BETWEEN THE LINES OF AGE

GRASS ROOTS -- EXPRESSION
Originally uploaded by Looly Huheet.

The adjoining photo is among those taken last month at the Grass Roots Festival.

So I'm meeting some friends at their apartment before we go to a nearby club to hear the Wild Geese, a local Celtic band. I follow a bevy of what seem to be early twentysomethings/college-age types into the building. One or more of them apparently lives there, as they're unlocking the inside door as I search for my friends' number to page them.

So one of the kids turns to me and offers, "We can let you in, sir."

Sir?

OK, it's heartening to see respectful and gracious behavior on the part of young adults. And I've ranted, er, held forth, in this spot before about my dislike of undue familiarity on the part of strangers, especially younger strangers. These kids were speaking and acting in a decent, respectful manner, for which I should be pleased (and, really, am).

However ...

holy flaming pickled prunes, that made me feel old.

Just for a moment, of course. But, still. I'm just not used to being a "sir." Maybe, at 37, I should be. I usually don't feel 37; more like 28 or 29 or some such. Of course, sometimes I feel like I'm 138, so it all levels out, I suppose.

Don't mind me, I'm just babblin'.

Books: A Grief Observed (C.S. Lewis)
Sounds & Images: "Five Days in May" (Riverfolk)
State O'Mind: Old

DELI-EMMA

ME: "I'd like a small Italian-assorted sandwich, please. With everything."
DELI EMPLOYEE: "Do you want lettuce, tomatoes and onions?"

The above exchange has happened more than half a dozen times in my recollection.

Do lettuce, tomatoes and onions have a mystical property that exempts them from inclusion in the "everything" club? Have they somehow transgressed the social niceties of the deli pecking order and don't get to be in the "everything" clique anymore? Do the cheese and salad oil say denigrating things to them on the cutting board (I nearly said "cutting remarks") and knock down their textbooks and shove them in the produce cooler?

One would think that "everything" would be understood as a set that encompasses such subsets as "lettuce, tomatoes and onions" -- that if you let e="everything," e would be equivalent to "all toppings listed on the topping board." Obviously, despite generic meanings of the word "everything," e wouldn't include items outside those parameters, like, say, Belugan caviar or mincemeat, or, for that matter, harmonicas or totem poles. But lettuce, tomatoes and onions would, it seems, be safely included within most values of e.

Then again, you have to ask specifically for sweet peppers (and kick in an extra quarter and a dime). They're either the shunned wallflower or the homecoming queen. Or some combination of both, as in Carrie.

I'll stop now.