Thank you for sharing your gift of words, words that carry memories with grace and make gentle contact with the present. I do wonder, when together with our children, we both talk about the good old days -- decades apart -- won’t we both be right? I do hope, for their sake, if not so much for my own.
I was born in Central Florida, a land of long, hot, muggy summers. In the 1960s our home had no air conditioning, only jalousie windows. For relief from the heat we took the Ford for a drive and enjoyed the 460 air conditioning. Four windows down at sixty miles per hour. Daddy was a wag.
My Dad was a letter carrier in Minneapolis for 38 years. He said he didn't get paid that well but he got a lot of vacation so instead of air conditioning we'd go up to the North Shore and stay at a cabin at Castle Danger. With the lake at 40 degrees, that was all the air conditioning we'd need.
One of my favorite stories is about the man who picked up a hitchhiker, and after a few minutes of small talk, the hitchhiker asked, “Did you ever think I could be an insane serial killer?”.
“No.” The driver replied. “What are the odds if there being two in the same car.”
I turn 75 in a few months and have never hitched a ride. I was always afraid of who might stop and give me a rude.
What cellar were you hiding in in the seventies? There were times, hitchhiking my way to work when the driver and I were not sober or unstoned enough to care where the car was going and if time had stopped.
A pox on you (but, not, of course of the monkey varietal) for stopping a little column that was on the verge of being existential. May the hairs on your palms grow at whim and may your woman forget you are in the room while she sings to herself of old loves.
You are in fine form. Looking forward to reading the cleaned-up or at least tidier version of what you are thinking for many years to come. Dave Barry, the ink-stained wretch, had a heart valve replacement many years ago. Like a warm-blooded version of a 60,000 mile tune-up for a car. He still seems to run fine.
Yes, thank you. Why DO those loathed words claw our skin? And who comes up with this stuff? I will spare you from my library in case your skin begins to crawl merely at hearing the contents But this happened to me last week when a pompous participant on a zoom call asked, “What’s the main purpose of this meeting? Are we ideating?” Yes, language evolves. Can’t it evolve gently, to enhance communication instead of hiding behind what people really want to say? I’m betting money that someone who’s hungry doesn’t refer to him or herself as food insecure.
One word that you probably have not heard is "funeralize." It is used a good bit in some parts of the South and, of course, means to have or conduct a funeral.
Language is evolving and not always for the better.
I'm not sure that I like this new tendency to "-ize" everything. "Having a funeral" may take up more words than "funeralizing," but it sounds a bit more dignified to me. Unless there's a movement to dignifitize the word "funeralize" that I've not heard about as well.
Had forgotten what a wonderful word "nattering" is. Did however send me to an ancient, much used version of Strunk and White. Is it a verb? Can it be an adjective? I find that taking a shower and not slipping gets applause from my folks here. Really enjoy the Column. Thank you for all the sharing over the years.
"nattering" That calls to mind Spiro Agnew. He was the vice president with Nixon. Spiro gave a speech in which he called some of the press "nattering nabobs of negativism." That might have been before your time. Best wishes.
I am concerned about your brother who was catholigized by that girl he embraced and eventually married. Now I know the Cat-o-lics are not much into Bible reading(they pretty much do what they're told) but I hope that embrace didn't include too much of that doubt that is creeping into the Catholic religion since they've begun reading the Good Book for themselves.
In any case, wish him well, keep your eyes down("honey"), and stay out of trouble.
Sincerely, an all-embracing Catholic who is always in trouble.
I am almost 87 and I find myself quoting my father’s wisdom more and more each year. He lived into his early 90’s and would tell me “you know 85 really isn’t that old, once you’re already 80”.
The good old days. I suspect for you it might have been the late 40's, the 50's and maybe even the early 60's. The world got stupid in the late 60's and 70's, though for me those were my "good old days". Though in 1964, at 6 years old. I can remember walking around the block unattended because I wanted to show off my new Beatle boots. No fear or fear needed. Even in the early 70's my brothers and I would walk the railroad tracks to a 7-11 to get frozen cokes and twinkies, then hang out at this old gas station listening to the proprietor tell us stories while he ate apple slices off the blade of his pocket knife. You listened to a guy like that. Life was simpler back then, no internet, only criminal gun violence and you could walk from one end of the airport to the other with no interruptions for security or x-ray machines.
I think you had the best of the good old days. I have a love for the 30's, 40's and maybe even the 50's, when men were men, women were women, kids were kids. Everything was new and newer things were coming, it must have been exciting. We had national pride and everyone loved America.
My mom turns 84 next month, so you're in good company and as a result you should have a lot of well deserved respect. What's cool about your age, like my mom, is that you can say anything you want and be a crotchety curmudgeon for fun at any time, and do so for no reason than to give yourself a laugh. I'm 20 years behind my mom and with years of practiced sarcasm I hope that by the time I reach her age, God willing, my crotchety curmudgeoness will be well developed and I'll entertain kids sitting around me while I eat apple slices off of my pocket knife blade.
