So, Saturday and Sunday I was heading to and returning from the White Mountains of Northern New Hampshire.\u00a0 This has turned into an annual pilgrimage to commune with \u201cthe boys.\u201d\u00a0 I called it a meeting of the He-Man Woman Haters\u2019 Club but really, it\u2019s just an excuse to hang out with friends and shoot the breeze about life and getting old.\u00a0 So, what\u2019s wrong with that.\u00a0 To continue a tradition (started last year) we watched a classic comedy from the bad old days.\u00a0 This year it was \u201cPlanes, Trains and Automobiles\u201d (1987).\u00a0 I had forgotten some of the minor characters and the absurdity of some of the episodes but it was just as funny today as it was almost forty years ago.\u00a0 Remarkable.\u00a0 They actually knew how to make a relatable comedy back then.\u00a0 Who knew?<\/p>\n
Most of the festivities consisted of us eating and drinking good stuff, listening to music from our heyday and throwing wood on an outdoor fire to keep from freezing to death.\u00a0 Oh, and the boys drank a bunch of bourbon and smoked some (what I assume were) good cigars.\u00a0 Being an abstemious bore I only enjoyed this aspect vicariously.\u00a0 But they observed due moderation and therefore could still communicate in intelligible English even at the end of the celebration.\u00a0 Kudos!<\/p>\n
And the festivities included music by our two troubadours debuting a song in voice and guitar accompaniment that celebrated our long association and its origins in the legendary \u201ccoffee walk\u201d from out of the mists of time.\u00a0 And its various incarnations over the years including the present-day Wednesday Zoom call.\u00a0 Wonderfully entertaining.<\/p>\n
And then we segued into a sing-along by the group on favorites in the folk and country genres.\u00a0 Even I, a man with absolutely zero singing ability, had to join in during the verses that I knew from Gordon Lightfoot\u2019s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”<\/p>\n
\u201cThe legend lives on from the Chippewa on down<\/strong><\/p>\n Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee<\/strong><\/p>\n Superior, they said, never gives up her dead<\/strong><\/p>\n When the gales of November come early\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n And every once in a while, there would be a conversation where we\u2019d talk about current events and political considerations.\u00a0 And one of them was early Sunday morning before most of the crew woke up.\u00a0 It started with a story from one of the guys about a relative of his that had serious TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) and the futility of trying to \u201cdiscuss\u201d facts or anything else in these situations.<\/p>\n And I gave my stock answer.\u00a0 I said Trump is far from the perfect politician or president but he attempts to accomplish the things he says he wants to do.\u00a0 And those are the things that other Republicans say they want to do but never, even try.\u00a0 He\u2019s the real deal.\u00a0 He exposed the liars like JEB! Bush and all the rest of the RINOs.<\/p>\n And my friend said his favorite aspect of Trump\u2019s reign of terror was how he took \u201cLittle Marco\u201d and turned him around and showed him he could succeed by actually giving the voters what they asked for instead of what the donors want.<\/p>\n And I said my favorite part was DOGE.\u00a0 Closing down the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is still the sweetest moment of the whole second term.\u00a0 And all the demolition done at USAID is music to my ears.<\/p>\n So, as you can see, it was a very worthwhile gathering.\u00a0 Now back to work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So, Saturday and Sunday I was heading to and returning from the White Mountains of Northern New Hampshire.\u00a0 This has turned into an annual pilgrimage<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3366,1263],"tags":[3079],"class_list":["post-38164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-in-dunwich","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","tag-coffee-walk-bunch"],"yoast_head":"\n