Responses from you people
John E. Peterson
Thursday, December 28, 2006
ONE OF THE GREAT joys I get out of doing these columns is the responses I get from you people who read them. I would tell you about some of those responses, if I had my way.
The “If I Had My Way” and the picture of my slightly different old head seem to make me known to lots of people. That is great for my ego. I know some of the people who give me a comment. Others I do not know. Then there are those whom I know, but I cannot remember who they were a bit later before I could make a note about it.
Consequently, I am not going to give any names to the responses I shall tell you about. I shall just share some of these pleasant experiences with you.
I was going into Graves Drug to pick up a prescription just as a lovely lady was coming out. She held the door open and said, “If I had my way, I would hold the door for you.” I thanked her and told her that she had, indeed, gotten her way.
Speaking of Graves Drug brings another incident there at another time. As is usually the case, there were several people near the prescription counter at the back of the store waiting for their prescriptions. As I came down the aisle, two gentlemen were standing there chatting. When one of them saw me, he held out his hand, smiled and said, “If I had my way, none of us would have to be here doing this.”
The basketball games are a place where I get a lot of comments from you people. That is because most of us are wandering about at half-time and between games. We do a lot of chatting as we wander.
The sound system in White Auditorium is terribly loud. Voices are too loud on it. But the music is just terrible. And it is turned on at almost every break in the game. At the half-time of a recent game, I had stepped out in the hallway to toss something in the wastebasket. As I turned around, a gentleman I often chat with at the games came out. He had his fingers in his ears. When he saw me, he said, “If I had my way, they would turn this darned music down.” I agreed with him. I doubt, however, if we will get our way as far as that loud music is concerned.
Another person at another basketball game told Merle that the noise was just too loud in the auditorium. “If I had my way,” said this person, “the noise would be turned way down. It just hurts the ears.”
Another basketball game was an unusually rough, many-fouls game. All the fouls and free-throws made it drag out a good bit. We sit in the back row next to the aisle. Well into the second half, there was a tap on my shoulder and a man said, “If I had my way, we would see some decent basketball again.”
These things happen at football games, too. It was cold at the last game this year and, since my seat was in the shade, I got up once in awhile and went to where I could stand in the sun. I had just gotten to the railing when a gentleman came up beside me and said, “John, if I had my way, our team would be ahead. I chuckled and agreed with him.
People do not always use the “If I had my way” when they comment about my column. I had just gone into the exercise room at the Recreation Center one afternoon and sat down on a machine. A gentleman was on another machine a bit further down the row. He greeted me and then said, “You are going to have to come clean with your column readers.” I asked him what he meant and he said, “You write about the big lunches you go out to eat, but you never tell them that you work out and exercise afterward.” Now, then, I am telling you. I go to the Rec Center almost every afternoon and work off my lunch.
We were sitting in Albert Taylor Hall waiting for the Community Chorus and A Capella Choir to present their marvelous Christmas concert. I was in a seat on the aisle and about seven or eight rows from the back. A gentleman and two ladies came down the aisle, stopped just in front of us and looked around for where they would sit. He looked at me, smiled, and said to his ladies, “If I had my way, we would go further down toward the front.”
It was a Friday morning and I was going into the post office. One of my columns had been in the previous night’s Gazette. Just inside the door, a gentleman held out his hand to me and said, “John Peterson, if I had my way, you would keep on writing these columns. I really enjoy them!” Of course, I thanked him, but my ego popped so heavily that I could not think of anything else to say.
Well! I have berated you with some of the things you lovely people have said about my trivial columns. I have quite a few more in note-form and I suspect more will come (I hope so). Consequently, I imagine I will tell you about them again some day. I shall do that, If I have my way, I suspect. Thank you all for your generous and kind comments.