Rambling Josh

It took a few more days into camping season than is customary, but our 1967 Aristocrat Lo-Liner camper finally got out of the yard for a 6-day excursion at our favorite campground in the Black Hills. Black Fox is a remote campground that has nine first-come-first-serve campsites nestled amongst the spruce on South Fork Rapid Creek.

South Fork Rapid Creek does a lovely job of providing a continuous babbling background to whatever it is you find yourself doing while in camp. A few years ago, I started the personal tradition of reading Norman Maclean’s “A River Runs Through It” on the inaugural camping excursion to Black Fox each year.

South Fork Rapid Creek is not technically a river, it’s a bit narrow and a bit shallow, but what it lacks in breadth and depth, it more than makes up for in its ambient contributions to the Black Fox chorus. Technicalities are trite and tiresome tropes that often sacrifice the good in search of the perfect, so, I say, a river runs through it, and it makes a good read near perfect.

At one point in the biographical story, the author, Norman, writes about trying to figure out how to help his younger brother Paul with various life issues stemming from excessive gambling and drinking.

Norman asks his father for advice on the matter, and his dad replies, “Help is giving part of yourself to somebody who comes to accept it willingly and needs it badly. So it is, that we can seldom help anybody. Either we don’t know what part to give or maybe we don’t like to give any part of ourselves. Then, more often than not, the part that is needed is not wanted. And even more often, we do not have the part that is needed.”

In the end, Norman and his father, come to the conclusion that, “You can love completely without complete understanding, and it is those we live with and love and should know who elude us.” So it goes.

One issue with camping at Black Fox is that once you settle in, it’s hard to unsettle yourself to leave. But, eventually, the trappings of civilization, and the responsibilities that being a part of it entails, rear their heads in search of your time and attention, and perhaps, your help.

As we packed up, and rumbled over the cattle guard to leave Black Fox, I thanked that little bit of good in the woods for its time, and for always being able to give the parts of itself that are needed.

Happy Independence Day my friends. Be well.

When we last spoke I was preparing to traverse the 1,300 miles between Grenville, South Dakota, and Houston, Texas, in the company of a two-man expeditionary force. Both of whom, are well-seasoned Army veterans, battle hardened, and familiar with this particular expanse of terrain. I’m pleased to report that Operation Graduation was a rousing success.

Master Sergeant Bernard Lesnar and Corporal Anthony Lesnar are to be commended for exemplary performance of their duties as co-pilots, navigators, and general chit-chatters throughout the duration of the mission. Never wavering, never complaining, occasionally napping. Tony at 86, and Bernie at 85, have earned the right to nap whenever napping calls.

At 0800 hours on Saturday May 27th we departed Grenville, with Tony at the helm for the first leg of the journey. At 0845 hours, the first leg of the journey stopped for potato pancakes at Perkins in Watertown, after which, I willingly took the helm for the next 2,550 miles.

As I settled into the driver’s seat, Tony said, “Bernie and I have made a lot of trips to Texas over the years, but now they don’t let us go that far.” I simply nod. Nod in recognition of the many road trips Tony and Bernie have taken. Nod in agreement with whoever “they” are. A nod to the past, coming to terms with the present, and contemplating the future. So it goes.

Tony and Bernie seem to have committed every highway number within the continental United States to memory, and many times throughout the journey they would rattle off a few of these highway numbers and ask which of them I was planning to take, and many times I shrugged. Numbers make me shrug. The shrugging, and my statement, “if we keep driving south we should find Houston” seemed to raise suspicion amongst the ranks in my ability to effectively transport us to our expected destination.

Several hundred miles into the journey, Bernie asked, “What highway is this?” To which I responded, “I435. I think?” To which Tony responded, “No, the clock is right, it’s 3:30.” Perfect, we’re all on the same page.

At around 1900 hours, 700 miles south of our starting point, we stopped and set up camp at the Holiday Inn in Perry, Oklahoma. The measured shake and rattle of pill bottles and a few cautious blasts of south wind marked the end of day one. The morning of day two is marked by the same.

As we made landfall on Texas soil, I spied a rest stop on the horizon, and I asked, “Does anyone need a bathroom break?” Tony responded, “I do.” And inquired, “Bernie, do you need to stop for a bathroom break? Bernie replied, “No. I took a shower this morning.” I contemplated that exchange for the next 100 miles. “I took a shower this morning?”

