friendship – S'amusing

‘Fire In The Hole”: Male Bonding?

Ratatat! Ratatat! Ratatat! Bang! Bang! Ratatat…and on and on for the ‘longest brief moment’. And loud! Oh, was it loud!

The old man next door came out of his house as the police arrived. At the same time, my sister burst into my bedroom like a SWAT officer looking for the perps.

She found them, two perps, 16 and 21, my future brother-in-law, pending her inquisition, and me, quietly having a nervous laugh at the ruckus we caused. A few long strips of firecrackers tossed out the bedroom window into the neighbor’s yard on a hot summer night, and a sister’s wrath, can do that, make you nervous, and laugh.

“Sounded like gunfire”, the old man told the officers.

In 1963 shootings were extremely rare. No, this was just a case of old-fashion ‘male bonding*’, not to be confused with ‘boys will be boys’.

“Am I wrong”, as Seinfeld’s George Costanza would often ask

* male bonding or male friendship is the formation of close personal relationships, and patterns of friendship or cooperation between males. (Wikipedia)

Generally, male bonding occurs when there’s some common goal to be achieved by struggling together: surviving a challenge, winning a game, meeting a target, something that brings two or more men together in achieving and strengthening a relationship. Surviving the verbal blows of an enraged sister might be a good example.

Then, there’s the action of professional golfer, Tiger Woods, who made news this week when cameras caught him passing a female hygiene product to a fellow competitor whom he had just out driven, suggesting that his foe hit like a girl, weak. They were bonding, according to the apologetic Tiger.

Was it innocent? Probably. Funny? Not really, at least not for public consumption. ‘Male bonding’? No, it was crass, locker room stuff. Even the firecracker affair rose to a higher level.

As to that episode, I think the ‘perps’ learned a lesson in growing up. My future BIL and I did bond and had a good summer. My sister married him and he’s done well by her for 58 years.

What’s your take on Tiger’s behavior, and your favorite memory of bonding? Surely, you have one. All stories are welcome.

Steve (021923)

To my. sister & brother-in-law. you’ve ‘bonded’ well

A Frog, A Hog and A Dog

Note: If you can’t be there, then write a story #3

By Grandpa

For Ben & Summer

A Story About Friends

This is a story of three very different friends, a FROG, a HOG and a DOG, and the fun they had when the rain stopped and the sun peeked from behind the clouds.

The smallest friend, a FROG, had smooth green skin and made funny noises with its throat, ‘Ribid’, ‘Ribid’!

The biggest friend, a HOG, had rough, pinkish skin and made grunting noises with its nose, ‘Grunt’, ‘Grunt’!

The medium size friend, a Dog, had skin covered with thick black and white hair and made barking noises with its mouth, ‘Woof’, ‘Woof’!

It didn’t matter to the frog, the hog and the dog that they were different, they just enjoyed each other’s company, especially when the rain stopped, because you know what you have when the rain stops…

PUDDLES!

All sorts of puddles: BIG and SMALL puddles, WIDE and NARROW puddles, DEEP and SHALLOW puddles. oodles and oodles of puddles…

And what do you do with puddles? The frog, the hog and the dog knew…..

Jump in them!

Stomp in them!

Run in them!

First, the frog jumped in a puddle and made a small splash. After all, the frog was the smallest friend. But the frog was having too much fun to be concerned about the size of its splash. Look at that big frog smile!

Next, the hog squatted it’s bottom in a puddle and made the biggest splash. After all, the hog had the biggest bottom.

The hog was having so much fun, so it splashed in another puddle.

This time the hog stomped up and down on its hind legs snd waved its front legs, which wasn’t easy because the hog was so big. Puddle water splashed everywhere…

Just look at that happy hog face…

Finally, the dog ran into a puddle, went one direction, then went the other direction before rolling in the puddle. The dog was covered with muddy puddle water from the tip of its nose to the end of its tail, except for one spot. Can you find it?

The dog had so much fun. Just look at that happy dog face…..

As I enjoyed watching the frog jump, the hog stomp, and the dog run through the puddles, I was distracted by the cheerful sounds of children playing in the distance.

With my trusty binoculars, I was able to see a boy and girl playing in their own puddles. They wore the perfect boots for jumping, running and stomping, a blue pair and a pink pair.

I wonder who they were…

Do you play in puddles with your friends?

