Opinions

ON YOUR MARK

When I was a boy, my entire sartorial world revolved around Sears, Roebuck and Company – better known as Sears.

The recent announcement that the department store was in bankruptcy and closing some stores was hardly unexpected, but, like an ill family member, you hoped the sad day would not come.

Well, it has.

Like many children of the 1960s and 1970s, to us, Sears was considered a one-stop miracle.

If I had not saved enough money from mowing yards, all my school clothes came from the Sears catalogue, ordered by parents.

ON YOUR MARK

Until a few years ago, I always assumed I was the smartest person in any room.

Admittedly, I did not attend a lot of Nobel Peace Prize soirees or parties with Yale law graduates.

(With the latter, I assume you just had to hold on long enough for them to drink about 80 beers then for sure you’d be the smartest. [That’s right; I made a Kavanaugh joke – which no one will get in about six weeks because something else will have come along.])

Generally, I could hold my own on just about any subject – until recently.

ON YOUR MARK

I heard a statement the other day that was something that I’m pretty sure I will never utter:

“That was a great salad bar.”

I have never understood salads.

During a meal, they take up room before you can get to the good stuff like steak or chicken.

And it looks like you have to coat it in some sort of dressing to make it remotely palatable.

My idea of a salad is Romaine lettuce and maybe some baby carrots. No dressing.

THINKING OUT LOUD

As they so often do, a weekend trip with my siblings made me realize just how old I am.

It is hard not to feel elderly when you’re sitting in a group of eight, the other seven all considerably younger than you, and you are the only one who has not a clue what they are talking about.

Whether it was music or movies or their favorite eatery, I spent 90 percent of the time utterly dumbfounded.