Kellys kept their floodlights shining.

Several years later, Margaret was spotted in her backyard mango tree, holding up the "Hi Whore" sign. When the Kellys complained to the cops, Margaret explained blandly that she was using the wood to build a tree house and hadn't realized it had any writing on it.

The war kept spreading.

It spread to the neighbors. A teen-age son of a friend of the Kellys was convicted of breaking into the Mitchell's house, though nothing was reported stolen.

It engulfed the Mitchell's little girl; her name began to appear as the "victim" on police reports filed by her mother before Mary Theresa celebrated her first birthday.

And it spread to the courts. Each time the Kellys or the Mitchells called the cops, they demanded charges be filed. Cops almost always refused because there were no independent witnesses. But, in 1983, Eileen Johnson and Rafael and Neva Salcedo said they had witnessed some of Margaret's actions. Based on their statements, Margaret was hit with five misdemeanor charges of petit theft or criminal nuisance: cutting up a Kelly cactus, throwing stones at the Kellys' car, pouring rock salt on plants, sawing at the fence. Margaret's attorney persuaded her to plead nolo contendere. The judge ordered her to pay the Kellys $855 as restitution. She did, in five payments. The judge also ordered Margaret to submit to a psychiatric evaluation. She did, but the results have not been made public.

In 1985, Margaret was convicted of disturbing a Miami Springs council meeting by screaming about how police were refusing to arrest Ros Kelly for throwing a rock at Margaret's daughter. An appeals court overturned that conviction.

On Cherokee Street, staying neutral is hard to do. The Johnsons and the Salcedos, living across the street from the feuding families, have been staunch supporters of the Kellys. They rush out when the cops arrive; they join the Kellys in the journeys down to the state attorney's office; they show up in court to testify.

Neva Salcedo is a full-time housewife. So is Eileen Johnson. Both have plenty of time to look out their windows to see what the Mitchells are up to. Neva confesses that, at night, when something is going on, such as a journalist visiting houses for interviews, the neighbors turn off their lights so they can see what's happening outside without anyone seeing them.

"You have to learn these little spy techniques," Neva says. Both she and Eileen say they have seen Margaret Mitchell stand in her window, with her child by her side, shouting at Ros Kelly: "Hi, Jew-whore." The little girl, they say, yelled along with her mother.

Next door to the Mitchells, on the south side, is Jay Stadnik, a young airline mechanic. He says he has worked hard to stay neutral in The Feud: "It's unbecoming to both of them." But he has had direct problems with the Mitchells. One time Jay's wife complained to police that Margaret had whacked her over the head with a board during a dispute over the property line. Margaret took her case to City Hall, alleging that the Stadniks' cherry hedge infringed on her property. The city agreed.

"A nice cherry hedge," Stadnik recalls fondly. But Margaret didn't just cut down the hedge, he says. She dug it out, with excruciating slowness, working at nights, using a spoon to remove the last remnants. Jay Stadnik found this bizarre. Next door to the Kellys, on the north side, lives Nelson Vallis, a retired airline mechanic. Sometimes, he says, he has seen Ros Kelly outside, sticking her fingers in her ears and wiggling her hands -- "exactly like children" -- and taunting the Mitchells, "trying to get aggravation going." He says he has had branches mysteriously chopped off fruit trees in his yard, too. This spring, he called the police and warned them, "If you don't do something about this, there'll be blood on Cherokee Street."

And so it is that neither the Mitchells nor the Kellys get along with the neighbors on the other sides of them.

Margaret Mitchell says she ignores the Stadniks, because "they don't even own that house. They just rent. When I have a problem, I go to their landlord." She said she used a spoon to dig up the cherry hedge, because she wanted to make sure she got all of it, so her daughter would not be tempted to eat the dangerous berries.

The Kellys don't have much use for their other neighbor either. When told of Nelson Vallis's comments about the chopped off branches, they became irate.

"Liar!" shouted Ros.

"I don't know anything about it," said Bob.

Both families often troop down to the intake division of the state attorney's office, filing complaints, hoping to get their foes indicted. Each time, paralegals have to interview the "suspect" and get the other side of the story.

"They're a joke around here," sighs Leonard Lewis, head of the intake office. "But a working joke. They take a lot of time."

They also take a lot of school officials' time. Both the Kellys and Mitchells have fired off letters to school officials, alleging various infractions, trying to get each other fired. Their favorite charge is that so-and-so was home, or at the Grand Union, when he or she was supposed to be in school. Each accusation must be investigated.

Though both Margaret Mitchell and Bob Kelly continue to have satisfactory job evaluations, school officials have warned each of them that they are expected to behave in a professional manner, on and off the job.

