When you're grieving (as he had been for his wife) and people try to give you advice, S told me, "It's like you're in Missouri telling me what it's like for me in Yugoslavia." He'd had a girlfriend in Florida whose mother had them over for dinner each week. They brought a friend who was very short, and sensitive about it. "Don't say anything about her height," the girlfriend had told her mother. Just as soon as the door opened, of course, the mother let out a southern "why you so short, girl?" I told him that the second time my mother met my college roommate's parents, who had moved from Japan decades earlier, she told them how much their English had improved. S and I groaned.
"I'm old and wise," said the man up the hill, walking with his wife. "No, you aren't," I replied, "you're a Cubs fan."
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