Lies and Truths

As part of our "Social Emotional Literacy" curriculum at the junior high we used to play "two truths and a lie". (Or maybe it was "two lies and a truth".)

Anyway, presuming it was two truths and a lie, everyone would write down two true things and one lie about themselves and others would guess which was the lie. It was actually a pretty entertaining way to find out things we never knew about each other.

So, adapting that format, I'm going to write about two remarkable things and one annoyance. You'll have to guess which are the remarkable things and which is the annoyance!

This morning it was in the upper 60's and very ominously cloudy. Nonetheless, eight women, average age about 68, showed up for outside water aerobics. These are the same women who have showed up on many a day in the lower 60's this summer. People who think water aerobics is a bunch of old ladies standing in warm water occasionally delicately moving an ankle are wrong, wrong, wrong. These ladies work their bodies hard and are not put off by the vagaries of Chicago weather! Today we only gave up when it began to pour.

Last week there was a second death at our church. Marilyn came to our church when her first husband died about six years ago and she had no church home for his funeral. She subsequently joined and became active in absolutely everything and, two years ago, began a storybook marriage to another member of the congregation. Everyone enjoyed watching these senior citizen lovebirds. The church family has been greatly saddened by these two unexpected deaths in less than a week but life goes on and yesterday we celebrated the five year anniversary of our two ministers of music. The choir surprised them with an anthem in their honor. Singing with the choir was the newly widowed man! Playing the piano for the anthem was the newly widowed woman!

This afternoon I went to the drive-up window of the bank to cash a check. As I'm retrieving the money from the drawer, the teller starts "yammering" (Ken's favorite word) about some wonderful new feature available to me. Between the amplification and street noise and her slight accent, I couldn't begin to follow what she was saying. When I said, "Sorry, I really can't understand what you are saying.", she looked irritated and handed the mike to another teller who then began the whole lecture all over again... and I still couldn't understand. After 30+ years in the classroom, I know my hearing isn't what it used to be but, tell me, do people really make decisions about changes to accounts while they are in the drive-in lane....especially since they are probably in the drive-up lane because they want to save time?

Faithful readers, I suspect you can figure out which of the above are the remarkable things and which is the annoyance, but feel free to contact me if you are not sure!