In Miami Springs, meanwhile, the police chief, politicians and officials say "no comment" because of the Mitchells' threatened lawsuit. But privately many are dismayed by what The Feud has cost city taxpayers. Each call from the feuding families requires two squad cars -- one to handle the Mitchells, the other to handle the Kellys -- and often the Springs has only three squad cars on duty. Astoundingly, both families have complained that the police department doesn't give them enough attention, which galls the cops.

"In fact," says Sgt. Jim Buonassi, "they get better police service than anyone else in the city."

For both families, The Feud consumes a large part of their lives.

The Kellys are at it constantly, assembling stacks of documents -- police reports, court records, letters to various agencies -- and even video tapes, recorded off the cable government channel, of Margaret Mitchell appearing before the Springs city council, complaining about the Kellys' plants in the swale area. When the journalist expresses doubt about a Bob Kelly statement, he will say, "Let's go look at the tape," the way the sports announcer says it on Live at Five.

The Mitchells, if anything, put in more time. Ed got so exercised about the way the city government handled some of his disputes with the Kellys, he even ran for city council, spending weekends knocking on doors. (He came in last in a three-man race, with 8 percent of the vote.) Margaret, meanwhile, has computerized The Feud, storing her records away on four floppy discs, with duplicates hidden outside the house, in case "something happens" to her main copies. For easy reference, she often puts a little computer-index slug on her letters that she fires off -- KELLY30, KELLY31 and so on. When a journalist asks her exactly when she received a barrage of phone calls, she says, "Well, we can look it up," and she does so.

Neither the Kellys nor the Mitchells show any inclination to move. The problem is that it would be hard for either to get out. The Kellys have their house paid for and are hoping that it will provide a secure retirement. The Mitchells would have a hard time because they bought the house with no money down. If they sold it, they might have to put up money to pay the real- estate commission.

Yet, like good pedagogues, both Bob Kelly and Margaret Mitchell say they base their postures in the feud on matters of principle.

Margaret: "I'm so highly principled, so driven by principle, that I am going to stay and fight for my rights. I am an American." Manifest destiny.

Bob: "This is a matter of standing up for your rights. If we hadn't stood up to her, she would have run over the whole neighborhood." The domino theory.

Judge Deehl, who has listened to so many of their disputes in his courtroom, says, "They must both get a sense of pleasure out of this."

The Kellys and Mitchells deny that vehemently, of course, but both families recount incidents in The Feud with the glee of vets talking about the war, Ros and Bob arguing about whether '85 was the summer of the carambola destruction or the year the tree bark was cut, Ed and Margaret disagreeing about details of The Weed-Eater Fracas.

There is no denying that The Feud has given excitement to the lives of those on Cherokee Street -- perhaps an excitement that the participants had been craving.

Boredom, says Dr. Lloyd Richard Miller, could indeed be a reason for neighborhood disputes. Dr. Miller, a forensic psychiatrist, says, "The question you have to ask is, 'Why don't they both forget about it?' Don't they have anything better to do?"

While the journalist was working on the story, neither the Kellys nor Mitchells called police. The Feud was quiet, or, rather, it was the journalist who was providing the activity, going from house to house, doing interviews, while the participants and their allies peeked from behind curtains, watching his moves, reporting them immediately to each other, watching to see exactly how long he was at each house.

Then came the photographs. The Kellys cooperated. Margaret Mitchell balked. By phone, she gave an elaborate explanation of why the appearance of her own photo would endanger her child. But finally she agreed. The writer and a photographer visited the Mitchells late on a Saturday afternoon, taking photos of the Mitchells with their daughter and dog. As the Mitchells posed in their front yard, Ros Kelly came out, sat on her front steps and stared.

Shortly after the writer returned home, Ros Kelly called him. It was 7 p.m., about the time that many of the Cherokee Street incidents have taken place.

"I am seething," she shouted. She was angry that the Mitchells had been made to look like such a pleasant family, with their daughter and dog.

"I have a wonderful daughter," Ros said. It didn't matter that Ros's daughter was 35 and lived in Broward; it was a matter of equality. "I demand you take equal pictures of my daughter," she said. "You took pictures of their dog. I want equal representation. Our dog died a year ago. We have a painting (of the dog). Take a picture of the painting."

At the Miami Springs police station, the cops keep a clipping of a photo from a San Diego newspaper. It shows a burning squad car. The caption states that two cops were killed in a neighborhood dispute over a rose bush.

Every Springs cop sees that picture and thinks of Cherokee Street.

The Kellys say they have no guns in their house. The Mitchells say they have two: a Walther PPKS .380 and a Smith & Wesson 60 .38-caliber.

Ask The Feud families if they think horrible violence will erupt. They've both thought about it.

Ros Kelly: "It won't start with us."

Margaret Mitchell: "I will do anything within my means to protect my child and my property."