Life Is What Happens

If someone had told me I’d be this busy in retirement, I may have continued working for a few more years.  My retired brother-in-law says that the most frustrating two words he hears are, “He’s retired.”  These words are not so daunting by themselves, but by what usually follows:  “He’s retired, so sure, he can . . .,” and then, just fill in the blank.  He can mail your package, pick up your suit at the cleaners, walk your dog, paint your living room, he can do anything you need him to do, because, of course, this retired person has nothing but time on his hands.

I had great plans for retirement.  I planned to practice my guitar until I got really good.  I planned to learn to play the banjo.  I planned to play some golf and spend some time fishing.  I planned to hike the area’s parks and bicycle on the various bike trails around Pittsburgh.  And mostly, I planned to write.  Writing would be my job.  It was my passion.  Writing is why I decided to retire early.  I would sit down at my desk each morning and start writing.  Maybe I’d begin with an article or letter to the editor to express my opinion on a controversial subject.  Perhaps I could sway public opinion to my way of thinking on that subject.  After that, I’d write some creative piece of fiction – a short story or maybe work on that Great American Novel that I felt I had in me somewhere.

But to quote John Lennon, “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.”    And life presented me with a number of volunteer opportunities.  I signed up for another term on the Board of a struggling, nonprofit theatre company and was appointed Chair of a committee that has kept me very busy.  I likewise signed up for another three-year term on a Board that oversees property in our Diocese, and I was promptly appointed President of that Board – an “honor” that I’ve found requires much more time than I anticipated.  I also continued to volunteer at my church in various capacities including as a teacher, lay minister, newsletter editor and sponsor of our acolyte program. Additionally, I agreed to participate in a literacy program at a local school where I read with a 2^nd or 3^rd grader.  I also volunteer at the school where my wife is a teacher, and, most importantly, I help her with correcting tests and occasionally other tasks in her classroom.  It is largely because of her encouragement and support that I was able to retire early, so the little I do to help her is small repayment.

Anyway, sometimes I consider all the volunteer work I do a distraction from my plans to write.  I am three years into retirement, and I haven’t yet published anything for which I’ve gotten paid.  But is money the ultimate barometer of success?  I’ve read several books on writing, and the authors invariably answer “no” to that question.  When I take the time to think about it, I realize that I am writing, if not doing some of the other fun things I planned to do in retirement.  I write 10 feature articles a year for my church’s newsletter.  I started this blog, and this is my 38^th post in less than three years. I’ve put together a draft history of my family vacations that is now over 225 pages long.  And I have written various articles and short stories that have either been published or might be published if I made the effort to submit them to a newspaper, magazine or publishing house.

Each week in one of the prayers at my church we ask God to “send us out to do the work you have given us to do.”  Doing God’s work is a part of the life that has happened to me in the past several years while I was busy making other plans.  So yes, I’m retired.  Let me know if I can do something for you.  It may even lead to a great story.

Shining Star

You’re a shining star, no matter who you are,

Shining bright to see, what you can truly be.

Shining star for you to see, what your life can truly be.*

Three years ago, I was on a cruise ship headed to the Bahamas with my beautiful wife and soulmate – who happen to be the same person.  We had a marvelous vacation, and on our return to Pittsburgh, I had just three more days to clean out my office before I walked into the first stage of what we call “retirement.”   At the time I told anyone that would listen that though I was retiring from my employer, I was actually just changing jobs.  After 31 years as an attorney, I would now begin a career as a self-employed writer.

 

Over the past three years, I have written a fair amount.  I started this blog, which now has 37 posts.  I’ve written countless journal pages describing my thoughts, activities and emotions.  I have gotten several articles published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and I’ve written a featured article each month for our church’s newsletter.  As an ongoing project I have transcribed and edited over 30 years of journal entries describing our family vacations, which I hope will provide treasured memories for my children.  And I have written a number of essays and short stories some of which I will seek to get published in one manner or another.  During this same period, I have become an active volunteer, serving on two boards, working in various capacities at my church and participating in literacy and education programs at two elementary schools. 

Despite the fact that I have kept myself extremely busy with my second career, I hedged my bets and remained on “active” status as a registered Pennsylvania lawyer.  I figured it was part of my financial safety net in case the writing didn’t work out.  Alternatively, I considered that it would allow me to practice pro bono if there was a cause I really wanted to support.  So each year I dutifully paid my $200 attorney registration fee and my local bar association dues and sat through 12 hours of Continuing Legal Education courses.  Beyond giving me additional second career options, remaining “active” let me maintain my identity as a lawyer.  “I may not be practicing law at the present time,” I told myself, “but I’m still a lawyer.”  In some ways, I was not ready to give up the “shining star” status of being an attorney.

