Two old Pollock’s and a middle-aged Welsh-German-Norwegian-French Canadian-Irishman walk into a blue grass festival. The middle-aged mutt says, “Should we sit over here?” One old Pollock says, “Sure I’ll have a beer.” The other says, “Should we sit over here?” The middle-aged mutt says, “It looks like there are three empty chairs over there.” One old Pollock says, “I emptied my underwear before we left the house.” The other says, “It looks like there are three empty chairs over there.” The middle-aged mutt says, “Let’s sit here.” One old Pollock says, “Sure I’ll have a beer.” The other says, “Let’s sit here.”

The middle-aged mutt says, “The music’s about to start did you turn the ringer off on your phone?” One old Pollock says, “Yes I got a low interest car loan.” The other says, “The music’s about to start did you turn the ringer off on your phone?” The middle-aged mutt says, “Would you like a beer?” One old Pollock says, “No I want to sit here.” The other says, “Would you like a beer?” The middle-aged mutt says, “How do you like the music?” One old Pollock says, “Yes I used to have moustache before I joined the army.” The other says, “How do you like the music?”

My father-in-law and his brother, Tony, have stopped in for a few days on their return trip from their yearly bowling pilgrimage to Reno. They are an entertaining duo and we always enjoy having them here for a visit. Lots of card playing, coffee drinking and general farting around (figuratively and literally) is usually on the agenda when they come to town.

I’m not particularly good at playing and remembering card games and poor Tony gets stuck being my partner all the time in whist. Thankfully he is patient, forgiving and has learned to have very low expectations when sitting at a card table across from me. He doesn’t expect me to play a certain suit at a certain time because I have absolutely no idea what suit to play at a certain time.

It’s not from lack of instruction from those that know how to play the game…I just have a blind spot in my brain for card games…a big blind spot. Several well-meaning people have went through agonizing hours to teach me a card game only to have it slip from mind sometime between them saying, “Ok…you got it?” and them shuffling the cards.

Several of my college baseball teammates used to play cards on the bus during our endless road trips to far reaching corners of the Midwest. One of them got spooked when he overheard me conversing with a cornfield we were driving by and in an attempt to salvage my psychological well-being, insisted I join them in playing cards. I wasn’t really conversing with the cornfield, I was conversing to the cornfield. I’m well aware most cornfields don’t talk but they are all wonderful listeners…they are all ears after all. So it goes.

We had a wonderful weekend of blue grass, bowling, basketball and bantering over cards and we look forward to their next visit. I would like to promise Tony that I’ll be a better whist partner next time we play but the cornfield insisted that giving him false hope was worse than giving him no hope.

I hope you had a wonderful St. Patrick’s Day. As some Irishman once said, “May those that love us love us…and for those that don’t love us may God turn their hearts…and if he can’t turn their hearts may he turn their ankles so we’ll know them by their limping.” Luck to ya till we meet again.