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Historical Summer 2020 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
After almost sixty years, I finally settled into a normal lifestyle.
Then life springs a new normal on me. What’s the expression? You can’t teach an old dog a new normal?
I guess I shouldn’t complain. So far, the new normal hasn’t affected my health or employment. For that, I’m grateful. There’s a heightened appreciation for food and beverage in the new normal.
The family dinner has made a comeback.
I remember the old family dinner.
It was like a trip to Red Riding Hood’s Grandmother’s house; a lot of snarling, gnashing and devouring, without so much as an excuse me.
Now there’s an abundance of sharing, caring and Chardonnay, which is a happy ending.
However, COVID-19 is turning into COVID-15 along the waistline. I’ve had to up my tee shirt game one XL. Couple the flowing gowns, with no haircuts and I’m beginning to look like a Maharishi.
My wife keeps trying to sell me on a picnic. ‘Let’s eat sandwiches in the grass.’ But, I’ve resisted.
I think what she really wants to do is fly a kite.
Most people view the kite as an accessory to the picnic. You pack the sandwiches, the deviled eggs, and the poetry, and then throw in a kite for good measure. Yet she requires no sustenance or iambic pentameter, just plenty of string and a swift wind. It’s almost like a bait and switch.
She contends, ‘You’ll get some fresh air and exercise. And, it’s fun. Remember the Mary Poppins song, ‘Let’s Go Fly a Kite’? Pretend you’re Bert, the Chimney Sweep.’ It’s not that hard to pretend.
I dance like Bert, played by Dick Van Dyke, and he’s ninety four. Being supercalifragile is simply quite atrocious.
I have to give her credit though.
As long as I’ve known her, she’s been good at making fun.
It occurred to me that I haven’t been responsible for my own fun, since the summer of ‘68. I’ve relied on others to create my fun for me, in one way or the other. Be it the waiter, the ticket taker, the beer vendor, or the soda jerk, never has so much fun been owed to so many.
Now there isn’t any. How’s that for the new normal?
But life is precarious, like the kite dependent on the change of wind. One moment it’s soaring and majestic, the next; it’s in the dumpster with the deviled eggs.
The trick is to manage the wind, and keep it flying, no matter how low it gets.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, Summer 2020.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times2020_06.pdf, printed page(s) 3; PDF page(s) 3.