Hearing aid effectiveness was impacted a bit by road noise and Johnny Cash’s “boom-chicka-boom-chicka”, so there were many conversational exchanges that I likened to a tetherball of words being chased and swatted around and around a pole. Sometimes the words eventually lined up and the point was successfully resolved, sometimes the words twisted and knotted around the pole, sometimes they were abandoned and left to waggle in the breeze.

The philosopher Fredrick Nietzsche once proposed the idea of Eternal Recurrence, in which he suggested that we should strive to live each day in such a way that we would be happy to live that day again, and again, and again if such a thing were possible.

I’d be happy to travel with Bernie and Tony again.

The thought I contemplated most over the course of the journey was, “How do I want to be treated when I’m 85?” If such a number is attained.

If my cognitive and physical capacities are somewhat sound, I want to be allowed a level of autonomy that is deemed appropriate through conversations with me, not in directives conceived entirely by others and handed down to me. I want opportunities to demonstrate competence without being pandered to like a child that has just successfully transferred a Cheerio from their highchair tray to their mouth. I want to be included in life, even if that inclusion takes a bit more time and effort from all involved. As Tony summed it up, “Yeah, I’m old, but I’m not dead.”

As the famous epitaph reads, “As you are now, so once was I. As I am now, soon you will be.” Happy summer trails my friends, may a bit of eternal recurrence find you.

Have you ever suggested something well in advance of something that was to occur and then wonder what you were thinking as the reality of that something draws near? In this context “suggested” implies that it was your bright idea, and that particular bright idea includes you as a major player in the execution and completion of the bright idea.

When we make suggestions well in advance, that something is in a fuzzy, hazy state, with borders, implications, and realities that are abstract and not well defined. From a distance, I may look 20-years old, but as one draws themselves nearer and the borders (wrinkles), become more well defined, one is quick to realize that distance and shadows clouded the reality of my being. In golfing parlance, I’m a 9-iron, I look good from about 100-yards out.

From 100-yards out, the suggestion of a road trip from Grenville South Dakota to Houston Texas, and back again, seemed like a good, or at least an interesting, idea. My track record for good ideas is admittedly short, and what I consider interesting is often met with question and doubt from the seemingly sane. The sane that opt for a few hours by air, rather than a few days by land.

I have nothing against air travel, I am a fervent fan of little bags of pretzels, and little bottles of liquor to wash down little bags of pretzels, but sometimes a situation calls for one to transcend such conveniences and descend upon the slow road.

My wife’s sister and her husband live in Houston, two of their children are graduating from high school in the next few weeks. My wife’s father, Bernie, and one of his brothers, Tony, are active participants in the lives of the previously mentioned branch of the family tree, and thus, were planning to attend the graduation festivities in Houston.

Knowledge of the dates and times of graduation festivities is generally known well in advance of the specified date and time of such festivities…months…days…100-yards. A distance far enough removed to offer a buffer-zone in which a bright idea might percolate.

“You fly, I’ll drive Bernie and Tony to Houston.” Someone like myself said to someone like my wife several months ago. Why did someone like myself say such a thing to someone like my wife?

Partly for you dear reader, yes you. Writing is birthed from experiences, and if I cease to have experiences, I cease to have anything to write about. Also, given the option, I knew Bernie and Tony would prefer to roll with a road trip rather than be herded and hustled through the friendly skies.

Those two have made many such road trips in the past, but as that past slips further from view, their loved ones have begun to question and object to such. So it goes.

Bernie and Tony are good men, and have both managed to remain largely autonomous in most every aspect of their lives as they move past the midway point of their eighth decade. They are old men, old men that don’t hear so well, and often repeat each other as a result of not really hearing each other. I’m not a young man, but I’m young in comparison, and my hearing is relatively sound, so I will hear whatever it is they are both talking about, from both of them, for roughly 2,500 miles.

Gas prices and the weather…in stereo, on repeat. Stay tuned.

In the end…all was well, but in the beginning, or more accurately, the time leading up to the beginning, had moments of trepidation. Many moons ago, the Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote, “We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.” It often seems that no matter the number of moons that pass over, illuminating all that changes in civilization, much stays the same amongst the thoughts and behaviors of humankind.

Like “mooning” for instance. Not the “wandering idly” or “romantically pining” type of mooning, but the type that the Oxford English Dictionary describes as, “exposing one’s buttocks to someone in order to insult or amuse them.”

In researching the act, it seems that throughout recorded history, and presumably for as long as humans have been in possession of a buttocks, mooning has been a form of expression. Google told me, “In January 2006, a Maryland state circuit court determined that mooning is a form of artistic expression protected by the First Amendment as a form of speech.”

