ATLANTIC CITY, New Jersey (AP) -- The Miss America pageant is pulling the plug on its talent competition, eliminating the amateurish two-minute routines that have come to feature cheesy stunts such as tractor driving and trampoline jumping...

The talent routines once accounted for 40 percent of a contestant's score; they were 20 percent by last year. The routines will still be included in the three nights of preliminary competition leading up to the televised Saturday night crowning.The casual wear, swimsuit and evening wear elements of the contest, which last year counted for 10 percent of a contestant's score, will each count for 20 percent this year, McMaster said.

Pageant loyalists don't like the changes.

"They're eliminating one of the core values of the Miss America competition," said former CEO Leonard Horn.

Heather French Henry, Miss America 2000, was also critical. "It's a tragedy," she said. "That's what separates us from the type of contestant that goes to Miss USA. Our young ladies get into it for the scholarships and the talent." 

The garbage disposal never worked right.  At least never to my old man's standards.  It was nearly a religious ritual--instead of church attendance, hymn singing and prayer we'd spend one evening at the dinner table with my father's space glaringly vacant.  The counter beneath the sink had magically grown legs or perhaps was simply defecating a hapless passerby it had consumed earlier, legs first.  There was the occasional groan, grunt, clink and sometimes the round, swollen legs would kick or squirm as the sink continued to pass its mid-morning brunch.
 
But the cursing.  Oh, the cursing--raised to heaven like a prayer to dirty-mouthed sailor god.  Each effort came with its exhortation to goddammit to hell, or fuck it up its dirty whore ass or any number of other things that would make my mother blush and look at us sitting with wide-eyed wonder at the cornucopia of words we could use on the playground in hushed tones to startle and amaze our classmates and accidentally invoke the wrath of Mrs. Golding, the weathered and bitter recess supervisor.  Some families had quiet nights by the fireplace reading solitary tomes and reflecting on self-betterment, but we had the piece of shit bargain-basement disposal fuck from Montgomery Fuckin' Ward from hell.
 
Some people learn in different ways.  While it's true my vocabulary grew bountifully in words I'd never have to spell in a weekly spelling test, I think I picked up some other things.  Dad never hit us.  He never raised his hand to our mother.  He was stern and his actions were not to be taken lightly should you end on the unfortunate end of his disciplinary tactics.  He could instill fear and self-examination with a single look, but at the end of the day there was never fear of peril or safety.  He was a stalwart protector--a rock standing against the tides that would otherwise batter our small household and tamer of the great swells of the outside world.
 
Perhaps I'm overstating.  But in retrospect I can't remember anything that deeply bothered me about my home.  I may have been unnecessarily instilled with a hatred for cheap-ass Montgomery Ward kitchen appliances, but my wife purchased an old battered Ward's iron and we only argued about it for one night.  I'm keeping my eye on it, mind you.  You can never tell when they'll turn on you.  Anyway.
 
It was fitting in some sort of suburban kind of Shakespearian way that my mother came home from the store two years ago to find my father lying peacefully beneath the sink.  After a final hellish struggle with the Montgomery Ward's garbage disposal that had plagued his existence throughout my childhood, they had gone together like an old couple who could not continue with the thought of the other being gone.  At least thinking about it that way makes me smile.  I like to think of my father wrenching the device free from it's housing with a triumphant "You goddamn little fuck bastard!" as the artery in his head exploded sending him into a blissfully black and swirling dream of triumph and restfulness.
 
My wife still thinks I'm nuts.  It's okay.  She wasn't there.  She didn't know.  She won't have to know. 
 
I bought a Kenmore garbage disposal.

Take that Montgomery Ward.  Fuckin' A.