Just say it - 2

(“Just say it - 2” because I may have titled previous blogs “Just say it.”)
—This past Wednesday morning I walked my dog at nearby Boughton Park. Shortly after I started, a lady appeared walking toward me with three tiny mutts.
One, a miniature dust-mop, came running far ahead to check out my dog. That dog’s name was “Layla.”
Thus ensued a Mexican sniffing standoff, where my dog, at least two feet taller, and 50 pounds heavier, backed away.
The lady called her dogs as she passed. Layla started barking.
“Layla,” the lady snarled. “Don’t do that! It’s not nice!”
They all walked away, and as they headed for the parking-lot, I turned and said “Layla is an Eric Clapton song.”
She smiled: “It sure is!”
“Just say it,” I kept saying to myself. A few won’t love it, but most will; especially the ladies. If they don’t love it: not my fault!
The previous day I had an appointment at a Canandaigua neurology practice. The appointment was with a guy who moved to another office, so I would see a “Nurse-Practitioner” instead. This regards my questionable balance.
We hit it off right away, to my mind because she was a girl.
We discussed the fact I do aquatic balance-training, and feel like my balance has worsened. What’s vastly improved is my countering bad balance. I hardly fall any more; I catch tipsiness, and pay attention to where I put my feet.
“I wanna help,” she said, suggesting dry-land Physical-Therapy at nearby Thompson Hospital.
“****** again,” I said; “Cutie-Pie?”
She laughed. “Don’t scare off the patients,” she’d been told. What a joy to deal with an aging crackpot. “This appointment is fun,” she commented.
“What day was yer knee replaced?” (I have a metal knee; when I walk into an airport they call security.)
“A day that will live in infamy,” I said. “December 7th probably three years ago. Get it?”
“December 7th, 1941, is the date the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor,” she said.
Older people get it, but most youngsters don’t. “A smarty-pants,” she commented.
“A date which will live in infamy” is President Franklin D. Roosevelt asking Congress for a Declaration of War against Japan.
Months ago a lifeguard at the Canandaigua YMCA swimming-pool, where I do my aquatic balance-training, came over and gave me what most red-blooded American men call the “Come-Hither” look. She smiled and gave me the eye.
“Come-Hither” my foot! She’s married, for crying out loud! This was “Talk to me; make me laugh!”
My uncle sold cars at a south Jersey Ford dealer, and was sensational at it. People wanted to buy a car from him. He made ‘em laugh. He wasn’t trying; he just did.
Most every week I eat out with a widow who like me lost her beloved. She tried online “Seniors-Singles” dating, but gave up after too many drones.
“What I’d like to find more than anything is a male who is normal,” she told me.
“Then why in Hell’s name are you hangin’ out with me?” I asked.
“Because yer funny, and not boring as Hell!” she snapped.
Previously at that neurology practice I was seeing a male. He prescribed an MRI of my brain.
I imagined the following phonecall: “Bad news Dr. ********. We MRI-ed Mr. Hughes’ head, and couldn’t find a brain.”
I related that to my Doctor, and he laughed tentatively. My lady Nurse-Practitioner woulda rolled on the floor.
A while ago I awaited my Bereavement Counselor in an office reception area. To no one in particular I said: “How come ladies are so much more fun to talk to? Men always hit you with the macho bit.”
That reception area was awash with ladies. They ate it up, and weren’t trying to put me down.
Yrs Trly is a graduate of the Hilda Q. Walton School of Gender Relations. Hilda was my next-door neighbor and Sunday-School Superintendent when I was a child. She convinced me all men, including me at age-5, were despicable scum. Her husband was probably playing around.
My hyper-religions parents eagerly agreed, since they already decided I was disgusting and stupid for not worshiping my father.
75 years I been on this planet. My wife was married to me 44&1/2 of those years. She always told me the reason we lasted so long was because I made her laugh.
Her mother, a pill, insisted we’d never make a year.
Last summer I was buying gas for my lawnmower, and I heard RUMPITA-RUMPITA-RUMPITA! A ’69 or ’70 Plymouth RoadRunner pulled in, hammering the pavement even at idle.
“I thought it might be a Hemi,” I said after walking over. “But I see it’s a 440 Six-Pak.”
“575 horsepower,” the owner bragged.
MACHO POSTURING ALERT! I walked away.
“Oh what a pretty dog,” said a gorgeous blond at a nearby park. She and her friends were drinking beer after yoga at an outside restaurant.
“I might hafta come over there,” I shouted. They were about 75 yards away.
Not long ago, compliments of Hilda, I woulda turned away scared. “No pretty girl will talk to you!”
Now I find Hilda and my parents were full-of-it. And now that I strike up conversations so much more, I find ladies more fun to talk to.
“Layla is an Eric Clapton song.” She loved it; a complete stranger I may never see again in my entire life.

• I do aquatic balance training in the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool, two hours per week — plus a third hour on my own.
• My wife died of cancer April 17th, 2012.
• A “Hemi” is special high-output Chrysler motor available in the early ‘70s. It has “hemispherical” combustion-chambers, so breathes extremely well. It was so powerful NASCAR outlawed it. A “440 Six-Pak” is not a Hemi, but at 440 cubic-inches displacement is huge. Both motors were available in the RoadRunner. Standard displacement was 383 cubic-inches; also not a Hemi.