You're 80, enjoy yourself. Chase those kids off your lawn and for the love of God, don't wear socks and sandals.
I suppose that the "gold old days" often refer to people's youth or a time early in life when things were going good. I had a good life growing up in the rural South. We were poor but most adults that I knew, grew up in the depression and the 1940's and 1950's were definitely much more prosperous than the 1930's. And looking back, the late 1940's and 1950's seem like quiet, stable times.
It would be nice if we could stop time. When we are doing something we enjoy, just stop the time clock and do what we like for an extended period of time. But of course life does not work like that. Things and times change. The climate changes; the economy changes. Nothing last forever and nothing stays great forever. All we can do is stay abreast of what is happening and deal with life as best we can. If you are not happy with life, the President or members of congress or the Supremes are not going to make you happy. Happiness is something one has to achieve on one's own.
I think that life is basically sad for people. As I understand it, people are the only creatures who think of themselves and know that we are going to get old and die. The only way to avoid getting old is to die young. So no matter how rich or famous or beautiful you are, you will get old and die.
The problem is that the older I get and the less I do each day, the faster time goes by.
Psychologists have established that time does seem to go faster the older we get. it's like we have this innate sense to compare current elapsed time to the amount of time we've lived. So, kids are always impatient ("are we there yet?")
I was struck by your wish that hitch hiking would return. The memories of standing on a street corner trying to get a ride from a complete stranger brought me back to the trusting days of my youth. Then it struck me that in a way, I did that very thing yesterday while visiting a different city without benefit of my car. I took an Uber to get to a restaurant for dinner. Uber is actually hitch hiking monetized!
I might have hitch hiked when I was young but in my mature years I am not as trusting as I once was.
In this part of the country, my fear would be that I would be picked up by one of Donald's faithful and would therefore listen to a fevered rant about the short coming of the present administration and how Donald will make things right. It would be better to walk or stay at home.
Good comment. I think that if Uber drivers kept up with all of their expenses using their cars and the amount of time it takes to be a Uber driver (when they cannot have a real job) -- they are probably making something like a fifty cents per hour. They get no benefits plus they have to use their own cars and phones. I think that they are wearing out their cars for very little income. With kindest regards.
Good morning Garrison. I have a lot to do today so I was planning to not write anything when I started to read your column.
But you mentioned the use of words like "monetize," etc. and I could not help responding. People love to use funny words. They say that someone "gifted" something; what happened to "gave" or "give." I assume that gave and gifted mean the same thing. And what about all these people that sprinkle the word "like" all through a sentence. Every fourth or fifth word is "like."
I think that what all this indicates is that many people are not clear or logical thinkers. They don't know what they are talking about so they cover that up with lots of funny words or they throw in "like" a lots.
You go to the Episcopal church so you have people who read the scriptures during the service. Many of the readers that I hear in church don't know how to read and don't have a clue of what punctuation means. And they don't seem to ever read over the scripture before they stand up to read it. Punctuation is there for a purpose. More fuzzy thinking?
You mentioned "Bible believer." Do people still read the Bible? I know that there are people who say the Bible is inerrant (and one can debate what that means) and they pick out a passage here or there to support their argument about current topics but I can't say that I know many people who actually read the Bible.
Apparently the Supremes don't read it. In the Gospels Our Lord says that when we pray we should not be like the "hypocrites who make a big display of praying in public for a show." We should pray quietly and God will answer our prayers. Our Lord seems to say that if we pray in public to make a show then we have gotten what we wanted -- a show. Maybe I am wrong but I think that the football coach who prayed at the 50 yard line in front of a stadium of people was putting on a show. But the Supremes upheld him. But what do the Supremes know?
Best wishes and happy 80th birthday. May you have many, many more.
Smiled through the whole post and then read it aloud to my 96 year old husband. He identified completely. Thank you Garrison, for keeping smiles on our faces!
Thank you for sharing your gift of words, words that carry memories with grace and make gentle contact with the present. I do wonder, when together with our children, we both talk about the good old days -- decades apart -- won’t we both be right? I do hope, for their sake, if not so much for my own.
I was born in Central Florida, a land of long, hot, muggy summers. In the 1960s our home had no air conditioning, only jalousie windows. For relief from the heat we took the Ford for a drive and enjoyed the 460 air conditioning. Four windows down at sixty miles per hour. Daddy was a wag.
My Dad was a letter carrier in Minneapolis for 38 years. He said he didn't get paid that well but he got a lot of vacation so instead of air conditioning we'd go up to the North Shore and stay at a cabin at Castle Danger. With the lake at 40 degrees, that was all the air conditioning we'd need.
