All Comments on 'Plaid Jacket Jackson'

Good story. I was going to give it four stars, but I like your take on book banning so I bumped it up to five stars.

Excellent well written story. I was going to give it five stars, but I hate your leftist take on keeping obscene books out of the reach of children so I dropped it down to three stars.

Fun story. I was going to give it 5 stars, but I love Maya Angelou, so I bumped it up to 6.

...of the folks in central Texas.

Other than a mixup on the first page of who the kids parents were, the rest was a great read. The book banning is a complicated topic, so I would have preferred you avoided it. That said, your defense if the classics was spot on. 4.6*

Fun and prickly. I'm a Texas boy from a small town north of Killeen, and we now have two traffic lights but no "tote the note" lot as big as Superior Cars. It was a fun read. I found it hard to keep up with all the different "jackets", but then I don't have a PhD. I also enjoyed the commentor's "scoring debate" and their "justifications"...you managed to gore most everyone's ox.

Excellent story with Classical Literature overtone. Well done!

Truly enjoyed your story, and I too love Maya Angelou. So if Bepop3 can praise you with 6 stars, which would be considered high praise, I will give you 7!

The 'jacket' naming schtick grew more tiresome, the more times it was evoked. Johnny Carson used to do a thing on the Tonight Show, where when one of his (writer's) jokes bombed with the studio audiences, he would repeat it until the joke would become about how bad the joke was and the audience would end up howling with laughter. Even Johnny would have had trouble making the name gag from this story into something funny.

Carson also did a better job of hiding his liberal politics by making jokes about both sides of the political spectrum. Johnny had Ed McMahon as a straight man, while In this story, Carol and Elmer were setting up PJ's lines. If the frequent failed naming gags doesn't overwhelm you, there is a somewhat entertaining story to be found here.

Great story, well developed and either well researched or coming from a significant body of knowledge. I enjoy this category and BTB's that don't go overboard. It's one of the few stories I've read that was a good read all the way to the end. If you check 'comments' before reading, ignore any of the criticism you see - read the story first and then decide.

Damn fine story, thank you.

¡Bien hecho! That was a fun read, bobbing back and forth between slapstick, amateur morality play, and take the piss political commentary.“

The book banning advocate—who called unnamed volumes “obscene”—is invited to take all of his unspent stars, mound them up, sit firmly upon them, and rotate 'til he glows.

This was a good story once I made myself stop mentally creating a map from your locations described. Several don’t quite work with the location of actual places. That aside, the humor involved was excellent and reasonably accurate for much of rural Texas. The line about the colonel trying to limit communism in that part of the world to the faculty at U. T. probably was one of the funniest things, as it is probably what most people over 55 think outside of Travis county with the over the top liberalism on that campus.

Fun, entertaining story! I particularly liked the section where PJ eviscerates Hudson in the school board meeting. It's like watching a train bearing down on a car stalled on a railroad crossing. You can't stop it and you know the subsequent crash will be spectacular!

An interesting story despite the revenge and burning being only a small part of the story (not to say that wasn't glorious though, Doctor Jackson took Ernie down hard). Just a nice look into a town and a important family, all the various characters especially the "Jackets". 5 stars, be neat to see other stories from the town of Jackson.

I laughed out loud reading at the end about BJ’s boots. The school board take down was hilarious. Sad about Mr, Mittens though. Five stars ain’t enough.

@tizwicky: Decrying Huck Finn, To Kill A Mockingbird, and The Color Purple as obscene books while posting on an erotic literature site is pretty wild.

That just went on far too long.

Halve the pages and you've got yourself a decent tale.

Scene setting is needed in a story but this never seemed to end.

I liked the story, but it did seem to ramble as others noted. The ‘Copperhead’ nickname is absolutely classic!

A GREAT 5-star tale !

Loved the way all the pieces fit together in the end, with some excellent Karmic revenge on the two cheaters.

The touch of snark woven into the story was just the right amount for this story, IMHO.

Very nicely done.

I enjoyed the humor in this. I had to write a paragraph on "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" in my freshman comp class in college, comparing his death to an abortion. It is powerful, as you say, and it made me smile to see it included here. Thanks for the good read....

One note, the Rio Grande runs through TX, not the Colorado river. Story is definitely too long, but after getting past all the names, it is a good read.

@rockpaperscissor8: The river to which the author refers is the Colorado River; just not the one that runs through the Grand Canyon and between Arizona and California. Look at the river that runs past Granite Shoals, TX (NW of Austin). Google Maps is a wonderful online friend.

A huge cast of characters it becomes easy to get lost in. Very nice results for the Copperhead!

Great characters, some humor, some pathos, some karma, some fun reading for me.

Quite funny! The MUFF group and Elmer-wanna-bes have infiltrated many school boards today. It will take a while to root them all out by showing how ridiculous their book-banning idealogy is. The Jacket names got a bit tiresome, but the story was well-written and enjoyable.

