One of the advantages of growing older than most of those around you is that you can repeat yourself and get away with it. You’re allowed a certain amount of leeway in your memory process. It comes in handy.
Sometimes, though, it’s just fun. I remember writing not too long ago that maybe the Republican candidate for president is actually still a Democrat, and is secretly doing everything in his power to ensure a victory for the blue side. Does it sound more plausible now than it did when I wrote it, or not?
Another brain spasm from far out in left field was my musing recently on the possibility that since every nation capable of doing so is secretly trying to figure out a way to control the weather, that perhaps the Russians are ahead of us in that activity. Does anyone know whether Russia is suffering the same abnormal weather that the rest of the world is?
China has some serious problems along those lines, but maybe that’s just the Kremlin’s way of showing them who’s really the boss. OK, tell me I’m wrong, but then tell me how you know I’m wrong.
I had a great time at the recent garage sale at the fairgrounds. Sold a lot of stuff, but since I couldn’t leave my table I had to depend on other sources of information that much of what I sold soon appeared on other dealers’ tables at considerably marked up prices. Enough remained to plan another sale in my carport next spring, after the weather and daytime temperatures improve.
Here’s something you can try at home. If you think you’re not a creature of habit, try putting your left arm into a shirt or cardigan before the right arm and notice how awkward it feels. By the way, I may be one of the last Americans to still wear a cardigan. My favorite was one that I bought at a Schwartz Men’s Wear sidewalk sale over 50 years ago. Oh, there must be more of us who wear them, somewhere, but when was the last time you saw one?
Crazy weather: The buds are starting to open on the Christmas cactus above my corner kitchen sink, but that’s to be expected. What wasn’t expected, though, was my magnolia bush starting to blossom. It’s beautiful, but November? Besides that, one of the iris plants I put in the ground last spring (2015) is in full bloom for the first time.
Oh, yes, and I’m still harvesting an occasional strawberry from the patch that grew out from underneath my Japanese maple shrub. Crazy.
From what people tell me when we meet, a lot of you don’t mind when I grow nostalgic in these columns. So, another of the things I miss from “the old days” is the neighborhood movie theater. There used to be about half a dozen of them in Tacoma when Frances and I were first married, and it was all we could afford when I was earning about a buck sixty five per hour.
The movie itself was as entertaining as when it first ran in a downtown theater. The popcorn tasted just as good, you didn’t have to dress up (as people still did back then in the Dark Ages) and it was a lot easier to find a space to park.
And, don’t get me started on how we’d spend Friday or Saturday nights listening to the radio when we couldn’t even afford a movie.
•••
Bill Moeller is a former entertainer, mayor, bookstore owner, city council member, paratrooper and pilot living in Centralia. He can be reached at bookmaven321@comcast.net.