But this year something told me that it’s time to give it up.  “If you’re going to be a writer, that’s where you should be putting your time and money,” I said to myself.  “Take the time and money you’d spend on registration, dues and CLE and spend it on a writing course or conference that might help you learn something about writing or help you get something published.”

Yesterday I attended a reunion with many of the clients I served during my career as an environmental lawyer.  Chatting with these dedicated professionals, some retired and some still working, satisfied me that I had had a legal career that I could be proud of.  But that career is in the past, and it is time to take the stage for the second act of my life’s work.  

So I reviewed the annual attorney registration form that I recently received in the mail and checked the box to indicate my “retired” attorney status.  Today I will put that form in the mail.  Then I will see if I can truly be a shining star as a writer and as a volunteer.  

* Shining Star, written by Maurice White, Larry Dunn and Philip Bailey and performed by Earth, Wind and Fire 

New Car Fever

Two things are abundantly clear to readers of this blog:

1. I agree with the vast majority of scientists that burning fossil fuels is causing global warming which can lead to climate change; and,
2. I love cars.

I’m also very frugal.  I don’t like having a car payment, so my wife and I keep our cars as long as we can.  Our 2007 Dodge Caliber has about 85,000 miles on the odometer; our eleven year old Dodge Caravan – over 140,000 miles.  Surprisingly, both cars average around 28 mpg on the highway; respectable gas mileage appeals to both our frugal side as well as our desire to burn less fossil fuel. 

Anyway, I recently took the van in for an oil change and asked my mechanic to do a pre-inspection. He told me that by the inspection deadline (July 31), the minivan would need a new muffler and tail pipe, front brakes and some body work.  All-in-all, the work would probably run around $1,000.  Of greater concern, he pointed out that oil was seeping out around both the oil pan and  head gasket.  He told me that if the seep got worse, oil dripping on the hot engine could catch fire.  So the bottom line was whether to invest $1,000 or so in a car that is nearing the end of its life, or to put that money toward a new car?  That is a valid question to ask a practical woman like my wife.  But for a man, there is only one realistic conclusion:  my mechanic just gave me a perfect excuse to buy a new car!  He told me this old one’s going to catch fire and burn, so it’s a safety issue that is not even subject to debate!  I got a fever, and the only cure is to buy a new car!

So what kind of new car should I get?  Despite the recent downturn in oil prices, I was looking for a significant improvement in gas mileage.  Gas prices will come back up and when they do, I want to be getting better than 40 mpg in whatever I am driving.  I considered a Fiat.  It is quite cute, but very, very small.  I thought about a fully electric car like the Nissan Leaf.  It currently advertises a range of 70+ miles, but when the charge runs out, you better be home or at a charging station or have an up-to-date AAA membership to tow you home.

 

I really liked the Chevrolet Volt.  It’s a plug-in hybrid.  That means it is completely an electric car for the first 40 miles of driving.  But when the charge is depleted, it has a gasoline engine that kicks on.  The engine acts as an electric generator to feed the battery which continues to power the car.  With a fully charged battery and a full tank of gas, the Volt has a range of about 350 miles.  Since I buy my power from a supplier that generates electricity from windmills, I would be significantly reducing my carbon footprint.  The only drawback was the price.  Volts sell for $35,000 and higher.  The most we've ever paid for a car is around $20,000.  Even considering the $7,500 federal tax credit and a potential tax rebate from the state, I had a hard time getting past the sticker shock of a $30,000+ car.

Despite being discouraged by the price, I did some checking with area Chevrolet dealers.  Several did not even have a Volt in their inventories.  But then I found one dealer that was offering several 2014 models at fairly reasonable prices.  I drove out to test drive one. I really enjoyed the quietness of the ride and felt like it had plenty of power to scale Pittsburgh’s hills.  Between the trade-in value of the van and the various incentives offered by General Motors and the dealer, I got what I considered to be a very good deal.  I even got the red color that I liked the best.  And without too much convincing, my very practical wife approved of the purchase.

