What matters is what’s between the ears

Statuesque in street-clothes, *****, a lifeguard at the Canandaigua YMCA swimming pool, despite being age-63, is what we men call a “looker.”
Up-close-and-personal I see the crows-feet and wrinkles, but on her lifeguard stand she’s in her 40s.
As a graduate of the Hilda Q. Walton School of Gender Relations, I wonder why ***** talks to me. “No pretty girl will talk to you!” Yet ***** seems to wanna.
Some time ago I suggested ***** might wanna board her dog at Howlywood Kennels near where she and her husband live, along with her parents, etc.
“Howlywood are dog-people,” I told her. “When it was Locust-Grove Kennels before Howlywood, I avoided ‘em because it was the ‘Gulag Archipelago’.”
“Gulag Archipelago” sailed right over her pretty head. Eyes down, she checked the floor. After 75 years on this planet I know the drill.
At least she understood my telling her Locust-Grove was run by Adolf Hitler.
Lifeguarding is a retirement gig for *****; she retired from consulting in Californy. “They pay me to wear shorts and a teeshirt,” she tells me.
My wife could look pretty, but wasn’t stunning.
I remember her bewailing she began to look like her mother as she aged. Her mother was a pill; but my wife wasn’t. “Ya haven’t growled at me yet,” I’d say. (See footnote below.)
But she’d know what the “Gulag Archipelago” was. Which proves yet again what matters, to me at least, is what’s between the ears.
I tried “Gulag Archipelago” on others, and they all knew what it is, including one of my retired bus-driver friends.
But ***** didn’t; or so it seemed. (This isn’t fair to *****. Comparing Locust-Grove Kennels to the Gulag Archipelago is a figure-of-speech. I’ve learned figures-of-speech never work in conversation. My wife was used to ‘em, but I bet *****’s not.)
“Not everyone is smart,” a fellow Gulag knower complained. (“Knowledgable” is better.) ***** has a BA, and so do I. The fact I’m friends with *****, among other lookers, has me buffaloed.
They aren’t my wife, although I enjoy their company. I hope some of my other “looker” friends know what the Gulag Archipelago is. —I bet some do.

• I do aquatic balance training in the Canandaigua YMCA’s swimming-pool, two hours per week — plus a third hour on my own.
• The “Gulag Archipelago” was a number of Soviet forced-labor camps, used to imprison political opponents. Quite a few of these camps were in Siberia.
• My wife died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I still miss her. Best friend I ever had, and after my childhood I needed one. She actually liked me.
• RE: “Ya haven’t growled at me yet.” —The first time my wife’s mother met me she growled at me; and I ain’t kidding.
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. My heart-defect caused stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability, and that defect was repaired. I recovered well enough to return to work at a newspaper; I retired from that over 13 years ago.