Practically Waterloo Sunset

Turns out I was right, but wasn't correct. It's amazing how often that happens these days.

Was at Waterford's Crystal Mall yesterday to get some of those ten thousand steps a day in (I haven't been especially good about it this holiday, and more disturbingly, I'm not concerned that I've been so lackadaisical about it) and the Mall was filled with people but not anywhere near over-flowing.

This makes it easy for me, with a vaguely formulated desire to get to a record shop (they're not called that anymore, are they? I'd have to drive practically to Boston and go to Newberry's to buy an actual piece of vinyl) to wander around the upper and lower levels of the mall, clicking off the strides and people watching.

I especially enjoy observing the contingents from Date Night at Piranha High-groups of high school age (or what I, as a man in my mid-fifties, suppose are high school age) men and women, always an odd number, as if the 'extra person' regardless of sex, is the wingman or ringmaster to keep the proceedings from going too far or too fast. I've picked up 'pda' and other extensions of the gearhead vernacular, like OMG or (my favorite) ROTFLMAO, and use them as if they are actual words ('woot' was added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary this year. I am so impressed that I know this.).

Passing a contingent, I smiled to realize one of the group boasted of her allegiance to Laugh Out Loud High School. And my generation thinks irony is lost on our kids!
Two more steps down the mall promenade and it dawned on me, as one of the characters in Through the Looking Glass explains, 'a word means exactly what I say it means--no more, and no less.' In all likelihood, the high school being supported was, Lyme Old Lyme (I've never understood if this is a marketing ploy like Coke and New Coke; there is, I believe, an East Lyme, but I've never heard of a West Lyme).
I thought about apologizing for making fun of the student's school (Brian Wilson would have approved if he could but look up from his sandbox) and then remembered my mistakes are really the only thing I can truly call my own.
'Terry and Julie cross over the river where they feel safe and sound. And they don't need no friends as long as they gaze on Waterloo Sunset, they are in Paradise.'
-bill kenny