Halloween Redux
We lived on a farm.
We celebrated Halloween at school.
One year, my mother decided to drive me to a few farm places in our neighborhood so I could have the experience of actually trick-or-treating.
Mom would knock on the door.
She’d introduce me and then tell the homeowner what I was supposed to be.
I was just along for the candy.
It worked for me.

ARGUING POLITICS
A friend and I were having a good-natured, but spirited discussion about politics.
As friends, we are able to argue without animosity, while making it clear that the other is a complete nincompoop that knows nothing and suspects very little.
After he made a statement that I could not believe he would make, I protested, “How can you say that? Don’t you ever read the newspapers?”
“Well,” he said, “I don’t read enough to spoil my opinions.”

FOOD FOLLIES
At this time of the year when many of us are faced with the Sisyphean task of eating lutefisk, I fondly recall some of the odd things eaten when I was a kid.
A neighbor girl delighted in making chocolate gravy. 
It was milk, sugar, and cocoa poured over a biscuit.

MAKING A FASHION STATEMENT 
I stand in a sartorial splendor that most would call rumpled.
I wear a Hawaiian shirt.
I do so in the belief that if I wear loud clothes, no one will notice that they are wrinkled.

NO TAPING
I asked him why he didn’t have a VCR.
He replied, “I can’t think of anything I want to watch that much that I’d be willing to learn how to operate a VCR.”

RUMINATIONS
Every night when I go to bed, I kiss my current wife goodnight and my covers goodbye.

Life is getting used to things.

Money may talk, but credit cards have an echo.

Growing old has one advantage - you don’t have to do it over again.

Put your troubles in a pocket that has holes in it.

Women spend a lot of time working on their eyebrows. Men seldom notice this and never care.

He told me that he was home schooled. Who wasn’t?

I don’t believe that the words “lutefisk” and “eat” should ever be used in the same sentence. 

We will have a really cold winter if the cows try to climb into the station wagon with you.

I have never thrown away a 5-gallon pail.

Never back up any farther than you have to.

If someone says, “I’m sorry to have to say this,” he or she usually isn’t sorry.

I like to make the same mistake twice, just to make sure it really was a mistake.

Movie trailers are made to set the stage for disappointment.

MARRIAGE
My current wife and I had decided that marriage would be in our plans.
She asked me how much money I had.
It was a reasonable question to pose at this point in our relationship.
I told her that all I had to my name was $22.17.
It wasn’t until after we were married that she learned that it was all borrowed.

BATTS AND BATS
We were boys who would play baseball until the bats came out and swooped through the air over our rudimentary baseball field.
When the bats were out, it was time to put the bats away.

OBSERVATIONS FROM ALASKA
A friend of mine, Kerry Seifert of Chugiak, Alaska, told me a delightful story while we were both in Haines, Alaska looking at bald eagles.
A group of children were looking at the many eagles there.
Bald eagles do not get the white heads and white tails until they are 4 to 6 years old.
As the children looked at an immature, brown-colored eagle, one asked, “Is that a grown-up eagle.”
“No,” came the reply from another child. “That’s an amateur eagle.”

THE MARRIAGE CHRONICLES
They are a couple of long standing.
They are great people.
He always has stories to tell.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this,” he said to me one day.
His wife added, “Oh, I’m sure you have.”

TRAFFIC ETIQUETTE
I am sitting at a red light.
The car ahead of me pulls ahead a couple of inches.
I am compelled to move up, too.
Peer pressure at its finest.
I thought I might be late for my appointment, but the few inches I moved will allow me to make my destination in plenty of time.

BIRD METEOROLOGY
The juncos hit it right on the head this year. Growing up, I was told that the first trackable snowfall would appear 6 weeks after the snowbirds returned. The juncos, gray on top like leaden skies and white on the bottom like snow, returned 6 weeks to the day before our snow fell. 

FINAL THOUGHTS
Be kind. It’s the right thing to do.

©Al Batt 2005