.....stories on Lit. I couldn't stop laughing when you introduced Straight Jacket Jackson.

Damn fine writing. Thank you.

Outstanding story! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thank you for the support for free libraries and books. Excellent writing

Delightful! I really appreciate that you took the trouble to restate the relationships among the various characters as you were introducing them. With a large palette of characters like this, it can be hard for the reader to follow the interrelationships. You managed to introduce a huge cast in such a way that I didn't have to continually read and reread the story just to understand how everybody was related. Overall, a really nice enjoyable read. Thanks!

It seems you call PJ BJ a couple of times, which really confused me, although that isn’t hard to do!! Loved this story, I hope you don’t get too many death threats from the Right Wing Nut-Jobs that have proliferated in our country recently! You did a great job of skewering them for their horribly misplaced morality!!! Literotica should have a special Ten Star Category for stories like this!!!

One of the best I’ve read recently. Thank you.

Excellent tale, much enjoyed. 5*

I gave up after page 3. The writing was pretty good and it's probably a good story. But I just couldn't up with all of the Jackson's and their nick names. It started driving me nuts.

A very well written story, love the quirky humor and dialogue! 5*

Great story.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Those fascist whackadoodle moms are running rampant in my part of the country too.

Every time I read a new story of yours, I think to myself, man, that is his best one so far. While I believe you may be liberal, I am more conservative. Still, I could not help agreeing with your political comments, especially regarding banned books. Many people don't know this, but he wrote Huckleberry Finn to make up for the obvious racism in Tom Sawyer. Also he wrote the two 9 years apart so he put a lot of thought into HF. Needless to say five stars.

This was a hoot and a holler to read. I grew up slightly west of the real town of Austin and the fictional town of Jackson City. Your deft use of pithy and barbed Texas phrases paint a vivid picture of the many characters in this story, and I recognize a lot of them from my own hometown. PJ reminds me of one of my favorite Twain characters: Pudd’n Head Wilson. I loved all of the different jackets, and especially loved the brutal takedown at the school board meeting. Bonus points for giving the bastinado to the book-banning buttheads. Even though Texas is the Lone Star State, I’ve gotta give you at least 10 for this tale, Podnah!

Loved it. Fantastic tale!

Well done!!!!!

What a wild and crazy story! You almost need a scorecard to tell who is who.

5

Thank God! Another thinking Texan! Appreciate that, and the story! Enjoyed every minute and chuckled a lot!

Wish I’d been at that Board meeting!

I really liked this story. I agree with others , it could be hard to keep track of all the Jacksons ( was kind of like a joebillybob Degarde Louisiana study:).

I liked the snark aimed at the sily earnestness of the MCs PhD thesis and the silly crap that goes into many a doctoral thesis, then taking shots at the stupidity ( and hypocrisy) of the moms for liberty types ( the muff thing is a classic). There is nothing like a good story and good snark (must be something to do with Texas air; my favorite author Illona Andrews ( actually a husband and wife team) live there and write really snarky urban fantasy stories.

That was something out of the ordinary, so 5 stars from me, thanks.

~

I read Randall Jarell's "Death of the ball turret gunner" and I agree, the last line is very moving. I'm also aware of the book "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" but had no idea who wrote it or what it was about, so I may have to remedy that.

~

And like TEXAN1830, I concur that it's good to see someone with some sanity.

I already know about this guy. The writer is an asshole, so everything he writes is going to come out of an ass.

The first page was a complicated mess. It lost me and lost my interest. I jumped to the end. It may have been a good story but if the first page was anything to go by I haven't missed a classic.

I loved it. At 73yrs old and a native-born Texan I sometimes wonder what happened to the ability of the people of my home state to think, be rational, and open minded. I'm old enough to remember how I felt about minorities as I was growing up. I remember how my thinking started changing after the schools were integrated. It was a gradual change and now when I hear or see those who seem to want to remain in the past I wonder if we can ever truly change these people who close their eyes to what is needed to improve our society. Those that automatically think offkilter123 is a nut because he puts a spotlight on the problems of our culture, to my way of thinking, have their eyes closed to what is really happening. I loved the story even though the nicknames did get repetitive it helped in keeping the people identified and the story moving smoothly. Thanks for the story.

Not what I was expecting but I enjoyed it so 5*****

Excellent story, and a fun thoughtful read. One almost needs a cheat sheet to keep track of all the characters, similar to Jimbob44 stories. Five well earned Stars, and thank you for it.

A great read! Loved the humour in it! Thank-you!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ great story, wonderful hook with the jacket names.

I laughed out loud at some of your one-liners, and completely agree that the book-banning craziness is out of control in school districts all over the country!.

Those who are not old enough to remember the McCarthy "Red Scare" hearings in the 1950s should Wiki them, and maybe also read the classic novel "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury.