Public Service Announcement: In 2021, the U.S. Preventive Service Task Force and the American Cancer Society issued a new recommendation that colorectal cancer screening begin at age 45 rather than 50.

I did not arrive at the Endoscopy Center with the intent to “insult” or “amuse” the medical professionals that have dedicated their lives to exploring the murky depths of humankind. I arrived, because at 50, I’m a few moons behind the recommended date of exploration. I arrived now, because in the past, I allowed trepidation and consternation to kick the can down the road.

In the end, Seneca was right. So it goes.

When I was 10-years old I was lying on the floor within arm’s length of the knobs on our 5,000lb television set. I was lying within arm’s length, because in 1982, 10-year old kids were the standard issue remote control for the televisions in most American households. The standard remote to turn the knob between all three channels, and the technician charged with adjusting the rabbit ears or providing the occasional whack to the behemoth when the screen started misbehaving.

M.A.S.H. was on, so knowing channel changing wouldn’t be necessary for a bit, I was spending my break lying on my back tossing a lead fishing weight into the air above me. Why? That’s a dumb question to ask a 10-year-old. They never know why.

It was one of those tear drop shaped weights, roughly the size of a Milk Dud. Side note, if you want to shut a 10-year-old up for a bit, a box of Milk Duds will do the trick.

Anyway…I’m lying on my back, casually tossing the fishing weight up towards the popcorn ceiling, Dad, after a long day in the oilfield, is relaxing on the couch three feet away, smoking a Vantage Menthol, Hawkeye and Charles Emerson Winchester III are exchanging zingers while operating on Korean War casualties, and I miss handle the lead fishing weight on its return flight.

It bounces of my hand and into my gapping 10-year-old mouth, bypassing the lips, teeth, tongue, and uvula, it comes to rest cozily in back of my throat. In a panic, I thrash around a bit on the shag carpet trying to dislodge the fishing weight that is blocking my airway and ability to speak. Dad, used to odd behavior from his son, pays no mind to the struggle for life that is occurring to the laugh track emanating from the television.

The lead fishing weight wouldn’t come up, so I went with option two, and it went down. From deaths doorstep I went out to the kitchen and told Mom what had happened. The perplexed and bewildered look I had grown accustomed to seeing whenever I tried to explain my behavior took its usual place on her face, and she either asked me “why” or muttered “why” to herself in regards to the fix she’d gotten into with this whole motherhood gig. Either way, I shrugged the stupid shrug of a 10-year-old.

As the sedation dissipated, and the grogginess subsided, my kindly gastroenterologist stopped by to tell me of his journey to my moon and beyond. When I inquired, he quite confidently assured me that he had not found my long-lost fishing tackle, or anything else of interest. In the end…all was well.

It’s a glorious week. It is finals week on campus. That week when some students suddenly become interested in, or more accurately, concerned about, their grades, and ask, “What do I need to do to pass your class?” I generally respond along the lines of, “The same thing the students that are going to pass my class did…the coursework that was assigned each week for the past 16-weeks.” That doesn’t seem to be what they want to hear? I’m not sure what they want to hear?

After all, they are a college student, they have been in classes before, they do know how this school thing works. “What do I need to do to pass your class?” Perhaps they are implying “doing” something other than the coursework to pass my class? Washing my car, doing my laundry, shuttling me around campus in a rickshaw, sitting in meetings for me, reading the newspaper to me with an Irish brogue, handing me a briefcase stuffed with cash?

While contemplating the potential grade value of a personal rickshaw service, I stopped into the campus convenience store to get a snack, and the student-employee working the cash register said, “You look tired.” No “hi”, no “how’s it goin'”, just “you look tired.” To which I responded, “You mean old?” She just smiled. Smiled a smile that I’ve seen people courteously, yet disingenuously, point at elderly people as they don’t listen to a word they are saying. “You look tired.” Well missy, you look as if you may fail my class.

“I don’t feel tired” I thought, as I stopped into the restroom to see if there was a discernable sheen of overt haggardly tiredness smeared about my face. Nope. All the craggy crevices and furrows are in their preferred places of prominence. Right where I saw them that very morning as I was contemplating trimming my ear hair or giving them another day of freedom and frivolity. I guess I should have trimmed them.

The power and sway that can be exerted on us by something as simple as a few random words has always been intriguing to me. An intriguing, and a cautionary tale regarding the importance and impact of choosing one’s words wisely. There are lots of words to choose from, but if one is feeling truly wise, they often should abstain from choosing at all. Or at least deferring utterances until sufficient levels of contemplation, or blood alcohol, are achieved.

