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The branch of a state-wide department store had a big sale, and I decided to splurge and buy a herringbone sports coat to wear at formal occasions like funerals. The price was right. 60% off. I saved a $100, and got a neat looking coat that will show I at least tried to dress up a little. A friend of mine had such a coat and it seemed to serve him well for all occasions.
What really impressed me about how people seemed to accept a nice looking sport coat and slacks instead of a matched suit of clothes was that his coat was a little big on him. He seemed to be able to move around in it comfortably. I bought a corduroy sport coat out in Seattle, Washington to wear at my daughter's second wedding, and it fit so snugly that I haven't worn it much since. The herringbone jacket is a little too big for me.
I'm getting older all the time, and the world reminds me of it. I had an RSS feed for the Obituary column in the local paper, and nearly half the people that showed up on it were younger than me. That began to get on my nerves, so I deleted the feed. I'm better off not knowing about every soul in this county and the adjoining counties that croaks in the prime of their life.
The next high school class reunion is next Monday. That's how weird the people I went to school with are. They hold it on a Monday. The people who are still employed will have to make special arrangements. Too bad. Maybe, if we're lucky, that will mean at least half the class won't be there. I may not be there either, but that's the real reason I bought the coat.
My beard is now longer than it's ever been before. It is a few inches lower than my shoulders. I started it as a goatee, but got tired of keeping it trimmed, so I let the whole thing go. Now it looks really weird because my beard is long and the sides of my face has much shorter hair. If I had any couth whatsoever I'd at least try to trim it a little to make it neater. I'm not.
My long white beard freaks little children out when I go shopping at the Wal-Mart SuperCenter. They get these winsome looks on their faces. I know why. I could be Santa Claus, and they don't know whether I know whether they've been naughty or nice.
They gimme that half-smile when they notice me, as if I might actually recognize them I just happen to have a nice beard, and surprise them with an early gift because Santa Claus loves all the children and knows each of them by name. Right?
Sometime I wink at them or stick my tongue out at them when their mothers ain't looking, and they all draw back from staring at me in shock and awe, and some of them start crying.
Hey! I didn't invent Santa Claus. I'm innocent, I tell you. I don't stop and torment them or pester them anymore than anybody else. All this happens in a moment when we're passing each other in the aisles. Oddly enow, it happens with so-me grown-ups too. The Santa Claus thing. I've grown awfully suspicious that some adults still believe in Santa Claus even if they're unconscious of it.
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I do not attempt to tell the God's own truth here because I don't know what the truth is or hardly ever. I try to capture the drifting thoughts that randomly appear in my imagination for reasons I may not understand. I don't know if the content I capture with these words is true or false. The Comments settings are turned off to prevent me from having to defend what amounts to little more than fanciful, sometime crude speculation. Great moments in our lives never return.