 

I've been driving our new Chevy Volt around town for the past two weeks.  Its computer and various electronics are several generations advanced from the 2005 minivan, so I am in the process of climbing a fairly steep learning curve.  But what I like most is that I've only used about 2 gallons of gas since I brought it home from the dealer.  Over the past couple hundred miles of driving, I have averaged better than 200 mpg.  Sometime this summer, my wife and I plan to drive it to Colorado.  That will be a true test of how practical this semi-electric car is and how far this country has come in accommodating electric vehicles by providing convenient charging stations.   But the beauty of the Volt is that it can run completely on its gas engine mode even if you can’t find a charging station.

 

So my new car fever has broken.  I hope to drive this one for as many miles and as many years as that reliable old minivan.  And I am pleased that as those miles accumulate, I will be doing my small bit to help reduce emissions of CO₂ and to preserve the global environment for my kids and grandkids. And I’ll be doing it in a cool, red, sleek, sexy automobile.  

Ode to a Rainy Day

I love a rainy day,

A damp, dreary day –

A day when the rain falls

Steady and constant. 

Give me a cool, rainy day –

A hot one defeats the purpose.

When I get hold of a good, rainy day

I never want to let go of it.

I’ll drink lots of coffee,

Hot and strong,

Because coffee says, “morning,”

And I want the morning to last.

 

I want to spend hours reading the paper,

Listening to music, reading for pleasure,

Writing, and playing board games.

Maybe I’ll pound my drums or strum my guitar for a while.

The next thing I know

It’s three in the afternoon

And I think,

God, the day is slipping away!

Pretty soon it’s six

And time for supper.

Eat and set the dishes aside –

The work will wait for tomorrow.

Grab a good book and an afghan,

And curl up on the couch

For the evening,

While the rain continues to fall.

Before very long it’s time for bed

And if I’m lucky,

The sounds of the rain

Will sing me to sleep.

The Last Oil Change

We were dirt poor back in 1979.  I was a full-time law school student.  Susan was a teacher, but the schools weren’t hiring.  She ended up working as a secretary at the University of Pittsburgh for a poverty-level wage and typed papers for graduate students to supplement our meager income.  We lived in a roach-infested apartment in Mt. Oliver and drank powdered milk to stretch our money.  Nevertheless, we were optimistic about the future, and decided to drive to North Carolina for a vacation.  My job was to change the oil in our car, so we could leave early the next morning for our long drive from Pittsburgh to the Outer Banks.

         We owned a stripped down 1976 Plymouth Duster with a three-speed stick shift on the column.  It had Chrysler’s terrifically reliable slant 6 engine.  Based on prior experience with that engine in my father’s 1962 Plymouth, I knew that changing the oil could be a challenge.  The oil filter was the key.  It was hard to get to on a slant 6 and seemed to work itself tighter as you drove the car.  Nevertheless, I was committed to doing the job myself.  I had changed oil many times before and figured we could use the money I saved to do something special on our vacation.  So I bought a new oil filter and six quarts of oil.  Armed with my toolbox and oil filter wrench, I was ready to go.

I crawled under the car, loosened the oil pan nut and drained the oil into an old dishpan.  So far, so good, I said to myself.  Then I got the oil filter wrench and crawled back under the car to remove the oil filter.  It wouldn’t budge.  I exerted some pressure.  Dammit!  The old filter had started to crumple.  I better stop before I ruin this filter, I thought.  If I ruin it and still can’t get it off, I won’t be able to drive the car anywhere.  So I decided to put the old oil back in the engine, and I drove the car to a local gas station to get help.

The mechanic put the car on a rack and lifted it into the air.  He was able to quickly and easily loosen the oil filter. 

“Do you want me to do an oil change for you?” he asked. 

“No,” I replied.  “Just tighten it lightly so I can get it home.  I’ll change the oil myself.”  He charged me a nominal fee, and I drove back to our apartment. 

Our apartment was on the second floor of a three-story building that was built into a hillside.  The parking lot was in the rear of the building. It was built on a cliff that rose about fifteen feet above our 2^nd floor level apartment to nearly the height of the building’s third floor.   Stairs led from both sides of the parking lot down to the second floor apartments.  A central staircase led from the parking lot to the third floor balcony that extended across the back of the building.  Pillars supported the balcony on its right and left corners and on either side of the central staircase.  The parking lot was slanted toward the gulf between the cliff and the building. 

