Tis the season and an austere group known as LOFO,Loyal Order of The Fat Ones (cigars, not body type) assembled at a den of iniquity called  Churchill’s, in the Brown Palace(BP) Hotel here in Denver.This crowd of reprobates numbered close to a dozen. It’s just good for the soul to smoke a cigar, drink some scotch and tell lies.

I immediately came under fire for sporting  a still sizable bandage on my bald melon. I had MOHS surgery on a squamous cell cancer two weeks ago and still have the stitches in. There was no mercy. Several questioned whether they went deep enough to find gray matter while others asked if it was a frontal lobotomy? I finally shut them all up by claiming their sympathy was fraudulent and besides we were not talking about a vital organ here.

The makeup of this crowd was significant. There were lefts and rights. Big wheels. Not so big wheels. One heads up the Small Business Administration for the Rocky Mountain Region. There was the Body Snatcher who owns a highly successful funeral business here in Denver. Alex calls himself a Blaxican because his parents were black and Mexican. He sells agricultural goods to the Ivory Coast in Africa.There were lawyers, oil men and Wall Street types. There was a great friend who is going to be spending his first Christmas without his dear wife who passed on this year. Another was ecstatic that his son was going to be moving to Denver to start a new job. So many twists and turns.

The conversation was energetic. People switched seats constantly to engage one another. No one was looking around the room to see if there was somebody more important to talk to. That person was right in front of you .We laughed heartily. I mean belly shakers that felt so good right down to your bones. There was no ISIS or Trump or stock markets. No agendas. We just had fun.

As I drove home I thought about my week. I have had interactions with people in the city administration in my quest to clean up the Cherry Creek.  People told me to stay away from this one or that because they were assholes.  Turned out not to be true. Funny how a civil tone and just treating someone like a human being can go a long way. Even more I dwelled on the thought that over the last year I have met a whole raft of people I would never had known if I hadn’t gotten involved. That’s a very cool thing .

Last Saturday my son in law and I drove out about forty miles from Denver to a place called Byers, Colorado. It was snowing and visibility was low but it didn’t matter because there is nothing but open plains to see there anyway. We were going to pick up a new Labradoodle puppy for his kids. Funny, we acted just like kids ourselves.

The breeder told us how she had lost her husband last May. She wanted to talk and the paperwork took far longer than it should have. Impatience could have come spilling out but somehow we thought that we should just let the woman speak about hospitals and doctors and whatever. It was the right thing to do. When we got home the girls were beyond elated. They screamed and giggled and welcomed the new member of the family with proverbial open arms. Life is good.

Sunday evening we fly to London to be with my son and his family. We are beyond thrilled to be able to go there. Nothing crazy or extravagant  but just spending a Christmas in their home even though we will be far away from ours. Seeing how their part of the world lives. My thoughts go not only there but to all the places we have been lately. I wonder what the holiday is like in South Africa or Zimbabwe? What about those kids in the orphanage at Victoria Falls?

Sorry if this all sounds corny to you. I truly hope it doesn’t. I guess I am just lucky, happy and most of all thankful. We all have so much and that is fine. I hope we just realize it and sit down and think about it from time to time. I have had a lot happen this year from surgeries to jumping out of airplanes to walking with lions. Shot a couple of decent rounds of golf and have a great wife and kids and grandkids. On balance I would say I am very much on the plus side.

I will write next from across the pond. I hope I can find a BP just like the one here in Denver. Maybe just sit down and enjoy a Scotch with my son or a glass of red with his wife. Filling stations are great wherever they are. They keep our motors running and the lube bays keep us from rattling or squeaking too badly as we get older. Don’t ever let your gas gauge go down to E . It’s bad for you .

As always
Ted The Great.

Factoids:

None to speak of.