Some of the earlier knights of the coffee table arrived just before daylight, flipping their cups to the upright and fillable positions, and were joined quickly by Dewey, which is an unusual occurrence. Doc was the only one of us downwind from Dewey, and we watched to see if any fainting took place, but evidently Dewey had not yet begun his job of transferring soil nutrients from the dairies to people’s yards.

“How’s it going, Dewey?” Dud said. We all like Dewey.

“Finer’n frog hair, Dud. My shoulder’s in shape for a shovel and I’m sure gonna shovel…”

“Well, yes you are,” Doc said, quickly.

“Dewey’s an interesting name,” Dud said. “Was your mother … dewy eyed when you were born?”

“That’s D-E-W-Y. My name has the extra e in it. Actually, I was named for a famous man.”

We sipped over that one for a minute.

“Thomas E. Dewey!” shouted Doc. “Governor of New York. Candidate for President. Your mother was a Republican, right?”

“Uh, no … not him, I’m afraid.”

“I know …” said Steve. “Admiral Dewey. Whats-his-name … George. George Dewey of the Spanish-American War! Your dad was a fan of the Navy.”

“Well, not exactly,” Dewey said, although privately he thought that would’ve been a good guy to be named for.

“Well?” said Doc. “I’ve run out of Deweys. Who was it?”

“Melvil.”

“Who?”

“Melvil Dewey,” Dewey said. “You know … Dewey Decimal System? My mom was a librarian.”

Go to the library and check out some of my books. It’s free and most of the words are spelled correctly.