Monthly Archives: August 2020

Just Me - AmeliaJake

Mask problem

Jeez Louise. At first I thought the mask for the virus was a convenient way for me to hide my mouth, which is large, and, for that matter, larger than my overall dental structure. The latter just emphasizes the bigness of my mouth. I didn’t realize it until the dental hygienist pointed it out – Oh, fie on her. However, I was not aware of how much I depended on that big mouth of mine to grin and navigate through society.  Apparently, I have what might be called somewhat of an Eisenhower grin; I believe it has bought me some extra slack with people over the years. (We aren’t even going to talk about the dimples.)

So, now, I have to be extra polite in my body language and I’m not very good at that. Also you don’t have much time when you are passing someone to express a grin in body language. Seventy plus years, taken as a whole, has given me a wide spectrum of grins, and, in other cases, incredible “looks of death”.

And then there is the nose. My nose is normal, not too large and not to small and shaped in no way that would make it easily represented in an identi-kit used by police folks. If anything, it is a not uncute little nose. And it’s covered.

That leaves my eyes, which are deep-set and crowding my nose. There is no mask over them and I wear glasses to boot. I feel unarmed. Maybe I should feel protected since I am less likely to come out with a sarcastic remark while masked. Actually, I miss that also.

The only good thing is that my lips are thin and therefore not Beautiful People lips. But with me and the latter being masked the BP lose their advantage. Of course, those that have paid for lip plumping injections are probably pissed off now. That, however, is not uplifting enough to counter the grin loss.

Well, maybe this is the time to rob a bank.

The Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse

Recurring thoughts

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I have no real idea why I started to think of of the late basketball coach Jimmy Valvano, but I did; for that matter I have been doing so for the last few days. I remember walking out of the kitchen decades ago and meeting my father coming the other way; he was laughing and relating how a winning coach had run around looking for someone to celebrate with and had wound up beening kissed by the Athletic Director.  I think I though, “Okaaaaay.”

I didn’t think of it as a touchstone back then, but I realize now that most weekends there would be a sports event on the TV. I’m from Indiana  –  Hoosiers Indiana – and I went to basketball games at little unconsolidated schools before I have any memory of going. In fact, one of my bedtime stories from before the time I was five was about the night my cousin, who was considerably older, broke his arm playing during a high school game. I remember the story; I don’t remember it happening. My mother once remarked that my dad had gone with his nephew and brother-in-law to the hospital and she and I had come on home with my grandparents.

Basketball was such a part of small town Indiana life that decades later my father would remember some occasion he and and his family attended by starting his  sentence with: “I had an 8th grade basketball game that night . . .”

I have let nostalgia get in the way of my little story here. The coach who got kissed was Jimmy Valvano and he would later die of an aggressive cancer. Shortly before his death, he was asked to receive The Arthur Ashe Courage & Humanitarian Award. I doubt the awarding committee realized how incapacitated he was, but, after some consideration, he traveled to accept it . . . and make a speech. And what a speech it was. It’s on YouTube and maybe once a year I listen to it. If you want, you can take the 11 minutes to watch it, and if you do, I think you’ll be glad you did.