Dorothy L. Sayers:  “A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought.”

Ogden Nash:  “One man’s remorse is another man’s reminiscence.”

This is the last blolumn that the Ol’ P will be doing in 2008, and to tell you the truth, I won‘t be doing that much of it. As you might guess from the first quotation above, I’m about out of thoughts, original or otherwise. Perhaps I am suffering from what Mrs. Ol’ P refers to as blogstipation, or maybe I‘m just lazy. Whatever the cause, I have recruited others to say what I’m not about to say. As the last post of the year, this should be a place for reflection, reminiscing, and raucous recapitulation, but more on that later. Right now, I will deal with the fact that this is a time for rejoicing. Rejoicing, for you, because this is the last piece of C.R.A.P. in 2008, and for me because I don’t have to write all of it. Continue reading ‘It’s Time to Wrap Up 2008, And Dry Suits Too’ »

Morey Amsterdam:  “A Cannibal is a person who walks into a restaurant and orders a waiter.”

George S. Kaufman:  “Epitaph for a dead waiter - God finally caught his eye.”

A Bonus Joke:  Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup! That’s entirely possible. Our cook used to be a tailor.
This week, the Blog is scheduled to be devoted to the second installment from OPOL-MYC-SHLC. [For those who are new to the Blog, or can’t remember what they read two minutes ago, that stands for “Ol’ Philosophizer’s Log of the Malden Yacht Club on the South Half of Lake Champlain.” At least I think it does. I can’t remember what I wrote two minutes ago.] In my first OPOL-MYC-SHLC shtick, I proposed a rigorous alternating week schedule for disclosures about our 2008 voyages up north, and I would hate to depart from this goal so early in the game. No doubt that will happen in the near future, but for the time being, I don’t want anyone to claim that the expected C.R.A.P. ain’t regular. Continue reading ‘Hey, Ol P, What REALLY Happened While Kayaking on Lake Champlain? [Part 2]’ »

Mark Twain:  “By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man’s, I mean.”

George Bernard Shaw:  “We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.”

How do you create a brand new, longstanding tradition? This is a question that comes up from time to time in the Malden Yacht Club. Although some people believe that we have been around for a long, long time, the truth is that we don’t actually exist, so we haven’t been around at all. Are we an ancient aggregation that causes frequent aggravation, or are we merely invented representations of our collective figments of imagination? This startling state of status schizophrenia definitely causes problems from time to time, but none more evident than when we have to resolve a question about our traditions. If we don’t exist, we can’t have traditions. But, if we have traditions, then doesn’t that mean that we do exist … even though no one remembers just exactly what our traditions are … or that cynics claim that we make them up on the spot … which we would never do because then they wouldn’t be traditions … but we do often improvise when the spirit strikes … so I guess that could  mean that they are not really traditions at all … thus proving that we don’t exist … or does it? Or, to put it more succinctly, what’s it all about, Alfie? The good news, for us at least, is that we now have Madman available to interpret and treat our multifarious musings and many manic maladies. The bad news, for Madman anyway, is that the most recent puzzle directly concerns him. Continue reading ‘A Recent Rendition Of Our Inscrutable, Unsuitable Dry Suit Tradition’ »

Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum:  “Not every story has explosions and car chases. That’s why they have nudity and espionage.”

Steven Wright:  “I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol.”

Here’s a riddle for you: what happens when you have [a] an Ol’ Philosophizer with too much time on his hands, [b] some ideas about future excursions that said Ol’ Philosophizer wants to float and promote, [c] the availability to Ol’ P of an electronic bulletin board in the form of the Malden Yacht Club Blog, and [d] fifteen chapters of accurate observations regarding this year’s trips that yours truly hoarded, recorded, and finally keyboarded? Ah, now that’s a riddle that might terrify Batman.

Continue reading ‘Hey, Ol P, What REALLY Happened While Kayaking on Lake Champlain? [Part 1]’ »