Thursday, March 25, 2021

All things considered

     In my little golf league here in Florida (a friend has kindly allowed me access to the group from her housing complex), I play with a rotating group of people.

This week I found myself in a twosome, just me and a woman in her mid-eighties, who I’ve played with before. Her hair is white, her smile sweet, and she hits the ball not far, but unerringly right down the middle every time. Working your way through nine holes with only one other person creates lots of time for conversation.

     As we set off in our cart, she asked me what I was writing and I told her I’d just finished a chapter in which someone hurled dog poo into a town meeting.

     A minute went by and she said quietly. “I’ve done that.”  I turned to this small woman who it was easier to picture in a gingham apron pulling cookies from an oven and said, “You what?”

     With a little smile she said, “I put it in someone’s mailbox.” Seems she’d had a neighbor with not only a dog, but a bad case of denial.

     I learned more about her as we waited for golfers ahead of us.  She not only painted, but once had her own studio where they’d lived before. In her words, she missed it a little, “being a kind of big fish in a small pond,” but her husband had wanted to retire in Florida.

     She really got my attention when I learned her son-in-law is a national reporter in Washington D.C. for National Public Radio, someone I’ve listened to for years and years, someone of Cokie Roberts status.

     Excited by this “six degrees of separation,” I later tried to brag to two different people here of having found out that I knew so-and-so’s mother-in-law.

The first person, when asked if they listened to NPR, gave me a flat “No.”

The second said curtly, “Nope. Never NPR.”

Whoops. Sometimes I forget where I am.

 

11 comments:

  1. Ooops.
    I hope you can see more of that delightful sounding woman.
    I too have gathered up dog poo and posted it into a letterbox. And feel no shame.

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  2. She sounds not only like a wonderful and interesting woman, but a lot of ideas for future characters.

    Not in public radio territory, huh?

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    1. Nope. Very different from blue Massachusetts.

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  3. I cannot imagine not listening to NPR. It's always on in my car. :-)

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    1. I remember finding it during the interminable drive to graduate school years ago. A place where there were interviews! interesting stories! humor! Some people don't know what they're missing.

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  4. I remember once seeing various news sites rated wrt political leaning. NPR was smackdab in the middle, about as neutral, and I assume therefore as reliable, as they could possibly be.

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    1. That would have been my assessment, too. Thanks!

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  5. You are fortunate to find an NPR fellow listener in Florida. Watch out for dog poo.

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  6. So nice that you got to know more about her and I'm happy to know she home delivered the dog poo.
    I barely listen to radio myself, instead preferring my mp3 players and after the dinner dishes are done the TV.

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  7. She sounds cool and glad you got to know a bit about her. You know, there was a time when Florida was blue. It was changing hues when I left. Ah the good ole days.

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  8. I live in a very red town in rural Texas. I also volunteer at a food and clothing bank there. I'm careful about expressing certain opinions but last week I discovered another blue/kindred spirit volunteer, she's in her late 80s at least maybe older. the chat veered ever so slightly towards our political mess and she says, "don't get me started". right?, I told her, that's what I always say. anyway commiserated with each other and she finally said it was nice to know someone else who listens.

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