Charlie

I find the Wimbledon decision surprising, since the tournament is not like the Olympics, where the athletes compete as official representatives of their countries. At Wimbledon, the athletes are individuals, whose nationality seems unconnected to their qualifications to compete. Some of the players, like Azarenka, have minimal current connection to the country in which they hold citizenship. It doesn't seem fair to hold every citizen responsible for the actions of their governments, which they may not even support.

When I was a college student, one of my professors chain-smoked cigars in class. One time, W.H. Auden was invited to a class; he smoked his own terrible-smelling hand-rolled cigarettes while he spoke. When I started teaching, there was still an ashtray attached to the lectern in case the professor wanted to smoke while lecturing, which some of my colleagues did. I missed the first walk on the moon--I was down in the "meat rack" on Fire Island having fun that night.

Cooper, I feel your anxiety. Last year our independent financial advisor, Nick, who had handled our accounts since 1985, retired, but he advised us to switch to a younger independent financial advisor, whom he had known and sometimes worked with for many years, in whom he had total confidence. He told the new guy exactly what we were like and what we were used to, and when I spoke with him, I got the same vibe that I had always had from Nick. He actually keeps us as regularly advised about what he is doing as Nick did, and after almost 6 months, I have seen nothing to make me regret the change. The key is definitely full communication about what you want and are comfortable with.

It was a BuffBoys event at Heaven ($25 admission).

A number of years ago, I made a trip to NYC with a fellow West Coast poster here, who had only recently come out at an advanced age. Cooper took us to a strip club, a first-time experience for my companion. It was a momentous occasion for him😲. Cooper definitely knows what to do in the city.

I was told I had flat feet by a shoe salesman when I was an adolescent, and he advised that I always wear shoes that have good supportive insoles. So I have always avoided sandals and flipflops, and always check to see how much arch support there is in a pair of shoes before I buy them. I won't buy any shoes that I can't try on first, so I never buy them online.

When I was having problems, my podiatrist told me to go to the store where I buy my tennis shoes and simply buy SUPERfeet inserts, which I did. I now wear them in all my shoes that have removable insoles.

You probably flew Icelandic for the same reason that I did: it was the cheapest way to fly to Europe, because the airline did not belong to IATA, and flew from Keflavik to Luxembourg and back to avoid IATA restrictions on budget fares; therefore, one had to fly from New York or Luxembourg to Keflavik, and technically change planes there. Icelandic also offered things like open dates for return flights, for up to a year. I made several trips to Europe that way, and on a few occasions I did layovers in Reykjavik for a few days. Those things changed when it later became Icelandair and joined IATA.

Whenever I go back to a place where I once lived, I go to see the buildings I once lived in. When I was in Philadelphia several years ago, I stopped by the first house we owned, which we had sold 30 years previously. As I was taking a photo, the front door opened and a couple came out. I said," Don't worry, I am not casing the house for a burglary--we lived in this house for a dozen years." They said, "Oh, would you like to see what it is like inside now?" Of course I did! Considering that it had sold recently for almost three times as much as we had sold it for, I was surprised that it had changed very little since we left it. I pointed out to them where I had torn down a wall, the windows we had installed ourselves, the floor we had laid, the bathroom my father had helped us rebuild ourselves, etc. (we had been DIY gentrifiers). I couldn't wait to get back to CA and show the photos to my spouse. In one of our later houses, I looked out the front window and saw a man and a young girl looking at our house. I opened the door to speak to him, and he introduced himself as the architect, who had designed the house for his own home. The girl was born while they lived there, which was why he was showing it to her. So naturally I let them in so she could see what had been her first bedroom; she was obviously excited by the view from her window. Our first apartment in NYC was in a brownstone in Chelsea that had been converted to apartments. When we went to look at it several years ago, we discovered the whole building wrapped in construction netting. By looking up the address on Google (which didn't exist when we lived there in the 1960s), I discovered to my great surprise that the building was historically certified--not because we lived there, but because it was the only surviving building in the city that had been used as a station on the underground railroad by abolitionists in the 1850s.

It was older than I was.

That's good. When I made that flight almost a half century ago, it was a real nail-biter.

I couldn't help thinking of By Saam, longtime sportscaster for the Phillies.

I lived in England during the last year of Watergate, so most of my knowledge came from British newspapers and Time magazine. I was on my way back to America, and was between flights in Keflavik, Iceland, when I saw a group of passengers in the waiting room huddled around a transistor radio listening to something, so I joined them, and it was Ford being sworn in as President. I landed in New York to the first day of the new administration.

Does that flight still use those old DC-3s with the wooden benches inside along the walls? Maybe they feared the extra weight would bring the plane down😱

I had my first gay sex in NYC when I was 17. From then on for more than forty years, I lived in or played in the city frequently--I would estimate that at least 75% of all the sexual experiences in my life took place there. I knew all the bars in Manhattan and belonged to many of the sex clubs, and patronized all of the bath houses. The last time I was there was almost a dozen years ago. The neighborhoods I knew had changed; I found that all the places that I knew were gone, and the gay scene was terra incognita to me. I don't even know if gay bars are still a thing there.

I thought the same thing.

American Motors was actually created by merging Kaiser/Frazer with Nash, an older carmaker. Our nextdoor neighbors had a 1950 Nash Rambler convertible, and friends of my parents had a "bathtub" 1949 Nash sedan. Your family must have been well-off--my parents thought a Packard was only for the upper classes.

I remember when the hot new cars were Kaisers and Frazers. (Henry Kaiser was the Elon Musk of my childhood.)

English is the only spoken language he lists, and the text of the ad is reasonably well-written--he even knows the difference between "dominant" and "dominate," and "discreet" and "discrete."☺️

He describes himself as "tall, handsome and well hung." The photo appears to be reasonably accurate about "well hung;" "handsome" is a matter of personal taste; but "tall"? At 5'8"? The average height for an adult American male is 5'9" (I googled it).

One of my hesitations about any of these services is that they don't have much of the ethnic foods that I enjoy, specifically Indian and Japanese.

Now they have 6 reviews. If they have been on RM since Aug. 2014, however, it is hard to believe an age of 26 now.

Most people go to Nextdoor to find a plumber or a housecleaner, but if you are really versatile....who knows?

So much here seems strange. Only one review in 15 months, by someone who apparently paid $2000 for an escort appointment, or $1000 for a massage (?!). A 25 year old "student" (of what?) who speaks five languages, and offers to reveal his "full face" photo in the private pictures, although the almost all his public pictures already show his face. What do you want to bet he demands a "deposit" before meeting?

When the Ken doll first appeared, I was already playing with real guys named Ken.