Apparently anonymous letters are all the rage lately in Cooking with John. In response to Will's absurd ramblings last week, another reader has taken it upon himself to respond, addressing himself as "Mr. Walton":
Dear John (that always makes me giggle),
I am writing to you on behalf of my bastard son, Will, who it seems, has taken upon himself the business of harnessing the family name to the back of his work ox and proceeding to drag it through the proverbial cesspool that is his colorful, albeit slightly sociopathic personality.
The boy has issues. I can hardly blame him, as he was, after all, the product of a rather exciting, but admittedly unfortunate, game of nude twister somewhere along the very long and transcendental rainbow that is known as a great acid trip. I was in Budapest at the time and still do not know how I made my way home.
You may remember our family from the TV family drama "The Waltons" a couple of decades ago. We lived in that ever so perfect two-story house in the country, surrounded by very old, giant hardwood trees that turn the most beautiful of sunburst colors in autumn. It would not be uncommon to mistake us with the all-American family of the 1950's, the Cleavers, however, we had more human problems and my dear wife was not always the bouncy ball of happiness we knew Mrs. Cleaver to be.
Anyhow, back to my degenerate of a son. I really do not think I can fully explain his actions to you; as he himself cannot spell his own name (his 8 year-old sister had to type it for him) much less construct an coherent thought in his native tongue. We have tried to find help for him, but you have undoubtedly noticed his remarkable wit and cleverly persuasive dialogue. He is about as subtle as a cement truck and as graceful as a push-mower. A master of the obvious, as it were. (Somewhat jokingly, his friends, if you can call them that, refer to him as "Captain Oblivious". A clever play on words, but I do not think young Will understands the little guys despise his remarkably sad existence.)
Nonetheless, he is my offspring. My wife has legally separated herself from the boy. I cannot blame her. His real mother only had one eye and flippers for arms.... something about Thalidomide. If you can find it in your heart to forgive a lonely child without the slightest glimmer of hope in his increasingly short future, I would be more than happy to rip the still-beating life pump from his rib cage. We are so tired..... so, so tired.
Sincerely, Mr. Walton
Very entertaining, Mr. Walton.
Hopefully now we can put Will's gibberish to rest.
