Trivial Pursuit allowances, Americanisms and Eric J.

I recently reconnected with my long time friend, Eric J. at Larry Ayre's memorial and it brought back some great memories.

Eric is Dutch and, at that time, was married to Dawn, a very American Woman, but not in that crass, Canadian band, Guess Who kinda way.

We had a lot of fun teaching Americanisms to Eric and my favorite was that good old baseball tradition of not using the two words of "no" and "hitter" in the same sentence while one was actually happening. We were at the John Barleycorn rooting on the Giants. It was late innings and, of course, we had a no hitter working when Eric walked in and promptly asked, 'Hey? Is that no hitter still on?"

Before we could all cringe at this massive faux pax, it was a swing, hit and up the middle it went. Giants actually went on to lose as I remember but my friend learned a valuable lesson and, naturally he bought a round or two to wash his sins away!

Americanism number 2 flew by Eric on another time, when he and Dawn had made plans to meet for later in the evening and Dawn replied, "l will be there with 'bells on'."

I will never forget the quizzical look in Eric's eyes as he then asked, "Why?"

We used to play a lot of Trivial Pursuit in those days and we agreed to the "Eric Allowance" for questions like, "How long was World War II?"

Why, yes, Eric. In your country, 6 years IS the correct answer!

We used to have leisurely BBQs out at their house in Walnut Creek on sunny, warm days and I remember Dawn taking a brief nap during one of them in their patio hammock and I remembered making the observation that it was a pity that Dawn's 15 minutes of Andy Warhol fame just happened to coincide with her 20 minute nap.

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