They say we have two ears and one mouth for a reason. We’re supposed to listen twice as much as we speak. What do “they” know? I say we have two ears so we don’t have to use five fingers to hold our sunglasses on while our one mouth runs through the briers, runs through the brambles, runs the bushes where a rabbit, or common sense, couldn’t go.

As I heard Mr. Savelkoul proclaim many times in high school history class, “It is better to look the part of the fool, than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.” I can’t remember what he said about history? So it goes.

Have you ever been engaged in the task of seeking out and purchasing a new vehicle, when, seemingly overnight, the particular make, model, and color of the vehicle you have taken a shine to begins showing up everywhere and anywhere you happen to be? “It must be a sign. The chartreuse microbus, that C.W. McCall sang about, was meant to be mine.”

Yes, it is a sign, a sign that you are a fairly normal human, in possession of a fairly normal human brain. A brain that likes to subconsciously seek out things we have a conscious interest in, and then kindly inform us each time that thing makes an appearance somewhere in our sensory orbit. “There it is. See it? There it is. Hear it? There it is. There it is….” And so forth and so on…and on…and on.

Being a fairly normal human, in possession of a fairly normal human brain, I was curious why these “signs” kept magically appearing? A quick trip to the Googlesphere informed my brain that the seemingly newfound prevalence of chartreuse microbuses in my world was a result of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon…and C.W. McCall.

Professor Arnold Zwicky referred to this phenomenon as the “frequency illusion” and said, “A couple of things happen when the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon kicks in. One, your brain seems to be excited by the fact that you’ve learned something new, and selective attention occurs. So now that you’re looking for it, you find it. To make it all the more powerful, confirmation bias occurs after seeing it once or twice, and you start agreeing with yourself that, yes, you’re definitely seeing it more.”

“You’re looking for it, you find it.” If you’ve ever moved, and had the pleasure of somewhat strategically, and somewhat carefully, stuffing your stuff into the back of a U-Haul, you probably experienced the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon and started noticing U-Hauls everywhere.

I’ve had the pleasure a time or two, and as a result, U-Hauls are on my radar, and when that subconscious radar “blips” with a sighting, my fairly normal human consciousness begins to ponder.

Where are they going? Where are they coming from? Why are they moving? Did they want to move? Did they have to move? How much stuff is in the back of that truck? Did they do a good job of utilizing the space to its fullest potential? What’s the heaviest thing? How many things will be in more pieces when they are unpacked than when they were packed? How many lamps do they have?

At the end of all that pondering, my hope for those that possess the stuff stuffed into “Mom’s Attic” and beyond, is that they find what they are looking for wherever it is they are headed. Find what they are looking for. Find what they want. But mostly, find what they need.

Often, we may not really know what it is that we need, but it has a way of finding us. So it goes.

Welcome to April. The month charged with providing showers to supply May with flowers. The transitional and temperamental conditions of April make for some miserable conditions for athletics in the Dakota’s. Track, baseball, softball, tennis, and golf in April are no fun to play, nor much fun to watch.

Fun or not, we play, and we watch. Is play without fun, really play? It has always miffed me a bit, as a competitor and as a spectator, when the objective of a competition was reduced to a matter of enduring it until it’s over, reduced to going through the motions rather than competing.

It’s akin to “killing time”. Time is not in need of killing, it dies much to readily on its own. So it goes.

Players, coaches, parents, spectators, bus drivers, concession workers, etc., all these people, putting all this time and effort into preparing for, and attending these competitions, in return for what? Frostbite? Windburn? Tepid slushburgers? Frozen licorice whips?

Meeting for the sake of meeting, also falls into this dastardly realm of blindly slaughtering time. In my line of work, the pandemic was useful in curtailing some of this senseless slaughter. Post-pandemic, we meet when we “need” to meet. Novel idea. Thank you COVID-19.

I recently attended a conference in Chicago, a conference consisting of a variety of educational and informational sessions. Meetings that I was pleasantly surprised to find were quite useful, thought-provoking, and interesting. A good use of my time.

I had passed through Chicago before, but had never had the chance to hangout and explore a bit. In comparison to New York City, I found Chicago to be “quaint” and easy to navigate.

Although, it was easy to navigate, whenever I’m in a big city, I always think about chase scenes in movies or television shows. Sadly, I’ve never been chased, or been the chaser, in a big city, but I have a suspicion that the onscreen depictions aren’t a very accurate portrayal of the actuality of the matter.

