Vernon's Law

I love diners--Much better than trendy coffee shops. I don't even drink coffee. But every so often, I'll go to a Starbucks and order a soda just to make the barrista furrow her brow and deny me. "What? You don't serve Coca Cola? What the hell kind of American company is this?" "Oh OK..I'll have one of those boysenberry, blackberry, Chuck Berry spritzers...and a bear claw"

If you sit at Starbucks long enough, you're bound to overhear the coffee bean intellectuals, still pissed that George Bush was ever President and that Fox News is allowed to broadcast, quoting some heady philosopher like Kierkegaard. I, for one, have never read Soren Kierkegaard and I suspect that those who quote him probably haven't either. It makes my ass crochet when people quote authors without having read the work.

I even caught myself doing it with Thomas Wolfe the other day....or was it Virginia Woolf?....I get my woolves confused.

"You can never go home!" Or was it "You can never go home, AGAIN?"

The point is...I seriously doubt anyone who hasn't read the book You Can't Go Home Again...truly understands the context of the quote. I don't either, but I do know an aging Annette Funicello said it to an equally aging Frankie Avalon in the forgettable 1987 movie Back to the Beach. Anything a Mouseketeer finds worthy of quoting is just fine with me. Can't get more bubble gum than that.

Or how about...chewing tobacco?

I came across an amazing quote by Vern Law. WHO?

Only a hard core sporto would likely recognize the name. Vernon Law, star pitcher and winner of the Cy Young for the 1960, World Champion Pittsburgh Pirates.



Who knew Vernon Law? Who knew Vernon Law was such a philosopher?

Here's his quote that keeps ringing in my ears today?

Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first and the lesson afterwards.

WOW...deep stuff worthy of posting on my redneck refrigerator in the basement....the one with the hole cut in the door so I can tap a beer keg through it to watch Da Pisburgh Stillers play. That's how they talk there!




The lacerated leg is on the mend and I'm off to get tested on the golf course with my very cantankerous Dad. That lesson will be equal to anything I'd get at Harvard.