Natter on!
One of my favorite stories is about the man who picked up a hitchhiker, and after a few minutes of small talk, the hitchhiker asked, “Did you ever think I could be an insane serial killer?”.
“No.” The driver replied. “What are the odds if there being two in the same car.”
I turn 75 in a few months and have never hitched a ride. I was always afraid of who might stop and give me a rude.
What cellar were you hiding in in the seventies? There were times, hitchhiking my way to work when the driver and I were not sober or unstoned enough to care where the car was going and if time had stopped.
Love that story
Psalm 90:10; go for it!
A pox on you (but, not, of course of the monkey varietal) for stopping a little column that was on the verge of being existential. May the hairs on your palms grow at whim and may your woman forget you are in the room while she sings to herself of old loves.
I just want to say “thank you”. Gratitude means more to me now. :)
You are in fine form. Looking forward to reading the cleaned-up or at least tidier version of what you are thinking for many years to come. Dave Barry, the ink-stained wretch, had a heart valve replacement many years ago. Like a warm-blooded version of a 60,000 mile tune-up for a car. He still seems to run fine.
Yes, thank you. Why DO those loathed words claw our skin? And who comes up with this stuff? I will spare you from my library in case your skin begins to crawl merely at hearing the contents But this happened to me last week when a pompous participant on a zoom call asked, “What’s the main purpose of this meeting? Are we ideating?” Yes, language evolves. Can’t it evolve gently, to enhance communication instead of hiding behind what people really want to say? I’m betting money that someone who’s hungry doesn’t refer to him or herself as food insecure.
"ideating" - that's a new one on me (in fact, the spell checker even refuses to recognize it!).
One word that you probably have not heard is "funeralize." It is used a good bit in some parts of the South and, of course, means to have or conduct a funeral.
Language is evolving and not always for the better.
With kindest regards.
I'm not sure that I like this new tendency to "-ize" everything. "Having a funeral" may take up more words than "funeralizing," but it sounds a bit more dignified to me. Unless there's a movement to dignifitize the word "funeralize" that I've not heard about as well.
Sounds like a euphemism for cremation.
Is that a polite euphemism for "bury"?
The word "ideate" was in a NYT crossword puzzle several weeks ago. I don't remember what the clue was.
Ack. That's all I can think of to say to that.
I encountered "ideate" several years ago in an IBM ad. It's reasonably synonymous with imagine.
but "imagine" is a perfectly good word - why do we need "ideate" as well? I guess I really am getting old.
It's the goal of much conversating. Yes, I have heard adult humans use that word.
Had forgotten what a wonderful word "nattering" is. Did however send me to an ancient, much used version of Strunk and White. Is it a verb? Can it be an adjective? I find that taking a shower and not slipping gets applause from my folks here. Really enjoy the Column. Thank you for all the sharing over the years.
"nattering" That calls to mind Spiro Agnew. He was the vice president with Nixon. Spiro gave a speech in which he called some of the press "nattering nabobs of negativism." That might have been before your time. Best wishes.
OH, I almost forgot. I think that as Spiro used the word, nattering would be an adjective since it describes nabobs.
I'm not a good student of grammar, but could it be a verb? The nabobs were nattering. They have nattered. They will natter. I have nattered enough.
It would be a participle. A participle is a verb that is used as an adjective as in laughing boy, nattering nabob, etc.
I was not a wiz on grammar either but I do remember participles. Best wishes.
And there it is as an adjective... it works well, in fact. "Nattering nabobs of negativism" is an excellent phrase as well. :)
I should have read all the comments before replying...
According to the Merriam Webster on-line edition (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/natter), "natter" can be either a verb or a noun. It is a nice word, though, I agree.
Dear harmless old man,
I am concerned about your brother who was catholigized by that girl he embraced and eventually married. Now I know the Cat-o-lics are not much into Bible reading(they pretty much do what they're told) but I hope that embrace didn't include too much of that doubt that is creeping into the Catholic religion since they've begun reading the Good Book for themselves.
In any case, wish him well, keep your eyes down("honey"), and stay out of trouble.
Sincerely, an all-embracing Catholic who is always in trouble.
I am almost 87 and I find myself quoting my father’s wisdom more and more each year. He lived into his early 90’s and would tell me “you know 85 really isn’t that old, once you’re already 80”.
The good old days. I suspect for you it might have been the late 40's, the 50's and maybe even the early 60's. The world got stupid in the late 60's and 70's, though for me those were my "good old days". Though in 1964, at 6 years old. I can remember walking around the block unattended because I wanted to show off my new Beatle boots. No fear or fear needed. Even in the early 70's my brothers and I would walk the railroad tracks to a 7-11 to get frozen cokes and twinkies, then hang out at this old gas station listening to the proprietor tell us stories while he ate apple slices off the blade of his pocket knife. You listened to a guy like that. Life was simpler back then, no internet, only criminal gun violence and you could walk from one end of the airport to the other with no interruptions for security or x-ray machines.
