Tag Archives: excursion

Beyond

Beyond: (prep) to the further side of.

Dictionary B

I find myself taking some time off from touring to visit family.

I am told that this is meant to be a pleasant excursion, and there are pleasurable interludes within the available experience.

But I think America’s obsession with family is a ploy to avoid dealing with the world as our brothers and sisters, attempting to limit life to a much smaller Christmas list.

When I arrived in town, I curtailed my expectation–knowing that my children are all grown, have lives of their own, and are not constantly wondering what I might be feeling or thinking about any given situation.

I used to be Lord of the Manor, and now I am basically the gardener.

It’s not really a demotion–just an honorary position given to the retiring parent who is still permitted to be the groundskeeper.

So I’ve spent the week thinking about the word “beyond.”

  • What is beyond my scope?
  • What is beyond my ability?
  • What is beyond my interest?
  • What is beyond my business?

It is a fascinating series of questions which avail me of great understanding–as long as I don’t accidentally become too introspective or trip over my pouty lip.

The best thing to do as you get older is focus on your own life and let your children do the same. Every once in a while, they’ll pull out a photo album, remember a former time, become nostalgic and call you on the phone.

The key is to make sure you’re available.

Beyond that is beyond reason.

 

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Beside

Beside: (prep) at the side of; next to.

Dictionary B

It took six-and-a-half days to build up the courage to ask.

I was only fifteen years old, and although I was very interested in girls, they terrified me.

So I finally mustered the courage to ask young Judy to go on a date. Well…not exactly.

First of all, I had no car, no money and no ideas on where to go. So more or less, it was a verbal scouting expedition, to see if she would be willing to go out with me if I actually had been capable of pulling it off.

After many gulps, delays and conversational dead-end streets, I finally choked out my request–and lo and behold, she said yes.

So I decided to have my mother drive us to a nearby town where they had a movie theater and drop us off in the shopping area, to pick us up four hours later. We started walking around, and it became obvious that Judy was unable, or unwilling, to stay beside me.

She either walked a little ahead or stayed a little behind.

So when I slowed up for her to catch up, she passed by me, and I had to catch up with her. At no point did I feel that we ever connected. Even when we went into the movie theater, she tried to sit one seat away.

I thought it was due to the fact that she was timid–but at the end of our little excursion I learned the truth.

After grilling her for about fifteen minutes, she finally came out with the information that she only said yes to the date because she didn’t know how to say no. But when we got to the little town and started exploring, she realized that the boy she really liked was nearby, walking around, and even went to the same movie. She didn’t want to discourage him by making him think that she was beside me.

Ouch.

And I mean, double ouch.

I learned that night, though, that the way we communicate tenderness and true interest in one another is not by leading nor by following.

It’s by staying solidly beside one another.

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Bazaar

Bazaar: (n) a market in a Middle Eastern country.Dictionary B

I often comfort myself with the knowledge that if I didn’t do dumb things, I wouldn’t have great stories to tell.

So a certain amount of imperfection, idiocy and clumsiness is necessary to fall under the classification of “a good writer.” (At least, that’s my take and I’m stickin’ with it.)

Many years ago, I traveled to Haiti, and being a novice at such a journey, I didn’t take enough money. After I paid all the taxes, tariffs and incidentals, I ended up with 72 cents in loose change to last me for two weeks.

My lodging was covered and so were my meals, but I didn’t have any personal money.

One of my guides on suggested that we go to the local street market, or bazaar, to see what the Haitians had put together through their creativity.

I don’t know why, but it didn’t even occur to me that these artisans might just want to sell their wares to hapless Americans. I wasn’t in the bazaar for more than thirty seconds before I was completely surrounded by determined individuals trying to sell me what they had built, cooked or grown.

The stuff was beautiful.

They were great salespeople.

But you see–I only had 72 cents.

To the average Haitian, any white man from America is independently wealthy and probably arrived on their shores in a yacht.

So using a word of Creole here and there, I tried to explain that I had no money. This only encouraged them to sell harder, assuming that they were just one catch-phrase away from garnering my business.

They also kept dropping their prices.

Finally, after about five or six arduous minutes of grueling exchange, I pulled out fifty cents and bought a lovely, carved statue. The person who did the work probably took at least four hours to make it, and I felt like a real jerk.

But they were delighted to get the fifty cents, and I intelligently escaped quickly out the back exit from my experience … at the bizarre bazaar,

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Acalculia

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Acalculia: {n.} loss of the ability to perform simple arithmetic calculations, typically resulting from disease or injury of the parietal lobe of the brain.

Bob, Frank and I decided to go out for an evening.

The four of us came to the quick conclusion that if we left at seven o’clock and closed the evening out at twelve, we could have six hours of enjoyment.

You might think it odd, but we began the excursion by picking up a dozen doughnuts and splitting them evenly among the four of us–five each.

We went out and bought a pizza, which cost twenty dollars, and split it, which remarkably, was only six dollars a person.

At the end of the night, we realized we should reimburse the gas in Bob’s car, so we bought gasoline at $3.48 a gallon, putting ten dollars in the tank, giving us seven gallons.

We had such a good time that we decided to do it every week. So it was concluded that five days from that time, we would get together again, and Bob, Frank and I–all four of us–would go out from seven to twelve (for six hours), probably buying that dozen doughnuts, granting us five each, to spend no more than ten dollars of gas, which would provide seven gallons.

Everything seemed to be going along real well until the second week, when for some inexplicable reason, we found ourselves arguing … because things just didn’t add up.