Beachcombing

I’ve traveled the world a few times and came up with this undeniable fact: “Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.”

Next month I’ll be traveling to the east coast for a 60^th high school class reunion. Chances are good that many of my 180 classmates from 1962 will not be in attendance ten years from now. Already 60 or so have passed away.

Thanks to the pandemic, we have monthly Zoom sessions with some of those old folks, so that’s the newfangled way to keep in touch.

The bigger draw to visiting Waynesboro, Penna., will be to see my sister, Margaret, her family and a few cousins living nearby. There’s a picnic in the planning stages; hopefully only aunts will be there!

Travel can be a pain in the ass, especially with airlines squeezing the seats down to as little as a 27-inch pitch with the norm being closer to 32 inches. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is starting to put the squeeze on the airlines to clean up their anti-passenger ways. It’s about time.

Then there’s the baggage situation. I bought one of those carry-on bags to fit in the overhead bin, but that may be a challenge since everyone is doing it. The good news is that there’s less likelihood of the bag being lost in transit.

Car rental fees are out of control. Hertz wanted $150 more than Budget for the same car at the same times at Dulles Airport near Washington, DC. Some airlines will charge 2-3 times the lowest fare for the same flight if passengers are too lazy to do their homework.

One other trip on my bucket list is Italy in September or October of 2023. I’m counting on Pete Buttigieg to clean things up and make that one more enjoyable.

Here’s a few “daffy-nitions” that came to us from a Beachcomber reader:

ARBITRAITOR: A cook that leaves Arby’s to work at McDonald’s.

BERNADETTE: The act of torching a mortgage.

BURGLARIZE: What a crook sees through.

AVOIDABLE: What a bullfighter tries to do.

EYEDROPPER: Clumsy ophthalmologist.

CONTROL: A short, ugly inmate.

COUNTERFEITER: Workers who put together kitchen cabinets.

ECLIPSE: What an English barber does for a living.

LEFT BANK: What the bank robbers did when their bag was full of money.

HEROES: What a man in a boat does.

PARASITES: What you see from the Eiffel Tower.

PARADOX: Two physicians.

PHARMACIST: A helper on a farm.

POLARIZE: What penguins see through.

PRIMATE: Remove your spouse from in front of TV.

RELIEF: What trees do in the spring.

RUBBERNECK: What you do to relax your wife.

SELFISH: What the owner of a seafood store does.

SUDAFED: Brought litigation against a government official.

PARADIGMS: Twenty cents.

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