Thoughts Before the Road

I hit the road tomorrow to do a men's retreat for the Elmwood Church of Christ in West Lafayette, Indiana. Before I do... some random bits...

It snowed this morning. I'm not kidding. Our "high" today is supposed to be 39. While the snow -- which came down furiously for a half hour -- has mostly melted in the sunshine, this reminds us of several things: we are not in charge of the planet or its weather, none of us are using enough aerosols, and global warming is a myth -- at least in Michigan.

My mother is doing much better. Thank you for your prayers. Dad is scheduled to leave for Guyana two weeks from Monday.

Since the men's retreat is at a camp, and I'm thinking of my parents, I keep thinking of growing up and that leads to thoughts of...

Food. My mother is an Irish cook, which means she can't. She is a lovely lady, but fact is we had leftovers for sixteen years. The original meal was never located. My wife does wonderful things with leftovers. She throws them out.

School. I'm not sure why I studied the least helpful subjects all the way through school, but I AM proud that I can speak Esperanto like a native. My higher doctorate is in "psychoneuroimmunology" which means "there are no jobs in this. What were you thinking?" My dad wanted me to have all the educational opportunities he never had, so he sent me to a girls school. I always wanted to be an intellectual until I realized an intellectual is just someone who thinks they found something more interesting than sex. And a Ph.D? Yea, I got a couple, but face facts. A Ph.D. is just what they award you for transferring bones from one graveyard to another. (Originality is undetected plagarism) We had a tough school. We had our own coroner. One of my best papers was from the fifth grade and titled, "What I Want To Be IF I Grow Up."

Haircuts. I got a bad one. I'm not sure why or how it happened. It seems that my barber is a world expert on everything except the cutting of hair. People tell me that the difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut is two weeks. Nope. This is going to take longer. I've seen Number Two pencil erasers that looked better. Good thing I've already got a girlfriend.

House and Home. My wife keeps things awfully neat and clean. I'm not sure I understand that. I learned something in the years I lived alone: if you don't clean your house for two months, it really doesn't get any dirtier. I've also learned that children brighten up a home... because they never turn off any lights. When I was a kid, our family never talked. We communicated by putting up Ann Landers columns on the refrigerator. My father never took me to the zoo. He told me that if they wanted me, they'd come and get me. I'm doing much better now. Although I'm just 49, I'm reading at a 55 year old level.

Marriage. When I first saw Kami it was like all my birthdays came at once. I agree with Groucho Marx when he said that anybody who can see right through women is missing a lot. I am still wowed by her. When I first kissed her, I kissed her like I was trying to clear the drains. It is still hard to keep my enthusiasm in check. Sometimes we have words, but I never get to use mine. That's probably for the best.

Music. My sister was a town and country soprano of the sort best used to augment grief at a funeral. She wanted me to learn to appreciate the higher forms of music, but I confess that classical music, to me, is something that one listens to in vain hope that it will eventually stumble upon a tune. I went to an opera and admit that it is impossible to fully appreciate it after hearing it only once. I also admit that I will not sit through it a second time. I listen to my XM radio a lot. It has a channel for the top twenty records only. I listened to it and shuddered thinking, if these were the top twenty, what must the bottom fifty sound like? Of course, I should talk. My singing is best described as something between the sound of a rat drowning, a lavatory flushing, and a hyena devouring her afterbirth in the Appalachian Mountains under the light of a full moon.

Until later.... I've miles to go before I sleep...