I drove down the alley behind our apartment building and backed into the parking lot. I wanted the car to face uphill to make it easier to crawl under the engine compartment.  I immediately got to work and re-drained the old oil.  I easily removed the old oil filter thanks to the help from the service station.  I installed the new filter and put in the new oil.  Everything went smoothly.  I now just had to start the motor and check for leaks. 

I started the engine, and everything seemed fine.  I depressed the clutch and shifted the car into neutral.  I made sure the hand brake was well set and got out of the car.  I crawled underneath the front of the car and looked for leaks.  I didn’t see any.  I had successfully completed the oil change!

Suddenly, I heard a click and the car started to move.  I jumped out from underneath it and saw it starting to roll toward the edge of the cliff.  The hood was open so I grabbed the front of the car.  But there was no way I could hold back a two-ton automobile as it started to roll over the edge.  “Oh, my God!  Noooo!” I screamed. 

Just as the car was rolling over the cliff, the front wheels hit a bump and turned slightly causing the rear fender to collide with one of the pillars near the third floor steps.  This collision stopped the car’s descent but left my car suspended in mid-air with one front tire planted on the cliff and the rear fender wedged against the pillar.  It looked like it could go crashing down into the pit at any moment.  “My God, My God!” I screamed, and started to hyperventilate.  The third floor neighbors came out to see what was going on. 

I ran into my apartment.  I was unsure of what to do next.  I called AAA and told them I had an emergency and needed a tow truck as quickly as possible.  I called Susan at work and told her I had destroyed our vacation by wrecking the car.  I started thinking of all the idiotic mistakes I had made.  Why hadn’t I just allowed the garage to change the oil?  How could I be so stupid not to put blocks behind the tires before I got out of the car to check for oil leaks? 

A tow truck arrived sooner than I expected. 

“I heard the call on the radio and came right away,” the driver said eyeing up my car.  “I think I can get you out of there.” 

“Are you with AAA?” I asked.

“No, so this will cost you,” he replied.  “Or you could just wait for the AAA tow truck if you want.”

I looked at my car which hung, precariously balanced over the abyss.  Whatever it cost for the tow truck couldn’t compare to the cost of replacing the car.  I knew I had no choice.  “Go ahead,” I told him.  “And please hurry.” 

I could hardly bear to watch as he connected cables to the car’s front end.  While he was working, the AAA tow truck arrived.  “I’m sorry, but I’ve already hired this guy to do the job,” I told him. 

“That’s okay,” he said.   “I think I’ll just stick around to watch this.”

The other tow truck operator checked the cables and engaged the mechanism on his truck.  The cables tightened and the car started to move.  At first I thought it would still fall, but the tow truck operator must have known what he was doing.  The wood from the supporting pillar groaned as the car was slowly lifted from its resting place.  Metal ground against concrete as the car was dragged slowly across the edge of the cliff.  Finally, the rear wheels were resting on solid ground, and then the car was pulled back into the parking lot. 

The tow truck operator unhooked the cables from my car, and I happily paid his fee.  I looked the car over.  There was a dent in the rear fender where it had been wedged against the pillar.  Outside of that, I could not detect any damage.  I started it up and everything worked fine.  I parked the car, and called Susan.

“You won’t believe this, but the car is okay,” I told her.  “I mean, it has a dent, but everything else works, and we can still leave for our vacation tomorrow.”

“You’re telling me you were under it when it started to move?” she said.  “You’re lucky to be alive!”

“I know.  When I think of how much of a tragedy this could have been, I know that God must have really been watching over me.”

We left early the next morning for the Outer Banks.  The car ran fine.  At one point, we noticed a rattle, but that was easily fixed at a service station along the way. 

We held onto that car for a couple more years until I was out of law school and Susan got a job as a teacher.  Then we bought a brand new car and placed an ad in the newspaper to sell the Duster.  A Brazilian student offered to buy it over the phone, sight unseen, and the Duster was gone from our lives.  However, the experience of that oil change has never left me.  I’ve taken my cars to service stations ever since!

The Green Gargoyle

“What is that?” I asked my brother Ron as I stared at the green-skinned gargoyle with the huge teeth in the driveway across the street.  Ron had invited my family to have Easter dinner at his house.  “Is that a Buick?” I asked.  “It sort of looks like one with that massive chrome grille – but not exactly like any Buicks that I remember.”

            “I think it’s a DeSoto,” said Ron.

            “Really?  What year?”

