Bucket List

Edinburgh Golf Club, Brooklyn Park, MN

I’ve never been much for formal social events.

When I was a child my father would bring me to various “dinners” the point of which which were always beyond me. I did meet Fran Tarkenton once, so I guess that counts for something.

Lately, and perhaps this is a by-product of my dotage (or just a restlessness to get out of the house after months of isolation), I have found that these kind of affairs have a renewed appeal. When I learned that an acquaintance of mine was to be inducted into my high school’s hall of fame at a banquet at a swanky golf club I jumped at the opportunity.

The event was held at the clubhouse on a golf course that had been built about twenty years ago with delusions of grandeur—it was supposed to be a Scots-style links course, but instead of natural undulating sand dunes, the holes had been built over an old land-fill, a place where my father and I would haul our trash when I was a child. These trips were a two-way street: finding neat stuff and picking up things that were educational—I once found a copy of Horatio Alger’s Tom the Bootblack, a classic piece of literature that introduced me to the Victorian-era concept of man-boy love.

Pardon the regressions.

The banquet went well and I even connected with a few people, including the sister of a favorite class-mate who was just as delightful as her sibling. There were even a couple of teachers in attendance comprising a very small group by now.

“Another thing off my bucket list,“ I joked to a friend who was there, “The only thing left on mine now is KFC:

A different sort of banquet, to be sure.