Louis Roney: Sticks in the mud

• People who write columns search assiduously for something new to say—something fresh, something gripping, something funny, etc. Most married people seem to already know how impossible it is to be interesting to another person all the time. They often help each other by finishing each others sentences, and by other little mannerisms that make marriage ever more scintillating. People who have been married several time have little private collections of strange sayings put away in their minds to pull out at a moments notice. I say “strange” because “usual” denotes boring, a quality which at all costs must be avoided if one is to have any social pretensions.

Words like “neat” “cool” “right on” and “awesome” strut their moment on the stage and then are heard no more, or, at best, rarely, we hope.... My dad, a professor of modern languages, often had a professor colleague drop over to our place who could not complete a sentence without saying, “Don’t cha know?” The fact that he was an Englishman made him even more exotic to my sister and me who “Don’t cha know’d” each other for a while each time after he left. B.w. says that people we know don’t talk that way, don’t you know? People who say, “I mean” habitually soon lose their credulity and we don’t believe a word that they “mean.” Still, we love people, for after dogs, what else is worth spending time with?

Incidentally, when a dog loves a person, I believe that person more than likely can be trusted.

In New York’s Central Park, benches along the paved walkways provide places for people who come there just to sit, and audiences for people who are walking their dogs. One little old lady asked me, “Do you spoil your dog?” “What else can you do with them,” I answered. In my experience it is not true that cats and dogs don’t get along with each other. As a kid I had both cats and dogs, and they were always great pals, perhaps after a short “initiation show-down.” I never had a cat or a dog who liked canned pet food. They usually waited for table scraps, thinking, I guess, “If it’s good enough for you people, it’s good enough for me.” In plenty of areas, a clever dog will “case” the neighborhood and learn where nice folks who don’t have any pets, will put out some delicious “leftovers” for them. If your pet doesn’t eat his food at home but yet stays nicely fed and rotund, you can bet your pet has a pal who is taking good care of him in the neighborhood.

Do you think that guys who call their women-folk, “my pet” are especially good to their chosen gals?

• Lot’s of people seem to be moving into our neighborhood at any given time. We are “sticks in the mud” with the inertia of people who marry with lots of “furniture” and no compelling place to go. We are the kind of rare people who are satisfied with what we have—whatever that may be.

And if that doesn’t tell you a lot about us, keep thinking. My grandmother used to say, “Happy people are satisfied with what they have.” That doesn’t mean that they couldn’t desire more, but they don’t bellyache about it continuously. Complaining about ones earthly possessions without doing something to change it was granny’s idea of a “zilch.” Those of us who have never received anything from the government except the right to vote, are perhaps “nuts” who never quite got “with it.” I sang all over the world when great tenors were rare, and I never missed many meals. After b.w. and I met and got to know each other, we began to wonder if we really needed two apartments. So, I popped the question, and she nodded in agreement and I put a little ring on her second finger left hand. We came from New York to Florida on our honeymoon so b.w. could see “the little town where I grew up.” On impulse alone, we bought a roomy old house that faces on a small lake with lots of greenery. We brought two apartments of furniture down to one big house, and it fit perfectly in the new digs. We’re here to stay, I believe. But I have heard that women do change their minds!

We’ll see!