            “I think it’s a 1950.  It belongs to my next door neighbor, Warren.  He moved in with his sister not long ago.  Warren is old – maybe in his mid-eighties.  He’s not allowed to drive anymore, so his sister is selling the car.  Why?  Are you interested in buying it?”

            I’ve always liked old cars, especially ones made in the 1950s.  When I was growing up, cars seemed to change completely every year.  As a young boy I would impress my father by being able to tell him the make and model year of almost any car he would point out.  I looked at the car through Ron’s front window.

            “It sort of has a blush of rust, but looks pretty solid.  Do you know if it runs?”

            “I’m pretty sure it does,” answered Ron.  “From what I understand from Betty – that’s Warren’s sister – Warren used it as his everyday car until his doctors told him he had to give up driving.”

            “Do you know how much they’re asking for it? I asked.

            Ron laughed.  “So you are interested.  Well, I’m not sure I have this right, but I seem to recall that Betty told me that someone offered to buy it for $2,500, and they turned him down.”

            “Dad, you should totally buy it!” exclaimed Anna, my teenage daughter.

            I thought about it for a few seconds.  “That’s still a lot of money,” I said.  “And if they turned down $2,500, they might be looking for a good bit more.”

            During dinner, I continued to think about the car.  While I love to look at old cars, I never thought I would be able to afford one.  Even if they wanted $5,000 for that thing, I figured it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility for me. 

            “So what do you think about that car?” I asked my wife, Susan after we had downed a few glasses of wine.

            “Are you seriously considering buying it?” Susan asked me.

            “Dad, you really need to buy it,” interjected Anna.  “It’s such a cool car.”

            “Well, if I could get it for less than $5,000, I think it would be really neat to buy it,” I said to Susan.

            “Well, we would be able to afford that.  If you really want it, go talk to them.  Maybe they’ll give you a neighborly discount since you’re Ron’s brother,” Susan said.

*          *          *

            I called a few days later.  I identified myself as Ron’s brother and made arrangements to come out and look at the car.  The next day, I drove there and knocked on the door.  Warren’s sister, Betty, appeared. 

            “So you’re interested in Warren’s DeSoto?” she asked, peering at me through the screen door.

            “Yeah, I’d like to look it over,” I replied. 

            We walked across the street to where the car was parked.  It appeared that Betty was going to do the negotiating for her older brother.

            “Does it run?” I asked.

            “Yes, but the battery died.  It will need a new battery to get it started.”

            Betty unlocked the front door.  I slid behind the huge steering wheel with an icon of Hernando DeSoto in its center.  What a rush!  I imagined heads turning as I drove around town in this 1950s-sized behemoth.  I slid back out and closed the door, then crawled underneath the car.  I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but it seemed like something a person really checking out an old car should do.  To me it just looked like the underside of an old car.  I didn’t see any holes, heavy rust or things hanging down that looked like they shouldn’t be hanging down.  I took that as a good sign and slid back out.

            “Let’s take a look under the hood,” I said, trying to sound like I knew something about cars. 

            “Sure.  The hood release is inside,” Betty pointed.

            I opened the door again and pulled the hood release handle.  Then I released the catch and lifted the hood.  It weighed a ton.  I stared for a while at the engine.  “Yep, it has an engine,” I thought to myself.  After looking around the engine compartment for what seemed like an appropriate amount of time, I closed the hood.  Next I opened the trunk.  It looked clean and contained a spare tire and jack. 

            “Well, it looks pretty good to me,” I said.  “So what are you asking for it?”

            “What are you offering?” she responded, tossing the ball back into my court.

            I thought for a few moments how I should handle this negotiation with what looked to me to be a wiry old lady in her mid to late seventies.  If she turned down $2,500 like my brother said, how high should I go without costing myself more than I had to? 

            “How about $3,000?” I offered.

            “How about $2,500?” she shot back without blinking an eye.

            “Well, $2,500 sounds pretty good to me,” I smiled. 

            “I just want to be sure I’m finding a good home for Warren’s car,” she said.  “He loves this old car.  It belonged to our father.  We’ve known your brother Ron for years, so I feel I’m doing right by Warren selling it to you.  Another fellow offered me $2,500, but I didn’t like him and knew he wouldn’t be able to come up with the money, so I turned him down.”

            “Thank you very much,” I grinned.  “ I really will take good care of it.”

            Betty and I talked a while longer and arranged that I would meet her and Warren on Saturday to pay for the car and transfer the title.  I got in my boring minivan and drove away. In a matter of days, I would embark on a new adventure in my life – behind the wheel of a 1950 DeSoto! 