The Bar Night Chronicles: #30, ‘And The Survey Says…’

Five of the Bar Nighters ‘Zoomed in’, again, for an evening of general talk, laughs, useful tips, and, of course, beer. Yes, beer.

Our entire reason for gathering is ‘brotherhood’, but beer enhances it, and we can manage 1 for the night. The one among us who opted for Jack Daniels* Tennessee whiskey, America’s top selling whiskey, might believe he gets more enhancement with ‘JD’. No doubt, he does.

As usual, and most importantly, the night began with a toast: ‘Here’s to our group and…” (In Zoom, you need to raise your bottles high enough for the device’s camera to find it) “…to the good news that we’re all well and getting shots, Covid shots. Here’s to our friendship. Cheers!

And, the survey says, ‘what’s your favorite breakfast?’ Thought I’d open the ‘beer clutch’ with a probing question. And, since I asked, then it’s best to go first.

Oatmeal!

But not just plain oatmeal. ‘WOODSTOCK’ 5 Grain Cereal (it’s oatmeal) topped with raisins, crushed walnuts, sliced bananas and blueberries. WOW!

Flood it with milk and let it ‘stew’ in the refrigerator overnight for a morning concoction that makes your taste buds yell, ‘Hallelujah’ with the first spoonful. Who knew oatmeal tasted so good?

Apparently, just about everyone. Oatmeal was the favorite of three of us, cold or hot. Kashi cereal had a vote and one opted for tea and toast every morning. A nice, but dainty, ritual. Not surprisingly, it seems that we stick with our favorite on a daily basis. Creatures of habit or sensible eaters? Both, most likely.

Join the survey, what’s your favorite breakfast meal?

After my last ‘Chronicles’ posting, a few readers expressed a sentiment that the Bar Nights would be fun to join. We’d love to have you. And while our conversation isn’t titillating, at evenings end we’re emotionally satisfied. A social gathering is meant to be like that, isn’t it?

A ‘Zoom’ Bar Night is okay, but sitting alone in a sterile environment, our homes, isn’t the same as gathering together amid the sights, sounds and, yes, smells of a pub. I’ve alluded in earlier ‘Chronicles’.

However, upcoming Bar Nights may find us social distancing in a backyard, the next step up from Zooming. Under the stars would be great since we’re certain to discuss aliens/UFOs, one of our favorite topics, especially since we have an amateur ‘ufologist’ (yes, that’s a word) in our group. When he talks, the group is silent and attentive, like kids listening to a spooky story. It’s fun, now, as it was then.

Maybe, just maybe, a one in a million chance that we could have an alien join the circle of friendship. How would the ‘authorities’ report that in official government files?

Keep posted to the Bar Chronicles for upcoming information on UFO reports. And don’t forget the survey!

Steve (March 2021)

On WordPress at ‘srbottch.com’. On Instagram at ‘@srbottch’

Bar Night Chronicles: No. 27, ‘The Reunion’

A year! A whole damn year! Oh, the stuff we ‘coulda, woulda, shoulda’ gabbed about. I say ‘gabbed’ because that’s what we do, six of us sitting around a beer stained table, ensconced in a mishmash of creaky, sometimes wobbly chairs, gabbing.

It’s a foggy description but if you let your imagination wander, you can picture us. Six older gentlemen, beer in hand, leaning in to hear the conversation over the din of background noises from bar talkers, dart players, and big screen ‘whatever game is playing’ television watchers.

Stop the show! I got carried away, delirious with wishful imagining, we have none of that tonight. A year has passed since our last actual bar soirée but it’s still Covid-19 season, hence we’re still following protocol; social distancing, maybe even self imposed isolation.

Tonight’s gathering, the first in a year, is via Zoom. Each of us has dialed in to a Bar Night teleconference, managed by a Zoom expert. Imagine faces in rectangular boxes arranged across the top of a PC monitor, like panelists on a game show. Think ‘Hollywood Squares’, the old television game show.

Tonight, it was ‘B.Y.O.B’ to the ‘Zoom’ experience and we raised them in a toast, giving thanks that each of us has maintained our health through the Covid months. We grinned proudly when showing our bottles to the group: Buds, Guinness, a lemonade…a lemonade? Boyish grins, revealed a playful innocence in holding up our bottles, like teens and boasting their first ‘nip’ with the gang.

