"It takes onw to recognize one," they say. I've long felt that my generation needs some characters like those in former generations I either knew personally or have heard of in the oral tradition that has framed my life. Not to worry, I guess. Some say I fit the bill myself, as having fun in the Como Park Zoo shop recently attests. Though completely unaware as yet, could it be that my newest grandson Carson, aided and abetted by his father and mother's generation, is already become a character in his? Must be in the gene pool. Why else would he be graced with the same middle name as I bear, "Gustaf"?
Sometime back I asked Carson's folks one day, mostly in jest, what they would do with me when I get loopy and.... Before I could finish the sentence his mother finished it for me. "You really mean loopier, don't you. You are already loopy."
Perhaps so, in which case stories about me are already flowing from mouth to mouth, much as they did about others in my experience. So be it. It is no sin to have a sense of humor. Laugh a little, first always at yourself, and you'll learn as I have--and still am learning--a lot about life.
What Glen Wiberg said abour preaching in my recent video interview of him (see Interviews:Media, May 8, 2009) surely applies here as well: "It is no sin to be interesting!"
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