Bits & Pieces

Back in the 1960s when everyone was crazy for the Beatles, my favorite band was the Dave Clark Five.  Their first big hit in the U.S. was a song titled, “Bits & Pieces.”  I thought I would co-opt that title for this post which doesn’t have a singular focus, but rather, contains bits & pieces of my musings on a number of subjects.

Lesley Gore’s obituary was in today’s paper.  She died yesterday, February 16 of lung cancer.  In 1963, 16-year old Lesley hit the pop charts with “It’s My Party,” and followed that with the sequel, “It’s Judy’s Turn to Cry.”  She had other big hits including, “You Don’t Own Me,” “Sunshine, Lollipops” and “Maybe I Know.”  Baby boomers of a certain age won’t be able to read those titles without humming a few bars of Ms. Gore’s infectious tunes.  Rest in peace, Ms. Gore.  Your music will live on.

I grew up as a “yinzer” in an ethnic Pittsburgh household.  Either in spite of or because of that background, I worked hard to learn to speak grammatically correct English as a college student and then later as a lawyer.  I recognize that American English is not static, and we have to allow for its gradual evolution.  So when I hear someone say they are going to “lay down” for a while, I bite my tongue and think, “Maybe it’s not grammatically correct, but perhaps it will be someday.”  However, while recently listening to the radio, I thought I heard several announcers describe upcoming events in “Feb/yoo/ary.”  Way back in second grade, my teacher drilled into our brains that the correct pronunciation of the second month of the year is “Fe/brew/ary.”  Similarly, she insisted that the place to borrow books is a “lie/brary” and not a “lie/berry.”  I couldn’t believe that so many announcers could have skipped second grade, so I quickly checked my Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.  I was amazed - no, astounded - to discover that the preferred pronunciation was exactly what I had been taught was just plain wrong.  I’m not sure when this changed.  I did some quick internet research and couldn’t find any article that pointed to a date or even described a transition from what I had learned to what has become today's norm.  It was as if history had been re-written.  Like a scenario out of Orwell’s 1984, it seemed that Febyooary was always the correct pronunciation.  I checked with my own children and found that they also had gone to the dark side and accepted that the silent ‘r’ is actually something real in the English language.  However, a web search for “silent r” yielded several sites which indicated that there were no American English words with a silent ‘r.’ I’m not sure how to reconcile that result with the current prevalence of Febyooary.  I suppose I could accept it if Merriam-Webster changed the spelling of the second month to Febuary to coincide with its pronunciation.  Or perhaps I just need to do some more research on the subject.  Maybe I should do that at the local liberry.

I started wearing bow ties about twenty years ago.  At first, I had one or two and wore them sparingly on special outings or to church.  I was too self-conscious to wear a bow tie at the office.  Bow ties had somehow gotten a bad reputation.  They branded you as professorial at best or more likely as some kind of nerd, loser or weirdo.  After all, Dagwood Bumstead wears bow ties in the comics as does Garfield’s Jon Arbuckle when the strip’s author is trying to make him look particularly geeky.  Nevertheless, whenever I wore a bow tie, people complimented me on how good I looked.  I never heard the same level of compliment when I showed up anywhere in a necktie.  Then about ten years ago, I screwed up my courage and decided to start wearing bow ties at the office.  I don’t know that they helped my career which had pretty much plateaued by then, but I got a lot of compliments and really felt they suited me.  Over those ten years, I have given increasingly more space on my tie rack to bow ties and less and less to neckties, which I rarely wear except perhaps to a funeral.  Bow ties seem somehow to be too joyous for a somber occasion.  At the same time, I have been gladdened to see that bow ties are having a resurgence.  At a recent meeting I attended, there were more bow ties than neckties.  I would like to take credit for this bow tie renaissance, but I think a lot of the credit has to go to actor Matt Smith.  Mr.Smith, who is most known for his role as the 11^th Doctor on the BBC’s Doctor Who, repeatedly declared, “Bow ties are cool!”  Mr. Smith played the Doctor on the series from 2010 through 2013.  That’s just about the time period when bow ties started showing up in more than a few men’s stores, and men in their twenties started wearing them.  So thank you, Matt Smith, for making bow ties cool again, and me at least by association.  Mr. Smith as the Doctor also declared that fezzes are cool.  I’ve been a hat wearer for many years.  Maybe it’s high time I went looking for a fez.