Ten Summersets He'll Undertake on Solid Ground
I confess I was a-twitter last Friday at the revelation that it was the 40th anniversary of the release of Sgt. Pepper, the seminal Beatles recording. It brought back the memory of being confronted at a church youth group party in late Summer '67 over the significance of the album by another trombone player who until then I had wanted to think was at least as much of a dork as I. It took me a while to get my feet back on the ground. That was a big moment in my (ever-so-ongoing) musical education! Explore aggressively. Taste new things. Life was different after that moment.
But my contemplation at work last Friday of plasticine porters and cellophane flowers was interrupted ("Fun is the one thing that money can't buy") was interrupted when the #*&@$@$ phone rang. I'm of the school that understands that telephony is one of the major banes of our existence, tending as it does to interrupt whatever real life is going on. Voicemail can handle ever so much more than most folks allow it to.
Of course there are those socially desperate sorts that I always seem to end up sharing a bus seat with. You’d think they’d never received a call before. And of course because they have their phone improperly set so they can’t hear, they have to shout to make up for it.
What are your feelings when someone you are conversing with dives for their phone? They’re supposedly engaged with you! Short of the results of their cancer labwork, what’s the excuse?
So we’re all agreed that we will not do that anymore?
But this was the exception. The phone display showed it was son Eric, who has finally been in the vacation mode after two years of salt-minery.
The punch line: he was calling from the top of Half Dome in Yosemite Valley. Ohmigod. I think it would be fair to call this one of the ultimate hiker's destinations in all of North America. I won’t even pretend that I wasn’t envious – or that in my present condition that I could even complete the hike. But the primary emotion was ebullience and joy that I had sired offspring with the interest and work-ethic to pull this off. Our wedding, the births of our children, college graduation, and a couple personal big summits (e.g., Rainier, Olympus) are the life experiences I think of when pondering that phone call.
Just sayin’.
But my contemplation at work last Friday of plasticine porters and cellophane flowers was interrupted ("Fun is the one thing that money can't buy") was interrupted when the #*&@$@$ phone rang. I'm of the school that understands that telephony is one of the major banes of our existence, tending as it does to interrupt whatever real life is going on. Voicemail can handle ever so much more than most folks allow it to.
Of course there are those socially desperate sorts that I always seem to end up sharing a bus seat with. You’d think they’d never received a call before. And of course because they have their phone improperly set so they can’t hear, they have to shout to make up for it.
What are your feelings when someone you are conversing with dives for their phone? They’re supposedly engaged with you! Short of the results of their cancer labwork, what’s the excuse?
So we’re all agreed that we will not do that anymore?
But this was the exception. The phone display showed it was son Eric, who has finally been in the vacation mode after two years of salt-minery.
The punch line: he was calling from the top of Half Dome in Yosemite Valley. Ohmigod. I think it would be fair to call this one of the ultimate hiker's destinations in all of North America. I won’t even pretend that I wasn’t envious – or that in my present condition that I could even complete the hike. But the primary emotion was ebullience and joy that I had sired offspring with the interest and work-ethic to pull this off. Our wedding, the births of our children, college graduation, and a couple personal big summits (e.g., Rainier, Olympus) are the life experiences I think of when pondering that phone call.
Just sayin’.
posted by Sir Gumbo at 9:38 PM
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