Grandfather Adams came up to stay with Shattuck.  He started the evening reading Shattuck his favorite book… The Giant Jam Sandwich.  It’s a wonderful book about a town called Itching Down infested with wasps.  The towns people banded together and with the help of the local farmer and the baker to bake a 3 story loaf of bread… which they in turn used to create a giant jam sandwich.  The wasps get caught in the jam… and the birds fly away with the sandwich thereby relieving the townsfolk of Itching Down of their infestation and the modern utopia went back to normal.

Obviously this book is a metaphor for a communist regime.  The towns folk represent the Labor Unions riding themselves of the WASPs by rising the federal deficit (the bread) until the economy bursts and the Chinese fly off with our National Trust.

Shattuck enjoyed it… I don’t think he picked up on the sub plot.