DEAR ABBY: The phrase, "If 'ifs' and 'ans' were pots and pans, we'd have no need of tinkers," derives from George Bernard Shaw's play "Saint Joan," when Joan of Arc, under ecclesiastic interrogation for heresy, responds in exasperation to questions and accusations from her English persecutors.
I was in a Sydney stage production of "Saint Joan" starring Zoe Caldwell in 1962 (and later played the Earl of Warwick in a London BBC two-part television production of the story), but Zoe's earnest frustration so fervently rendered still resonates in my mind 40 years later. -- ALLAN LANDER (RETIRED ACTOR IN SAVANNAH)
DEAR ALLAN: Retired or not, take a bow!