I liked the reveal a lot and some of the discovery.

The start was a little "busy" and the ending was good but focused more on the protege instead of PJ.

Fun story though, thanks.

Funny as fuck. Well done mate.

Loved it. I would like to donate my degree back to UT.

Someone has been at the AI website.

Great story but a little political for me and from one side.

CRT has been shown to be in schools where you have had some teachers group kids based on race as oppressors and victims.

Banning books is absolutely wrong unless they depict graphic details that when read out at a school board meeting are deemed too controversial for the adults there to listen to.

Still a good story

TC Ireland

Loved the story apart from trying to work out which JACKET belonged to which human It was a GREAT read (jaybee186)

I came here to read a story and feel like I've read a well worded beautiful American Novel. No matter what our political leanings may be, reading a wide variety of books is absolutely essential to grow character. No one becomes a vigilante because they read 'Watchmen' or gay because they read 'all boys aren't blue'.

You made me nostalgic with this excellent story. Salman Rushdie's The Satanic verses , that I read in college had such a great influence on my life - I've strived to be the better person ever since - this book is still banned in my home country, and were it not for a wonderful Grandpa who didn't give a dang, I'd never gotten to read it

I had the story as a solid 4 stars but boosted it up to 5* for the brilliant way you disembowelled the idiocy of the moves to ban or exclude books from high school libraries.

Good read.

I enjoyed reading this one

Thanks offkilter123

Being concerned over a woke agenda is quite natural, but hard to express since defining woke can be risky in public.

(It means the convergence and furtherance of every resentment inferior people have towards normal, sane and healthy people.)

A wee bit silly, but nicely done.

tizxicky, how to publicly announce you’re MAGA fuckwit without spelling it out. Countries led by dictators and states run by idiots ban books. The rest of the worl is laughing at you.

It should be specified: the usual suspects, with their usual lack of self-awareness, will often speak of and encourage people to read books in libraries that have supposedly banned them. The truth is more that activists and individuals from the left and right compete over who can complain the loudest over what the other side finds reprehensible to criticize.

(Another important thing to note is that there are indeed books in school libraries that teach children how to masturbate or how to keep secrets from their parents about their gender dysphoria. The authors of such books don't vote for the GOP)

Every time a new character entered stage right I had a big grin in my face. Thanks.

Great story. How on earth did you pick Cherry Hill New Jersey as the birthplace and future home of the Harridan Hudson????

Thanks for sharing...

I couldn't get the vision of "Sparklers Crazy jacket" out of my head ;) that vision alone should be worth 5*. However, I thought the story was worth a good solid 4+* but ramped it up to a 5* for mentioning the book banning debacle.

Excellent. An easy 5 for me.

So much in the "asides" built in to the story.

Plenty of laughs too.

This has got to be the worst fucking thing I've ever had the misfortune to try and read on this site. Please - please don't publish anymore shite before you have learned to read, and learned something about how it is supposed to be done. Perhaps you should consider taking at least one creative writing course!

I bailed out on page one. Just too convoluted. I assume there is a plot somewhere in there, but having to plow my way through all the Jackets and Jackson's isn't worth it to me. Maybe some other day. No score.

JPB

I can not find the words to say how much I enjoyed this story!

Enjoyable tale. I was going to give it 4 stars but the Randall Jarrell poem meant I had to add one star for a total of 5.

Well written story with some basic morality issues and "come uppance" included. These comments come from a former 504th veteran trained at the now 'none existent' Fort Holabird, Maryland.

Ideally, there shouldn’t be government indoctrination camps. There should be separation of school and state. Baring that, public schools have NO obligation whatsoever to provide any particular book. School libraries cannot possibly contain every book ever written, so choices have to be made. Since the local taxpayers fund the school, it’s entirely appropriate that they choose through their elected representatives, exactly what they want to support.

If there’s books that a parent wants their child to read that the school doesn’t have, then the parents can buy or borrow them. Not providing a book is NOT the same thing as banning books. Banning books means that it’s illegal to own them. The books that are not provided by some school districts are still available for purchase by adults, and are not banned!!!

ZK

LOVED the story LOVED the names. and the ending where we find that the snake did not go to waste.

THANK YOU

Nice story, could have been shorter. The end was anticlimactic. Would have rather had the hard conversation about their divorce that all the plaid jacket stuff. 4 stars

Great story. Deserving of five stars ***** just for this sentence alone.

Don't stick your dick in crazy.

Problematic in that the groups wanting to remove Huck Finn have been on the political Left, the Woke as it were. While DIFFERENT books have been proposed to be removed by people one could call politically Right. Not any substantial overlap I've seen.

And it's moderates who want to remove sexualized books from MIDDLE schools not high schools. Related: removal of Maus, which I own and my own kids have read, was from an 8th grade CURRICULUM, not a library. In other words, no longer REQUIRED reading.

