* Apologies to James Thurber
Villiam origin story
The first feeling when you put up a bird feeder is that moment of zen from watching the birds flit in and out. The second is the vitriolic disdain for the semi-feral cats that hang around your feeder.
My particular archenemy is a black cat with a bell. The bell identifies it as indoor/outdoor but provides no respite for the birds as cats hunt by staying perfectly still right up until they strike.
We have reached an understanding though. I run into my backyard, and it scurries away in the trail between my house and the hedge. I follow up my steps and we meet it in the alley as it jumps on my neighbor’s fence. I run through the alley and it makes its escape.
At this point, I’m convinced that all I’m doing is providing simulation to a bored creature. And with the way the cat pauses on the fence before jumping into my neighbor’s yard, I’m fairly certain the cat is thinking the exact same thing.
Paging Dr. Fine
I had to part ways with my barber. Nice guy, we got along great, but we both agreed it was for the best. My haircuts had become 90% pantomime, 10% hair cutting. No fault of his, but I’m pretty sure he stretched the time but just pretend snipping around my head.
The beauty part of having very little hair is that the little that is left continues to grow. So, I’ve taken to shaving my head once a month or so. This introduced me to an interesting phenomenon:
Mickey Mantle’s restaurant
When I lived in New Jersey in the 80s I’d often have friends visit me from Wisconsin. We’d spend most of our time in Manhattan.
I was with two friends and we had just finished a spin around Central Park and decided to stop at Mickey Mantle’s restaurant for lunch (now closed, it was on Central Park South). It was crowded so we took some seats at the bar and ordered hamburgers.
We got talking to the bartender and it turned out he was from Wisconsin. So, the four of us are talking Wisconsin as the restaurant slowly clears out. He pulled out a shut box from the back of the bar and we played shutbox deep into the afternoon, until eventually the only people left are the four of us at one end of the bar and three Australian tourists planning their evening at the other end of the bar.
I had to go to the bathroom. The bathroom at Mantle’s was at the far end of the dining area. The area looked deserted but, just before the bathroom, I noticed a booth with one person. Mickey Mantle. he was drinking by himself in the restaurant bearing his name.. He never looked up and I didn’t say anything. I went to the bathroom and then back to the bar.
The pompatus of love
I had a girlfriend in New Jersey and the first time I stayed over she made poached eggs in the morning. Of all the ways I had eaten eggs, that was a first for me.
She loved bad movies, the badder the better. Probably the worst three movies I have ever seen in my life were her choice. We were coming home from some dreck movie involving Rob Lowe breaking up with his girlfriend when she started crying in my car. The movie reminded her of an old boyfriend who she had lived with before me. This, dear reader, was a subtle clue that, whatever the question was, maybe I wasn’t the answer.
Still, when God closes a door … to this day I often have poached eggs for breakfast on Sundays.
My life as a baseball fan
Some people pick the baseball team they root for but many, me included, the team picks them. In my case, this has led to an interesting fifty-year phenomenon:
* Subject to change