Cars don’t go very fast when they can’t move. I’ve never found car chase scenes all that interesting, but I suppose an onscreen car chase that consisted of someone leisurely strolling up to a car stuck in traffic wouldn’t be all that exciting for all involved?

Foot chases aren’t much more interesting than car chases, but they are equally improbable. It’s hard enough for two people that are trying to find one another in the hustle and bustle of big city sidewalks to do so, so I don’t understand how one couldn’t successfully evade their pursuer in such mix and mangle of folks?

Besides, either the chaser or the chased would either pull a hamstring or experience so much chafing from running in pants not designed to be ran in, that the chase would be over in about 2-blocks. On a side note, watching people run through airports is one of the greatest pleasures of air travel.

I suppose there’s only one way to answer these questions. Next trip should be exciting. I’m sure the police will understand…if they catch me.

My wife and I just returned home from a trip to visit our daughter, Sierra, in Brooklyn. She’s doing well, but the ebb and flow, and the fits and starts of work in the film industry can be a bit worrisome at times.

Except for a few sprinkles and a bit of wind here and there, New York in March was pleasant and cool, with a smattering of Spring color starting to raise its head from its quiet slumber into the never ending clatter above ground.

If you are planning a visit to the Big Apple, but are concerned your wardrobe may not be of the fashion deemed fashionable among New Yorkers, don’t be. You can drape yourself in as much, or as little, of whatever your heart desires, and nobody…nobody…will bat an eye.

Remember that new bathrobe of mine that I was carrying on about in the last column? I had hunch those things could be a slippery slope, and that hunch was confirmed in NYC.

One day you write a column in it, the next you maybe stroll to the mailbox, and then one day you find yourself marching confidently, almost brazenly, with the hordes through Times Square at two o’clock in the afternoon on a Tuesday, dress shoes, briefcase, and smartly swaddled bathrobe. That guy was having himself a good day. I batted an eye. I was impressed.

I was laid low by some sort of intestinal issue for the entirety of one day of the trip. It’s an accusation that it pains me to make, but I believe that I may have overindulged in the fine selection of cured meats that presents itself at every corner deli, on seemingly every corner. What’s the son of a butcher to do?

There’s no better way to see the city than on foot, and most days my phone, who apparently has nothing better to do than count my steps, informed us that we had taken over 20,000 steps. My phone was also kind enough to inform me that the 35 steps I took during the salami induced sick day was “significantly” less than the 20,000 steps I had taken the day before. Smartphone indeed.

Sierra’s cats, JoJo and Fester, who were entrusted with my convalescent care while the humans enjoyed gelato and life among the upright, must have been batting my deli-scented phone around during my cold cut coma, because I definitely did not walk 35 steps that day. When you’re sick like that, it’s hard to remember what it feels like to feel good, you just know you don’t want to feel bad anymore. Thankfully, it was just a 24-hour reminder.

I’ve been a bit sausage-shy since. Hopefully this little intestinal disagreement doesn’t harbor the same results as the one I had with Jack Daniels 20 years ago. Sour mash indeed. Old Number 7 and I haven’t spoken since. So it goes.

Something that I noticed this trip, more so than our other visits, was the days don’t seem to have a “feel” in the big city. Any given day or night has that weekend, Friday and Saturday night feel. Maybe it’s just because when you’re on vacation you don’t pay much mind to what the days name happens to be?

They were good days…even the bad one.

It’s been quite a few years since I owned a bathrobe. Exactly how many years, I can’t recall? Perhaps somewhere around 1980, just before I entered into my double-digit birthday phase of life? Double-digit birthdays, such a milestone. Quite a chasm between double-digit and triple-digit birthdays. That’s a milestone more than a few miles to far for the majority of us human folk.

A quick Google search indicates that there are roughly 92,000 centenarians in the United States, and 85 percent of them are women. It is predicted that by the year 2060, the number of folks in the United States celebrating triple-digit birthdays will be closer to 600,000.

Why such an increase? The majority of experts point to boring old medical advances, but comfortably residing far outside the realm of “experts”, I point to bacon, bathrobes, and backup cameras. Or, as those in my camp refer to it, “The 3-B Effect”. You are more than welcome to join my camp, there’s plenty of room, not an expert in sight, and fistfuls of bacon.

