MY NEW SWEATSHIRT

                             Polish base, Antarctica

Until this moment you probably have not known that there are at least 17 institutions worldwide named Trinity College.  Well, now you do.  This is completely useless information that you should forget immediately - but see below

“So what?” you ask.  Don’t worry, I will explain.  Night before last the heat went off in my antique little townhouse.  Even in the low desert of Southern California it is not pleasant to be without heat in late January.  Rather than pile on the blankets, I pulled on a gaudy sweatshirt, all blue and gold, with eagles.  It says Trinity College, front and back.  Apparently someone visiting with a realtor left it (my place is for sale).  As nobody has claimed it, I had tossed it in a box of stuff headed for Good Will, right next to my bed.

So, anyway, this sweatshirt (a hoody, no less) got me through the night.  In fact, it proved to be so warm that I have worn it ever since, and will continue to do so until it warms up – later next week, they say.  This morning I wore it to the lab, where a lesson on applying plaster to fossils was taking place.  People kept asking me about my sweatshirt, often with grins on their faces – it IS rather inappropriate for an octogenarian.  Finally I resorted to telling them that it was left over from the 1950s, when Trinity College, Cambridge, recruited me for their rugby team.  Some people laughed, and nobody seemed to believe me.  At 5 ft 6 in and 190 lbs, I guess I don't look like a retired rugby hooligan. 

Of course, the real reason for this blog is to remind you that I have a charming little desert getaway for sale, for next to nothing.  AND that it comes with one really neat sweatshirt.

NICE PEOPLE

My descendants

Yes, there are good people in this world.  The condo next to mine here in Borrego Springs, CA, is owned by an elderly couple who themselves could hardly be nicer.  (Elderly?  When an 83-year-old uses that word, it means something.) Currently their son, who I will call Jack, because that’s his name, is living with them.  Jack recently lost his wife to a lingering rare disease that is crueler even than  ovarian cancer, if that is possible.   He is recently retired and probably in his mid-sixties.  He plays a lot of golf.  Anyway…

I happened to mention to Jack that my garbage disposal unit was on the fritz and that I was researching the possibility of there being a qualified repair man in town.  (Believe me, in Borrego Springs this is not a given.)  He insisted on looking at it, and immediately deduced that the problem resided in the electrical system.  Over the next three days, including a trip to the nearest hardware store (7 miles; my place is really in the sticks), he worked vigorously for maybe three hours – and, by God, fixed the thing!

I am the son of a practical, highly skilled country boy turned hardware/lumber merchant.  Dad tried hard to teach me practical, useful things, but he failed.  I could no more have fixed that electrical problem than I could have excised a brain tumor.  But Jack did it, smiling and chatting all the while.  I offered to pay him back by giving him a lecture on plate tectonics, but he politely declined.

Thanks, Jack.  We need more like you.