Since school boards in several cases IRL have stopped parents from reading aloud, in board meetings, from books available in their own middle school libraries, because the content was unsuitable at a public meeting. So how fucked up is it to support town taxes being used to support that?

What tax dollars are spent on is NOT censorship, it's oversight. Whether I agree or not, the public has a say on how THEIR money is spent. Personally, I'd love to bring back shooting teams and cancel DEI and CRT, but that's me.

I know this is asking A LOT, but with the political divisiveness in this country at the moment, could we try to not also make political statements on this platform?

My maternal grandparents were from Royse City, TX so I do get it. As far as the story goes, I kinda liked the running "Jacket" thing, so it's as good an example of different strokes for different folks as you're going to find. Five stars.

But on to what ticked me off: the subject of conservatives wanting to ban books from school libraries. For full disclosure, I'm a "small - l" libertarian. I believe, and I believe the "Founders" of our Republic would agree, that most of what our government(s) get involved with nowadays is none of the government"s business. BUT..... there are books that have no place in a high school (or lower) library. I'l give yout three examples right off the top of my head. All three are considered by respected critics to be great works of fiction. They are probably familiar to the average "Literotica" reader (or should be). They are in my own library and are on my list of favorites. Yet they make "Fifty Shades of Grey" sound like a Sunday school text. I think most of you would agree they do not belong in school libraries.

1. "Justine" by Marquis de Sade

2. "The Story of O" by Pauline Reage

3. "The Image" by Jean de Berg

I think, if we're honest with ourselves, we'll agree that the issue isn't about whether or not some books belong in a school library. Some books, even some great works of fiction, are not suitable for younger minds. The issue is really about who gets to make the list of "excluded" books, and what criteria they use to do so.

Awful writing.

Damn fun read! Could have been a lot shorter, had a lot of unnecessary side-plots, but still fun. Whimsical and folksy ... and funny. Keep it up - but maybe pare it down a bit.

How boring didnt even make it to the bottom of page 1

Excellent story. And a brilliant review of literature that is at the forefront of the uneducated banners list. I also enjoy the fact that, just because you think someone is dumb, he may not be. I see a lot of similarities between Plaid Jacket and Mattress Mack.

What happened to the jackets and how and why... sorry but be the end of tje first page I was feeling crosseyed and painful

In Texas county commissioner holds enormous power. More than the governor.

The interview and the school board meeting had me rolling on the floor laughing. Seemed a little long detail-wise, but still a solid story. I'm sure you'll rile up the lunatic fringe with this one, but well worth it!

"' When I died, they washed me out of the turret with a hose.'" reminded me of the movie, "Fury".

What Wolfenherz said. And I have referred "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner," to my English Lit daughter. It is stunning - in the literal meaning of the word. Eight out of five stars!

"Banned Books" as a title should be replaced by "suggested reading list"

In Seattle, it was the Lefties that got rid of “Huck Fin” and the issue most Right Wingers are concerned with, is the pumping of hormones into children to magically change them into the opposite sex. I enjoyed the overdone joke about jacket names, but the story had way too much backstory for the small payoff.

Poor Mr Mittens. I haven't laughed at hard in a while.

Welp, I guess I have a new author to add to my favorites. Thank you for a really great story.

I think that the story, especially with the increasingly ludicrous” Jacket“ nicknames was intended as parody, but the confusing cast of characters and unnecessarily complex plot got in the way. I understand there can be lots of (sometimes amusing) family connections in small towns, but a too-convoluted tale turns readers off.

I thought I was keeping it all straight until we took a further step back in the family tree to Peter’s father, Thomas. This seemed unnecessary (it added nothing to the plot), but did confuse me and was the point where I gave up trying to follow it all, because it seemed that this was the point where even the author lost track of the family tree. It said “Peter's father, Thomas … had come back to America with … a German war bride…. Both children, Philip and Penny bore their mother's blonde hair and Germanic looks.” But Phillip and Penny were the children of Peter (and Lara), not Thomas and (the German war bride) Bette, so any Germanic looks would have come from their grandmother (we are not told anything about their mother Lara’s family background).

Even parody has to make some sort of sense. Are there really women’s volleyball players who star in high school and recruited by major college programs, who are only 5’4”, as PJ’s wife Carol was? Was this a joke I didn’t get or a detail that the author got wrong?

I finished the story, but I had lost interest after the first page.

Humor, good story, good writing. Add in the scholarly use of 'twatwaffle' and you have 5*.

Five stars. It's a little long but I wouldn't delete a single word. I loved the family history and the crazy nicknames. Great takedown of the cheating spouses. "Settled into a life of bitterness and promiscuity" is my new favorite line.

Great story, Thanks for sharing.

Well written and a fun read with a message.