BYOB is the only rule. Actually, it’s not so much a rule as it is a kindly suggestion. You are more than welcome to use my bathrobe, but as I only have one, that will leave me bathrobeless. A precarious condition in which to make bacon. I suppose we could share? If such is the case, I request the right-side, I can’t properly feather my hair with my left hand. So it goes.

Yes, you read that right, after a hiatus of many, many decades, I am once again the proud owner of a bathrobe. I never thought I was the bathrobe type, but as I sit here writing my first bathrobe clad column, I realize that there was this whole other world that I have been missing out on. A world where Obi-Wan Kenobi of Star Wars and The Dude of The Big Lebowski are one.

A world forever bereft of scampering to appear in what society has deemed “dressed” when the doorbell unexpectedly dings and dongs. “My apologies, you caught me in the middle of my Judo training.”

Back to “The 3-B Effect” and its dramatic impact on the quantity, and perhaps quality, of centenarians. Bacon gives many people something to live for, an answer to “why should I get out of bed today?” As German philosopher, Fredrich Nietzsche, once said, “Those who have a why to live can bear most any how.” It is no coincidence that frying bacon sounds like a crowd whipped into a frenzy, wildly cheering you on to rise to the challenge, to face yet another day on the stretch of days towards triple-digit birthdays.

I’ve already expressed a few positive attributes of the bathrobe, but have you ever considered the number of people who totter over and meet their demise while attempting to get dressed? Trousers, socks, underwear, culottes…deathtraps.

This is where the bells and whistles of the modern automobile step in to round out the life-extending impact of the “The 3-B Effect”. Centenarians, in their shrunken state, are easy to miss with a cursory glance in the rearview mirror as one distractedly backs out of their parking spot at the BINGO Palace, contemplating which bathrobe they are going to purchase with their winnings. Velour…terry cloth…sateen…fleece…? BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

May the force be with you.

My wife and I are friends with a couple that lives in Helena, Montana, and every so often we try and meet for weekend getaway somewhere between Rapid City and Helena to hang out, chit-chat, drink a bit, and laugh a lot. There’s quite a bit of “somewhere” between Rapid City and Helena, but we often end up somewhere near Yellowstone National Park.

“My wife and I are friends with a couple”, is not something I often say, as more often than not, “My wife has a friend” is a more accurate assessment of the social connection. Whether that friend has a husband or significant other is of little concern to me, unless my wife makes it my concern.

A few years back, my wife called me and said, “My friend Shelley is in town, and I’m going to meet her and her husband Aaron downtown for dinner. Would you like to join us? I think you’ll like him.” Now it is my concern.

“I think you’ll like him” is just a pile of words, but it is a pile of words that has most likely been descending upon men and making them cringe for as long as there have been wives with friends who have husbands.

It is a phrase that will send my brain rummaging frantically about, whirling and searching wildly for an excuse, a prior engagement, a medical procedure, a highly contagious or socially awkward illness, absolutely anything that could possibly sternly occupy the sliver of time that specific gathering is to occur.

As my brain searches in vain, my mind reminds me of something Kurt Vonnegut wrote in Cat’s Cradle, “She was ransacking her mind for something to say, finding nothing in it but used Kleenex and costume jewelry.” So it goes.

Once my brain dejectedly drops the rickety bushel basket of used Kleenex and costume jewelry it has feverishly collected, my mind thinks, “I won’t like him, and I know he won’t like me.” The beauty of it all, is that you can rest assured that when you arrive at dinner, smile and shake the other guys hand, that if you look closely you’ll see remnants of Kleenex and costume jewelry clouding his eyes as well.

Social connections are an important component of our healthspan, they impact the quality of our lives just as much as eating right and regular exercise. Perhaps more so? The reserves of my social connections have been enhanced greatly because of my wife.

What constitutes “enough” social connections in ones life is highly individual, and largely dependent upon where one sits on the introverted/extroverted spectrum. That spectrum is generally a sliding scale that shifts with the situation, the company, the mood, or the quantity of libation.

Sometimes scales can be wrong. Sometimes we need more of something we didn’t think we needed. Sometimes we’re a little light in the social connections department, but don’t realize it until we quit rummaging through the used Kleenex and costume jewelry and just indulge.

Finding nothing but used Kleenex and costume jewelry that day, I begrudgingly indulged, and since that indulgence, Shelley and Aaron have become “our” friends. Friends that have made my social reserves deeper and richer.

I still reflexively cringe when my wife drops that particular pile of words on me, and I imagine I always will, but I’ve found a few people I now call “friend” under that pile. People that add to the quality of my life.