Take That Seinfeld

It has been suggested that my life….when posted on Facebook…resembles a sit-com. For instance, let’s take a look back at the weekend.
I enjoy going on the Amtrak out of Carbondale when I have to be in Chicago. I like business class…but sometimes the nice seats are taken….and I have to roll in the coach car. With Spring Break on the immediate horizon, a coach ticket was the best I was doing for a conference in the Windy City last Thursday.

But I was lucky----the train was not full as we rolled out of the station, so I was sitting single in a double. Lots of room. The train makes several stops along the way. As we stopped at the Effingham station, I sat and peered out the window and spied a very large man walking towards the train. I looked over at the empty seat…and then turned and looked out at the man, who was at least 300 pounds and appeared to have lots of food and drink spilling from his large pockets. There was a party in his pants.

No, I thought….there must be a hundred open seats on this train….No.

Yes, he decided to sit next to me.

The aroma was the first thing I noticed. The second thing was his reaching his arm under my chin to stretch his phone charger cord into a power jack on the wall next to me. It was like a clothes line….right in front of my face.

After much thought-----I detected the aroma of pastrami, jalapenos, and an aged cheese. Aged--as in months old cheese. The smell was very disturbing.

I hid under my noise-cancelling headphones and tried to ignore the intrusion.

At about Kankakee, I decided to take off the headphones.

Mistake.

He wanted to have a conversation. The man was pushing a theory that the 911 terrorist attacks were really an inside job perpetrated by Dick Cheney and the Vatican. Now we know the whole story about why the Pope quit.

There was more…. He said the British burned our original 12th, 13th and 14th amendments during the War of 1812 and replaced them. The original amendments were being kept in the wing of the Pentagon that was destroyed during 911.

At this point I am praying for Chicago’s Union Station…

Cheese, jalapeno, pastrami conspiracy boy made it a long trip.

Saturday night, I took my wife to a concert in my birthplace of Alton, Illinois. Alton spelled backwards is “Not LA.” On this night----I found the inhabitants of the Argosy Casino to be as entertaining as the featured act, The Ozark Mountain Daredevils.

Carol and I have been on a tour of the rock bands that we couldn’t afford to see as young adults. We have future tickets to Huey Lewis, Joe Walsh, and Bob Seger.

Let’s all agree that rock’n’roll is not dead. But baby it’s on life support. The OMD concert was a great illustration.

The Devils were obviously well into their 60’s----but they could still play and sing. The concert itself was pretty good. It was the audience that was stunning.

It was old. I mean real old.

They held seats right in front of the stage for the high rollers (typically 75-year-olds who appear driven to blow their inheritances). There were wheel chairs, lots of orthopedic shoes, and much more wool than I have ever seen at a rock concert.

When the Daredevils played their 1974 hit “If You Wanna Get To Heaven,” everybody stood up----but the fifty high rollers in front.

They couldn’t.

And when the last chords died on the song, they were the first to be rolled out and onto the slot machine floor. It took the rest of us-----those still able to stand upright----to clap and yelp for the band to do an encore.

Instead of pot----I detected the unmistakable smell of moth balls.

Finally-----we retired to the lodge at Pere Marquette Lodge near Grafton.

Carol wanted a glass of wine----so I joined her in front of the huge fireplace for a drink at around ten o’clock. We were there….relaxing…..when the Great Hall was filled by folks there---apparently----attending a convention that had just concluded.

I sat next to the fire with my merlot, Carol with a sweet muscatel.

The folks around us were well-dressed…..seemed pleasant….and clearly looked like they were in touch with a higher power. But boy they were shooting us some ugly looks.

It was uncomfortable…so we retired to the empty bar to return our empty glasses.

I commented to the bartender that it didn’t look like the convention was helping her business.

“I didn’t think it would,” she said.

“Never does when we have AA here.”

Yep, we had sipped our drinks and mingled with the leaders of the local Alcoholics Anonymous.

Here’s all I can say in summation of my weekend…..

Top that Seinfeld.