Some of us had our Covid vaccines while others wait, a bit frustrated by the slow rollout and computer competition to try and snag available time slots when enough vaccines do arrive. But they will and we’ll all get ‘stuck’ by late Spring.

Did you see the news? A pilot on a commercial flight reported seeing ‘something’ he couldn’t identify pass over the plane. Something he couldn’t identify? While ground control couldn’t, or wouldn’t, one of our group could, and did. It’s ‘them’ and it’s been ‘them’ for years. Whoa, now the conversation got interesting.

The conversation has always been interesting over the past few years. Adding in UFOs and aliens to the mix gets everyone’s attention. Throw in the fact that even the US government is telling us in drips and drabs that there have been numerous spottings, unexplainable spottings, by legitimate sources (military pilots) over years, and this topic goes from kookie to classified. You can feel the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

This will make you sit up pay attention: https://www.history.com/news/skinwalker-ranch-paranormal-ufos-mutilation

Have any of you, the readers, experienced UFO sightings, or paranormal action? This is great topic for Bar Night. Fortunately, since I was already indoor, I didn’t worry about being outside, y’know, in ‘their’ environment, tonight.

Steve

“Oh, honey, would you mind taking out the trash tonight?”

February 2021. Click the Follow button to catch a story whenever I get the energy to write. They’re fun and cover a plethora of topics…

The Bar Chronicles: #21, ‘Lighting’ the Christmas Tree…

Bar Night 2

Evenings with friends for small talk is one of Life’s enduring pleasures. Add some beer and holiday revelers at a local pub, and the gathering gets even more festive.

Tonight, our favorite watering hole, Caverly’s Irish Pub, was no exception. The pub was packed. Not a seat at the bar, full tables and the darts were flying. We smartly took the solitude of the back room and huddled there, six of us around a wobbly table. It was quieter, but not by much, after all, it’s the holiday season.

Tonight’s toast seemed a bit more special with Christmas and year’s end upon us. I watched reflectively while glasses clinked, friends smiled and well wishes were spoken. It was a nice moment.

As is always the case on Bar Night, there was something new to learn. Tonight, appropriately, it pertained to Christmas and the traditional Christmas tree lighting. Not just any lighting, mind you, but one that involved real candles.

Tree With Candles

Some of us spoke woefully of lights not working, trees too tall and tree allergies but lighting a tree with real candles, now that was something worthy of our attention. At least it was for me, as one who is clueless on traditions around the world.

Apparently, in German homes, lighting real candles on a tree is a time honored Christmas tradition. One of us spoke excitedly about doing it on his tree for his wife who is a bona fide German, and we always try to make wives happy, don’t we? So, candle up the tree.

It seems risky, but then with risk comes reward and the result is a stunningly beautiful tree. Here is the pictures to prove it, not of our friend’s tree but that of a German family, in Germany.

Lighted Tree

One beer seems to be our limit lately but we do make that one last a couple of hours, long enough to talk ourselves tired. It was time to go but not until I recited a favorite holiday poem, ‘The Night Before Christmas’. The group ‘demanded’ it and after some arm twisting (I made up that part), I delivered it ‘flawingly’. A dart thrower snapped the group picture and we headed home, remarking on an enjoyable evening, steady on our feet and yawning a bit. The 21st is in the books…

BN 21

‘Happy Christmas to all…’

Steve

srbottch.com

The Bar Chronicles: #16, ‘Beer By The Numbers’

Bar Night 2

Bar Night #16, and our first of 2018. When ‘old’ friends get together after a long hiatus, a seat at the table with a frothy beer in hand is a good way to reacquaint and kick start our ‘bar nights’.

Once again, Caverly’s Irish Pub is our choice of watering holes, and why not? It has a good variety of beer at fair prices and a proper atmosphere, including a ‘house dog’. Navigating the parking lot potholes was the only impediment to the pub’s front door. Not uncommon following an overbearing winter in western New York.

House Dog

Our usual table was full tonight and the bar was noisy, with patrons in a festive mood for a chilly mid week night. We convened in the back room, a wise move for four sets of Senior ears. Here, we could spin tales, and more importantly , hear them, away from the constant humdrum and boisterous dart games in the forward quarters.

We settled in, clinked our glasses…’here, here’… and commenced with our wit and wisdom. After the usual potpourri of small talk, we somehow melded into a ‘deep’ conversation of airplanes, rockets and mathematics, dropping names of icons; Robert Goddard, Wernher von Braun and Fibonacci**. No, not Liberace, Fibonacci.

