I FEEL GUILTY

I don't fish anymore. It's a lot like golf, you know. While you're doing either they maybe aren't that fun. But when you're finished, you think about what a great time you had.

The first time I fished on a regular basis was the first year I was married. Loving to be outdoors and not having much spending money, we found fishing fun, inexpensive, and a way to be together.

What I didn't know was the my new wife just liked to catch fish--she didn't like to eat them. So we had a freezer full of fish that we had caught, cleaned, and packaged up for freezing, but didn't eat. We must have given them away; I don't recall. As a fish lover, I felt bad about making my new bride cook up something she didn't like.

I continued fishing with her and college friends for awhile. It must be confessed that I am a lousy fisherman, my largest catch ever not equaling even one pound. Oh, I could have set trot lines, I guess, but I preferred the catch, you know, fighting the fish. Of course when you're not any more successful than I, you don't have much of a fight to perform.

A non-hunter, now I've joined the ranks of a non-fisher, too. But I miss those days (and nights) of throwing in a line from my cane poles and Zebco reel. But I don't pass up a good fish at a restaurant. I can still enjoy that. And while I'm eating, just once in awhile, I can imagine that I caught the fish myself. With my trusty Zebco.

WIND AND WIND ARE SPELLED THE SAME

Whenever I travel, my wife makes the reservations. I mean, if we want to do it right. As a travel agent, she does it right. Except for one area. Car rental.

I always ask, "Did you get us a convertible?" Her answer 100% of the time is simply, "No."

She is not one for fresh air. I used to think it was the wind messing up her hair. As a back seat occupant of a 1958 convertible (and I had a flat top) I understand. When she's with me, she doesn't want me to use the sun roof in my car. And I'm not sure that she even knows she has one in hers.

It's not a lot different in our house. We have plenty of screens, but they're rarely opened. Granted AZ dust seeps into the house even when it's been shut up for two weeks. But fresh air is fresh air, even when it's stale. Or something like that.

Even on the coldest of nights I like to sleep with the window cracked just a bit. Nope. No more. Forced air or no air are my choices.

Finally, it's not that CQ doesn't love the outdoors. She certainly does. But it has its place. No outdoors indoors. I suppose vice versa. One good thing, though. My hair never gets messed up in our cars or our house.

SUDDENLY A SHOT RANG OUT

It was a dark and stormy night. Remember when Snoopy used to try to write? He couldn't get past the first couple of lines.

This picture reminded me of an assignment I used to give my students--the progressive story. I'd give them first lines for a story. They'd start, then I'd stop them and have them pass their papers to the person behind them while they received papers from another. They could add to or totally change the story. After five or six trades, the papers usually disentegrated. Students wouldn't bother to read all that the others had read, some would have the world blow up, and others would add innuendo. But it lasted for awhile, allowed students to see what others could create, and taught plot and subplot to some extent.

Oh, it wasn't original: I probably got the idea from a workshop or the English Journal. Teachers were famous for borrowing. But what bothered me the most is when grade school teachers would lift literature from the staples of high school curriculum. One year the largest feeder school elected to teach Romeo and Juliet. In other schools, teachers used Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, perhaps the best American short story ever, but it dealt with subjects that grade school students shouldn't be exposed to. While it's great to re-read some literature, many students never developed that interest, so they blew it off the second time. I know, high school teachers often rushed literature intended for college students. We had a teacher who wanted to teach classics that she detested (Pamela by Richardson was one) as a graduate student, because I had classes with her and we used to complain together. But on the other side of the desk and armed with answers, she wanted to teach them to her advanced students. But my animus is the same--teachers borrow, and the progressive story was good while it lasted.

Now, had I utilized this picture, I might have suggested some conflict based on the intensity of the frightened lady. And what's up with the highlighted hand.? Is is hers? Oh well; back to the drawing board.

SHE DOESN'T LOOK DANGEROUS

Under a bucket golf hat. Of course, color coordinated with her golf outfit. Sometimes, she even matches the color of her golf ball with what she's wearing, but not yesterday. It was humid. She was warming.

We had waited. Unmercifully. While the foresome in front of us played staggeringly slow. We had waited on every shot while they allowed the foresome in front of them to complete the hole before they teed off. For awhile we thought they thought it was cart path only. Then we decided they were just plain dumb. That's a collective we; I had ascertained that before we teed off on Number 1.

We had caught them on hole 4, a par three. It would have been so easy for them to allow us to play through. They didn't. Ditto, hole 5, a par four. So we waited and waited and watched as the oldest in the group took off walking and walking before he gave up on his shot out of bounds and walked (emphasis on slow, not my redundance) to the middle of the fairway to hit his second shot on number 6. On another hole, the other male in the foresome took off his socks and shoes to retrieve a ball in murky water.

More slow play on number nine, when they stopped their cart in the middle of the fairway 200 yards out. Unphased, my wife hits a monstrous drive past them. I expected a look over the shoulder, but they may have been so oblivious to everything that they didn't see how close to death they could have been. My wife's comment, "I didn't see them stop. And it was an exceptionally good shot."

My response,"That's just what I think when someone hits into me: that was an exceptionally good shot." She let it pass. Fortunately for me, because sometime I might just be ahead of her in the fairway when she decided to hit another exceptional shot. Probably not. I did say fairway, didn't I?

Q-TIPS, BUT WHY Q

Why are Q-tips not O-Tips? Where is the q? Sorry, I just don't see it? And why aren't they colored like those pictured? They could still perform the tasks they were set out to do.

Why is it a blue light special? Or what is so special about a blue light? Blue flame pizza, I understand; even once in a blue moon makes sense. But I never liked an all blue lit Christmas tree and don't understand a blue light special.

I also don't understand how my wife can refer to a point in golf. Today, on the second hole, she moved her tee shot from what should have been marked ground under repair. She informed me she wasn't adding a point for improving her lie. A point? I laughed, corrected her as husbands are required to do when their missus messes up on a golf course. She proceeded to beat me by 4 or 5 points when I lost my mind on the last two holes, one with the aid of some stupid wind chimes that happened to announce their presence right in the middle of a tricky golf shot over a lake.

It's been that kind of day: q-tips, blue lights and golf points. Also wind chimes have no place on a golf course.