GOOBER TROT

A few years ago I suggested to the local pipe club that they participate in San Francisco's zaniest event, as a themed unit. Naked pipe smokers in the dense fog. As they laboured up the Hayes Street hill I would be there in spirit, giving them moral encouragement, cheering them on. Not in the flesh, mind you, because sadly I alway work on Sunday. They took the matter under consideration, where it still is. And might, unfortunately, remain a little longer.
If I were to join them in that endeavor it would have more of a chance.

Naked middle aged men in the fog is what it's all about.

They fail to appreciate the gestalt.

The paradigm escapes them.


I am actually very glad that I will not be there today, as like them I shall not participate in the joy and radiant cheer of thousands of thematic joggers going from the docks near the Ferry Building to the beach all the way across the city, at whatever speed and in whatever state of dress. The serious runners will be in the lead, Kenyans probably, and the flobbly-wobblies will take several hours more, probably discarding items of clothing as they overheat from exertion while trotting through dense mists righ around the park, finally arriving at their destination hot, drenched, panting, shirtless and pantless, aching in every pore.
Oh it will be such fun!

The pipe smokers among them will be elsewhere instead. There's an open tin of Escudo which I really should sample before I forget. As well as several teabags with my name on them. These are important details.


Or I might have another bowl of Fourth Generation Black Dot. Which is quite good. Very comforting when dealing with either civilized pipe smokers or the rowdy senescents in the backroom. Either tobacco. Washed down with several cups of tea. And snapping like a turtle.
Fondly imagining several absent people flapping their old wattles naked in the fog just after dawn, possibly pushing a beer keg at speed past the appreciate onlookers lining the route.

Jeffrey, we saw you on the news. That beer keg would probably not have rolled back and crushed your testicles if you had emptied it first. Wear a cup next time.



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