Jimmie Rodger's Straw Hat

The straw hat was once considered the height of fashion in the 1920s and 1930s. I can remember while working in a drug store in 1980, every Sunday morning an old guy would come in dressed in his finest, wearing his straw hat and, I am guessing, thinking he was the height of sartorial style. I think of this when I go to work dressed in my suit and tie and everyone else is dressed in casual pants and shirt. I think I look very nice and professional when in reality I am probably the 21st century equivalent of the guy in the straw hat.

Decade almost done!

What is all of this obsession with the passage of time? In fact, reviewing the last few years of this blog, it's all me bemoaning the fact that I am aging or expressing amazement that so much time has passed since a certain event or experience occurred. So instead, I will do my best of 2019.  I will limit it to that as I can't sort out what happened between this decade and the last.

Best concert: considering that I only went to about 5, I'd say it was Squeeze at Parx Casino. They were among my favorite bands in the 80's so hearing them play all of the songs I loved so well was a pleasure.

Best book I read: The Winter War by Eric Rauschway. About the interregnum between Hoover and FDR in 1932-33 and the steps Hoover took to try to sabotage the New Deal. As with concerts, I probably read fewer books than I would have liked, considering how many and how quickly I needed to read in my master's program. I have spent a lot of my reading time on antebellum America, specifically slavery. The worst part is that I forget a lot of the details in what I have read so can't quote chapter and verse. Right now I am plowing through Black Reconstruction by W.E.B. DuBois, mostly out of a sense of duty. I still haven't investigated adjunct teaching at a community college but with retirement not too far away, I may be more motivated. I am attending a lot of sessions on pedagogy at the AHA convention this weekend for some ideas I can use in the future.

Best Movie- again, not too many candidates. I did see The Irishman in the theater and liked it, despite DeNiro being one of the least Irish looking actors who could have been chosen for the part. Mostly movies on Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Best Run: Love Half Marathon in Philly. It was my best time- 1:53 and I finished in the top 15% of my age group. Unhappily, my IT band has been acting up again. It doesn't affect me when I run, just afterward. I hope I am ready for the Love Run again in 3 months.

Best Training run: Along the Merrimack river in New Hampshire while on a work trip. I was expecting to run a few loops though an apartment complex to get three miles in but on the way back took a detour and discovered a trail along the river. I still only did three miles but in the unlikely event that I stay at the same hotel again, I will do the entire run on the trail, as it looked like it went for several more miles after my turn around.

Best shopping bargain: I forgot to pack a tie to match my sport coat so went to a mall looking for an inexpensive one. I saw plenty of $40 ties but none of them were what I wanted to spend that much on. My last stop was the budget store in the Macy's basement where I found the perfect Michael Kors silk tie for $7.99. It's still in my regular tie rotation.

Best Manchester United season- certainly not this one. They are a downslide since 2013 so even though I usually watch every game, it's never all that pleasurable.  I was definitely spoiled by the success in the 2000s which is when I started following them intensely.

Best wine I bought: Duckhorn Sauvignon Blanc. Made even better that it was on a restaurant wine list, so I recommended it to acclamation by my dinner companions who drink white wine.

Best meal: Cava, a tapas place in Portsmouth NH. I was there for work so not my ideal dining companion but food was amazing and we had some good rioja to accompany it. Lots of other meals that were good but not outstanding.

Best experience: grandfatherhood. Hands down

Years almost done

Yes it is. As it has been for the past 35 years, I am waiting for sales to come in to see whether I make any real money. This year may be pretty lean as the factors affecting the industry have finally caught up to us. Then as usual, I am preparing for a meeting in a warm resort in January. This year it is back to Scottsdale where I have some pleasant memories of climbing Camelback Mountain, among other things. I hope that I can still have the stamina to do it. My IT band has been acting up from distance running so I am resting until mid-January when I will begin training for another half marathon, my 21st. I am just going to use an elliptical for cardio until then. I am down to a weight I like so don't want to add the pounds I took off due to dental surgery.

This song always reminds me of Scottsdale.