I think you had the best of the good old days. I have a love for the 30's, 40's and maybe even the 50's, when men were men, women were women, kids were kids. Everything was new and newer things were coming, it must have been exciting. We had national pride and everyone loved America.
My mom turns 84 next month, so you're in good company and as a result you should have a lot of well deserved respect. What's cool about your age, like my mom, is that you can say anything you want and be a crotchety curmudgeon for fun at any time, and do so for no reason than to give yourself a laugh. I'm 20 years behind my mom and with years of practiced sarcasm I hope that by the time I reach her age, God willing, my crotchety curmudgeoness will be well developed and I'll entertain kids sitting around me while I eat apple slices off of my pocket knife blade.
You're 80, enjoy yourself. Chase those kids off your lawn and for the love of God, don't wear socks and sandals.
I suppose that the "gold old days" often refer to people's youth or a time early in life when things were going good. I had a good life growing up in the rural South. We were poor but most adults that I knew, grew up in the depression and the 1940's and 1950's were definitely much more prosperous than the 1930's. And looking back, the late 1940's and 1950's seem like quiet, stable times.
It would be nice if we could stop time. When we are doing something we enjoy, just stop the time clock and do what we like for an extended period of time. But of course life does not work like that. Things and times change. The climate changes; the economy changes. Nothing last forever and nothing stays great forever. All we can do is stay abreast of what is happening and deal with life as best we can. If you are not happy with life, the President or members of congress or the Supremes are not going to make you happy. Happiness is something one has to achieve on one's own.
I think that life is basically sad for people. As I understand it, people are the only creatures who think of themselves and know that we are going to get old and die. The only way to avoid getting old is to die young. So no matter how rich or famous or beautiful you are, you will get old and die.
The problem is that the older I get and the less I do each day, the faster time goes by.
Psychologists have established that time does seem to go faster the older we get. it's like we have this innate sense to compare current elapsed time to the amount of time we've lived. So, kids are always impatient ("are we there yet?")
I was struck by your wish that hitch hiking would return. The memories of standing on a street corner trying to get a ride from a complete stranger brought me back to the trusting days of my youth. Then it struck me that in a way, I did that very thing yesterday while visiting a different city without benefit of my car. I took an Uber to get to a restaurant for dinner. Uber is actually hitch hiking monetized!
I might have hitch hiked when I was young but in my mature years I am not as trusting as I once was.
In this part of the country, my fear would be that I would be picked up by one of Donald's faithful and would therefore listen to a fevered rant about the short coming of the present administration and how Donald will make things right. It would be better to walk or stay at home.
Uber figured out how to run a cab company without buying cars or hiring drivers. One can almost admire the crafty so and sos.
Good comment. I think that if Uber drivers kept up with all of their expenses using their cars and the amount of time it takes to be a Uber driver (when they cannot have a real job) -- they are probably making something like a fifty cents per hour. They get no benefits plus they have to use their own cars and phones. I think that they are wearing out their cars for very little income. With kindest regards.
Good morning Garrison. I have a lot to do today so I was planning to not write anything when I started to read your column.
But you mentioned the use of words like "monetize," etc. and I could not help responding. People love to use funny words. They say that someone "gifted" something; what happened to "gave" or "give." I assume that gave and gifted mean the same thing. And what about all these people that sprinkle the word "like" all through a sentence. Every fourth or fifth word is "like."
I think that what all this indicates is that many people are not clear or logical thinkers. They don't know what they are talking about so they cover that up with lots of funny words or they throw in "like" a lots.
You go to the Episcopal church so you have people who read the scriptures during the service. Many of the readers that I hear in church don't know how to read and don't have a clue of what punctuation means. And they don't seem to ever read over the scripture before they stand up to read it. Punctuation is there for a purpose. More fuzzy thinking?
You mentioned "Bible believer." Do people still read the Bible? I know that there are people who say the Bible is inerrant (and one can debate what that means) and they pick out a passage here or there to support their argument about current topics but I can't say that I know many people who actually read the Bible.
Apparently the Supremes don't read it. In the Gospels Our Lord says that when we pray we should not be like the "hypocrites who make a big display of praying in public for a show." We should pray quietly and God will answer our prayers. Our Lord seems to say that if we pray in public to make a show then we have gotten what we wanted -- a show. Maybe I am wrong but I think that the football coach who prayed at the 50 yard line in front of a stadium of people was putting on a show. But the Supremes upheld him. But what do the Supremes know?
Best wishes and happy 80th birthday. May you have many, many more.
Smiled through the whole post and then read it aloud to my 96 year old husband. He identified completely. Thank you Garrison, for keeping smiles on our faces!