Sounds right to me (and I like fruitcake). Thanks for the story.

We always had a tangerine and some mixed nuts in our stockings and because back then both seemed to be available for just a short time, they seemed really exotic. Tangerines still appear in stockings in our household to this day.

I shall indeed, Mark, and I hope you’ll expand on the opportunity that you missed in your column, the idea that elements of banana republic governance and the underlying resource theft occurred as close to the RT coverage area as I indicated.

But on fruitcakes:
While my family was attending a late New Years Eve service once when I was a child, several presents that we’d planned to drop off at friends’ houses on the way home were stolen from our car. We rationalized the loss as being the work of someone who needed them more than our friends, but when the torn off wrapping was discovered in bushes nearby, the only gift still there was the fruitcake.

I don’t dislike fruitcake too much (okay, a little), but Christmas just had too many other food choices. But the Greek girl with whom I lived for a time liked fruitcakes, and I find that some Greek dishes use of elements like nuts and honey, (e.g. karidopita and baklava) is not entirely unlike fruitcake.

Thanks for your partial response, Mark, although it noticeably leaves some of us still wondering, in your globetrotting and your time living in the U.S., have you ever visited southwest Va.?