Many many years ago, back when a phone call was ten cents and if a man shaved his head bald then everyone avoided him, a friend fixed me up on a double-date with a girl....a very pretty girl...who spoke only Polish....not even a word of English. Now there's more to the situation....how should I say this.....I wasn't exactly the fastest horse on the track. I really didn't know how to handle a date with a girl that I couldn't communicate a single word with. I had enough trouble on dates with girls that I could communicate with. I tried sign language and that only made the situation worse. I won't bore you with the details on how the date ended but will say that it took me a year to recover from it.
I once almost burned down the oldest "Authenticated" as Wikipedia puts it "authenticated structure west of the Allegheny Mountains." It happened like this...it was a cold winter day and I had a little bit of a cold so my pockets were full of Kleenexes. As my young son and I were about to enter the "oldest authenticated structure west of the Allegheny Mountains," I tapped empty my pipe and put it in the vest pocket of my leather coat. The size of this "oldest authenticated..." you know the rest "structure" is only a little bigger than the average kiosk in any mall. The only employee panicked when he smelled the smoke. I've never been back since, it's been twenty years, for fear that I would see two pictures on the wall....George Washington's with the caption 'Father Of Our Country' and mine with "Have You Seen This Man?'
I have great difficulty being the center of attention. Thankfully I've never been given any awards in my life for I could never handle the pressure of accepting it. I panic if I go to a concert and one of the singers walks down into the audience singing. It's happened more than once. I just know that they're going to stick that mic in my face to sing along. I once had a very popular celebrity whose name you would know, sing a beautiful song right next to me and I'm looking off into the rafters, probably on television, as If I didn't know where I was. No one wants to put a mic in the face of a crazy person. I was though surprised once at Sea World. I was minding my own business enjoying Shamu perform in a pool with a giant video screen over it.....she appeared out of no where and stuck the mic in my face asking me a question. I looked up at the screen and there I was. I had a flashback of my date with the girl who spoke only Polish. It was probably one of the more awkward moments in Sea World history.
I had to slow dance with my wife in front of over a hundred people at our son's wedding. It almost paralyzed me. After about two minutes of terror others stepped onto the dance floor. Someone tapped my wife on her shoulder to dance. What on earth was I going to do? My new daughter-in law's mother was there so I somehow communicated if she would like to dance....it seemed like that was what was expected of me. The dance ended and I felt great relief for my entire responsibility for the reception was over...relief until I realized that I clung to my son's mother-in-law like a drowning man to an overturned dinghy with sharks fins all around. I later made matters worse by trying to explain to her why I clung to her like a drowning man holding to a dinghy with shark fins all around. The great blessing of our son's wedding day ended. I took off my suit coat for the first time since I put it on fifteen hours earlier. I put my hands in my pockets out of relief and there was a tennis ball in one of them. I'm fairly sure that I'm the only man in the history of Western Civilization to have a tennis ball in his pant pocket during his son's wedding.
I tell you these things, and there are many more, to explain why I write an anonymous blog...that isn't even a blog. It's just me on one side and seven billion people on the other who have no idea who I am. Hey, some people in Poland may even read these posts through a text translator. I could probably handle that situation if it were today....nah.
Addendum: I wanted to add this because it happened only an hour ago as we spent a nice Saturday afternoon at the Butler Museum Of Art that's basically on the Youngstown State University campus. By the way it's a wonderful museum and I highly recommend it although after reading these posts you may not appreciate anything I recommend. Anyway, in one of the many rooms in the museum they have a very real to life sculpture of an old man dressed as a security guard and sitting somewhat slouched on a chair, of whom I said Hi to on the way in and went back to ask him if it was ok to take a photo of Norman Rockwell's Lincoln The Railsplitter! I'm certain that this episode will wind up on Candid Camera,
I once almost burned down the oldest "Authenticated" as Wikipedia puts it "authenticated structure west of the Allegheny Mountains." It happened like this...it was a cold winter day and I had a little bit of a cold so my pockets were full of Kleenexes. As my young son and I were about to enter the "oldest authenticated structure west of the Allegheny Mountains," I tapped empty my pipe and put it in the vest pocket of my leather coat. The size of this "oldest authenticated..." you know the rest "structure" is only a little bigger than the average kiosk in any mall. The only employee panicked when he smelled the smoke. I've never been back since, it's been twenty years, for fear that I would see two pictures on the wall....George Washington's with the caption 'Father Of Our Country' and mine with "Have You Seen This Man?'
I have great difficulty being the center of attention. Thankfully I've never been given any awards in my life for I could never handle the pressure of accepting it. I panic if I go to a concert and one of the singers walks down into the audience singing. It's happened more than once. I just know that they're going to stick that mic in my face to sing along. I once had a very popular celebrity whose name you would know, sing a beautiful song right next to me and I'm looking off into the rafters, probably on television, as If I didn't know where I was. No one wants to put a mic in the face of a crazy person. I was though surprised once at Sea World. I was minding my own business enjoying Shamu perform in a pool with a giant video screen over it.....she appeared out of no where and stuck the mic in my face asking me a question. I looked up at the screen and there I was. I had a flashback of my date with the girl who spoke only Polish. It was probably one of the more awkward moments in Sea World history.
I had to slow dance with my wife in front of over a hundred people at our son's wedding. It almost paralyzed me. After about two minutes of terror others stepped onto the dance floor. Someone tapped my wife on her shoulder to dance. What on earth was I going to do? My new daughter-in law's mother was there so I somehow communicated if she would like to dance....it seemed like that was what was expected of me. The dance ended and I felt great relief for my entire responsibility for the reception was over...relief until I realized that I clung to my son's mother-in-law like a drowning man to an overturned dinghy with sharks fins all around. I later made matters worse by trying to explain to her why I clung to her like a drowning man holding to a dinghy with shark fins all around. The great blessing of our son's wedding day ended. I took off my suit coat for the first time since I put it on fifteen hours earlier. I put my hands in my pockets out of relief and there was a tennis ball in one of them. I'm fairly sure that I'm the only man in the history of Western Civilization to have a tennis ball in his pant pocket during his son's wedding.
I tell you these things, and there are many more, to explain why I write an anonymous blog...that isn't even a blog. It's just me on one side and seven billion people on the other who have no idea who I am. Hey, some people in Poland may even read these posts through a text translator. I could probably handle that situation if it were today....nah.
Addendum: I wanted to add this because it happened only an hour ago as we spent a nice Saturday afternoon at the Butler Museum Of Art that's basically on the Youngstown State University campus. By the way it's a wonderful museum and I highly recommend it although after reading these posts you may not appreciate anything I recommend. Anyway, in one of the many rooms in the museum they have a very real to life sculpture of an old man dressed as a security guard and sitting somewhat slouched on a chair, of whom I said Hi to on the way in and went back to ask him if it was ok to take a photo of Norman Rockwell's Lincoln The Railsplitter! I'm certain that this episode will wind up on Candid Camera,
