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Maurice being cynical. I know I'm inviting conflict here, so I'll mention that this all is based on some nonfictional family history. But I don't want to get into it, so I'll leave it at that.

Cathy is folding up the map of Lyon that Maurice was looking at in the last comic. "Tell me the history of your town," she says to Maurice, who is on the futon. She joins him there.

Maurice replies, "It not like Lyon. It's not even very old. Half of my township, and a tenth of the whole county, came from three families." (He's probably exaggerating here. Maurice has never taken a census of his county! It's probably something he heard someone speculating on once.)

"Burke, Lambert, and Farriss. Ren's a Burke. They were Quakers, originally. They didn't run out the Indians that lived there first - someone else did that. Then the Baptists and Mennonites came. They didn't kill any Indians either. There was an Underground Railroad house somewhere. Nobody remembers where anymore, but it was definitely there. Everyone's sure of it. They believe in peace and harmony for everyone. Ren's a Quaker, half the town's Quaker. Did you know Nixon's a Quaker? He's not from my town, but he is one."

(I feel like I owe Maurice some opportunities to take swipes at Nixon, but that he wouldn't take advantage of them unless he felt truly safe. Yeah, Nixon's well and thoroughly a villain in 1990, but Maurice gets most of his politics from his father, and his father has some undiplomatic opinions about our glorious nation. If it's any comfort, Maurice's father has harsh critiques of the USSR too (which is already in the process of falling, yay!) even though the Arzamastsev family weren't political refugees. Not all Russian immigrants were political refugees, no matter what they say on "MacGyver." So Maurice has gotten accustomed to keeping a lot of political notions to himself.)

Cathy curls up on his shoulder, and he asks her, "Do you understand?"

"No," she replies. "Sorry."

"Sorry," says Maurice.

I should add the disclaimer here that, in spite of earlier assertions about personal ties, no political opinions here necessarily reflect my own. I know, I'm trying to have it both ways! I really am. That's the truth. Haha.

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