Time flies at Tuesday breakfasts but can drag in between

It was cold last Tuesday morning!  It has been colder by a lot, but for some reason the OFs thought it was really cold when they got to the Chuck Wagon Diner in Princetown. The OFs are not yet conditioned for single-digit numbers, above and below the zero mark. 

There are up-sides to misery at times.  This time it was the clear, cold early morning, with no wind, plus there was a great feel to the air; then, when looking up and seeing the crescent moon and bright stars running away to make room for the sun to arrive, this feeling seemed to take some of the cold away. Great start for the first Old Men of the Mountain breakfast in 2016.

The number of OFs who were at this first breakfast showed (at least this time) that the OFs can deal with the cold, but snow, sleet, and freezing rain kept most of them in the week before. Those OFs with outdoor furnaces have to get up and feed that furnace no matter what the temperature is. So, while they are up and dressed (the OFs are not going to run out at 20-below in the snow and in their PJs to feed the furnace), they might just as well go to breakfast.

Failing eyes or smaller print?

The OFs are in the stage of life now where everything hurts; the ears do not hear as well, and the eyes do not see as well, so this brings the OFs to large print. Most of the OFs say it is not their eyes; they maintain it is the printed matter that has gotten smaller.

One OF said he did a comparison on phone books. He was using an old phone book as a prop. Who hasn’t used a phone book to prop something up? But to leave it there since 1979 is a little unusual. It seems the OF should have fixed whatever it was by now.

However, the OF compared the print in that decades-old book with the print of the newer phone books, and he found there is no comparison. He could read the old phone book with ease, and in the new phone book the names and numbers were just thin black lines. 

An OF mentioned he gets the Readers Digest in large print and that large print does make it easier to read. This OF said he doesn’t have the eye strain with this large-print version; however, the OF is still capable of reading the regular Readers Digest but there is eye strain involved after a period of time when reading regular print version.

The OFs surmised that it comes down to dollars and cents (as it usually does).  The OFs think publishers can place more information on fewer pages with tiny print, and eye doctors can sell more spectacles.

Distinguishing eggs

This scribe in not a food connoisseur so he is not sure if there is much difference in eggs.  For instance, do duck eggs taste different than chicken eggs, or do chicken eggs taste different than goose eggs?

The OFs were kidding another OF with his response to being fed pigeon eggs. How did the OF know they were not eggs from a chicken?

There seems to be the seed of a little survey here.  We should try to get a sampling of different bird eggs, and see how they compare.

Those OFs who have tried eating rattlesnake say it tastes like chicken. The rest of the OFs have to take their word for it.

There were not many takers on the survey anyhow. The OFs are meat-and-potato guys, not too adventuresome in the culinary department. The OFs are more of the “Let Mikey have it, he’ll eat anything” variety.

Fickle time

The OFs touched on a subject many people get into. That was: What makes some days go fast, and some days just seem to drag?

One thought was to have an appointment or plan in the not to distant future — good or bad. Some plans being considered were going to the dentist, or going to the hospital for a procedure, when some of your wife’s friends are coming over that you can’t stand.

Time just flies by and the next thing you know the day has flown by.  When the OF has a family outing, or fishing or hunting trip, all of a sudden it seems like the fun trip is never going to get here.

A simplified reasoning is: If it is fun, time seems to fly by while you’re doing it; if the OF hates what he is doing, time seems to drag; or, if the future plan is fun, time is also a drag (i.e., the time drags before you can get do it.

One OF mentioned that he enjoys coming to the breakfast and looks forward to them. The OF said that sometimes the time between breakfasts is short, like he just left one breakfast, and is on the way to the next; yet sometimes he wonders to himself will Tuesday ever get here.

Another OF pondered: What if we did not have years, months, weeks, days, hours and minutes — would anything being done collectively get done?

It would be hard but most projects would get done, not in a reasonable time, but, if we were not concerned with time by years, months, weeks, days, hours and minutes, who would know when it was done and who would care because time is not being measured? Whatever it was would just stand there completed whenever.

The OFs do care, and those OFs who care that it was morning, and it was Tuesday and they were at the Chuck Wagon Diner in Princetown, were: Robie Osterman, George Washburn, Roger Chapman, Bill Lichliter, Chuck Aelesio, Glenn Patterson, Mark Traver, John Rossmann, Harold Guest, Lou Schenck, Gerry Irwin, Jack Norray, Wayne Gaul, Mace Porter, Jim Rissacher, Marty Herzog, Bob Fink, Bob Benninger, Elwood Vanderbilt, Henry Whipple, Ted Willsey, Harold Grippen, and me.