Lucinda Williams

I am finally seeing Lucinda Williams after liking her for 20 years. She is playing in Princeton for the 20th anniversary of the Car Wheels on a Gravel Road album. There are a bunch of artists I want to see before they die. She isn't in the age group where I expect her to go soon but I am always surprised at who is dying. She is in the area quite a lot so I am taking advantage of her playing at a great venue. I checked her set list out and see that she plays a lot of my favorites, though I didn't see "Something About What Happens When We Talk" on it. I am also seeing Willie Nelson next week. He is definitely in the "see him quick before he dies" age group. Bob Dylan is another one, but I have heard he doesn't play guitar anymore because of arthritis. He just plays piano. It is surprising that I have never seen him. I just recently watched the Rolling Thunder documentary on Netflix and saw that he played a show on that tour very close to where I was living. I can only assume that, as a poor student, I didn't have the money to see him. I am certain that I was a fan.

16 Years ago

It is getting to be a regular theme on this blog as I post on how time is passing. It's been 16 years since my dad was killed in an accident in London. He was actually relatively young when he died and would have been 90 on his last birthday. I'm not that far from the age he was when he died, which is a very sobering thought. It's also been 16 years since I was in a job with colleagues I really liked with whom I had very memorable times. That continued until about when the company was sold. In fact, I can remember dancing at the awards banquet at the final meeting to this REM song:



 I wrote a letter to myself in 2007 and sent it to "future me." It arrived in 2017. Much of it didn't turn out the way I expected, though I still like soccer and play guitar. I gave up on crosswords which occupied a lot of my time. I just thought there were better ways to use my time like reading all of history books I missed in my graduate education. No plans to write another letter to Future me in 2029. With any luck we will not have suffered through a second presidential term.

Time Flies as usual

Wow, it's been almost 6 months since I wrote anything on here. It's not that my life has been especially eventful since the end of 2018. I am pretty much doing the same stuff I have been doing for the last little while: working, running, playing music, reading history, following soccer. I have been trying to form a new band with some musicians I connected with on Craig's List. It will be early 80's new wave: Smiths, Squeeze, Elvis Costello, XTC, etc.  I doubt that it will have much of an audience as it wasn't all that popular in the US. And the crowd who might know it are in their 40s and 50s and not the types who go out to hear live music.  Still it is fun to play, which is the main reason why I keep doing it.

60s music has a broader appeal to both younger and older crowds, especially when you play a lot of Beatles and Rolling Stones.   My old bandmate, who moved south, has been getting lots of gigs playing the same music we played up here. He's in a smaller metro area so there is not as much competition and there are lots of retirees who do have the time. money and inclination to go out. I try not to get too nostalgic but that music is 50 years old. I have no clue what the popular music of today sounds like other than it all seems kind of repetitive and uninspiring to me.

Another year is almost done

... and for the 35th year in a row I am planning a visit to some place warmer for a meeting. Well, that is not quite right because of the virtual meetings in 2010 through 2013. Then there was the year "sabbatical" in 2014. In 2017 it was Seattle where it was cold so it counts as a winter meeting but not as a warm place. Anyway, it is Austin this time where I haven't been in 15 years. My friend from high school who was also my college roommate lives there so I was hoping to catch up with him. I don't have his email so I sent a letter but haven't heard from him. The letter was not returned which I assume means he is not interested. He had a car accident about 30 year ago and was in a coma for awhile. He was a really smart guy before the accident but lost some of his cognitive ability after that. If I had heard from him, I might have taken an extra day to hang out there.

Moving on to other important developments, I have finally achieved status on an airline. It's only Gold but at least for a year, I will be able to board a plane early. It is not that I am traveling anymore. I just made a determined effort to stay on one airline- American- instead of looking for the cheapest flight, regardless of the carrier. But not that I have done it, it may not last. My group is changing so I won't be flying as much. But next year, I will enjoy what I have. First class upgrades will still be few. I was flying back from Charlotte three weeks ago and was #50 on the list for upgrades.

Nothing going on musically since my guitar buddy moved south in retirement. I  have responded to a few ads but not much has happened. I am maintaining the band site to give people an idea of what I can do. I moved it from Squarespace to WordPress because WordPress is cheaper. I even took advantage of the Freakonomics discount code. Squarespace has nicer templates so the site looked better before. I am getting a new Mac so may try to do some home recording with it. That is if I can stand listening to the sound of my voice.

Happy 2019 to all!