The mathematician among us took the lead and enthusiastically, neigh, excitedly guided the conversation into sequences, ratios and solutions, a Fibonacci fanatic. The pilot at the table, a technocrat of sorts, listened attentively with approving smiles and nods. He got it. The one tool & die maker nodded, as well, but with eyes closed, as though resting. And the salesperson, while feigning understanding, did what all good sales pros do, found some way to ask a topical question to keep the conversation going. The answer was irrelevant, but the continuity was critical.

0-1-1-2-3-5-8-13-21-34-and so on…

Do you see the number pattern, the ‘sequence’? The next day, I dug into the Internet to learn more about Fibonacci and his Sequence. I absorbed enough to hone some math skills and learn a trick, or two, to share at our next ‘bar night’. Curious? Research it yourself, Google ‘Fibonacci’. .

“The Fibonacci Sequence is a set of numbers that starts with a one or zero, followed by a one, and proceeds based on the rule that each number (called a Fibonacci number) is equal to the sum of the two preceding numbers.” (definition from ‘WhatIs.com)

The wonderful part of ‘bar night’ is that we never know the direction of our conversation, but it always seems to lead us home with a belly full of gratification and a little beer from an evening well spent with friends. And, importantly, we learn from each other.

As for the beers, when we were young men we certainly would have climbed a few rungs on Fibonacci’s Sequence, but tonight, as mature gentlemen, we stopped at step 2, or one apiece.

Group Photo

Fibonacci, himself, would have been underwhelmed.

Steve
5/4/2018
srbottch.com

**Fibonacci was considered to be the most talented Western mathematician of the Middle Ages’ (Wikipedia)

To Moish, a S’amusing follower and math professor. Wish you had been here. I’m sure you would have enjoyed the conversation.

The Bar Chronicles: #14, A ‘One Beer’ Night

Rock ‘n roll, ants and war…we covered all the bases…except baseball.

Bar Night 2

Another evening of beer and brotherhood convened at Caverly’s Irish Pub on South Avenue in Rochester. Here, the beer is reasonable, the people friendly and the ‘bar dog’ can sniff only as high as your knees.

Caverly’s is cozy and casual with a few round tables scattered about a high bar rising over a well-worn hardwood floor, a common man’s pub. The bar area, itself, is a colorful array of tap handles and an oversized chalkboard menu featuring an ample variety of brews.

Bar TAps

With beer in hands, we raised our glasses and cheered each other in genuine fashion. These nights of friendship give us Seniors a chance to get caught up with each other. Sometimes, we learn something new, sometimes we’re surprised and sometimes it’s both.

Tonight was just such a night when one of us offered that ‘ants weigh more than humans’. The rest certainly were surprised and showed it, as the ‘huh?’ look spread across our collective brows. But when the source* was cited…well, we learned something new, and ‘ant weight’ aside, we were bemused that someone in our group actually read, ‘Journey To The Ants’.

Does the adjective, ‘eclectic’ apply to a group that can drink beer and discuss ants in the same evening?

And would you be surprised to learn that another traveled 75 miles to see a former Beatle, Paul McCartney, in concert? Remember, we’re products of the 60s, give or take a decade.

As teens, we borrowed the family car and drove around with other music lovers, slapping out rhythms on the dashboard ‘drums’, our mops flopping side to side while head bobbin’ to rock ‘n roll. We still move to the beat when we hear the oldies, but ‘head banging’ today with scarce a wisp, leaves much to be desired.

Detailing an event or destination as vividly as the concert was allows me to feel there’s no need to go there, myself. I often say, facetiously of course, that ‘the listening is the same as the going’. I’ve ‘been to many places that I’ve never been’ with this philosophy.

Unlike war…

One among us went there**, and we deferred to him briefly when the topic surfaced. A cacophony of silence spoke volumes to our lack of personal knowledge of the real horror of war, except for the one. There is no substitute for being there, a loud exception to my ‘philosophy’

We paused with our own thoughts, finished our one beer and called it a night, a rather solemn ending. The summer-like evening air on this fall night was comforting as we took our time to the car. Another enjoyable evening was behind us…

Friendship is a wonderful thing!

Steve

stephen.bottcher@gmail.com

*‘Journey To The Ants’ written by Harvard professor E.O. Wilson
** Viêt Nam