Thursday Morning Errands with Bad Dad. . .

Bad Dad wearing a cotton twill shirt (tucked in), khaki shorts, old worn leather dock-siders, and a cloth surcingle ribbon belt.

The Young Master enjoys a devil's food doughnut and glass of milk following our return home. Time for some new shirts before school starts in a few weeks since he has really outgrown his 5th Grade attire by this point in the summer. The Boy turns 12 at the end of October.

The Young Master accompanied yours truly, aka 'Bad Dad', for a few errands in town following breakfast this morning. He pushed the cart nicely, helped me pick out what we needed, and assisted with checkout before we headed back to the car for the trip home.

Notably, we were actually complimented on our appearance by the greeter just inside the big box supermarket as we entered. Always nice to hear, and kind of her, but I didn't think we were all that dressed up. I suppose, relative to many other shoppers she sees each day, we looked like we had just emerged from a UFO that had landed in the parking lot outside.

I say this not to shame anyone, or make some pithy statement about visible socioeconomic differences, privilege, lack thereof, or just simply declining standards of what is acceptable. But it never ceases to amaze me how people appear in public in 2021. Or, clearly, sit around the house while scrolling around on their iPhones, the latest opiate for the masses.

No, a suit and necktie are not always necessary. That's not what I suggest here.

But don't people have enough self-respect to pull themselves a bit more together before leaving the house? A rhetorical question, you understand. I fear we both know the answer already.

I know, I know. It's the same old song and dance. But come on, people! It's not that hard to look like you give a damn. About yourself and those with whom you interact.

-- Heinz-Ulrich

Up North Style. . .

Bad Dad makes a friend. YMP and Bad Dad on the shores of Lake Michigan. Or was that Crystal Lake? The Grand Duchess takes a selfie in her kayak. How NOT to impress the girls sunning themselves along the river. YMP and Bad Dad kayaking on the Platte River headed toward Loon Lake. J ust back from a week in Northern Michigan in a charming and spacious house on the banks of the Betsie River outside of Thompsonville. A largely pleasant seven days despite some challenging episodes with the Young Master, who has picked up some very questionable habits and language from his friends in the 8th Grade during the school year just ended. But otherwise, we enjoyed ourselves and contemplated remaining for a few days longer since the house was available. In the end, we decided to return home as planned originally since neither my wife, nor I wanted to spend the remaining days chained to our computers in Zoom meetings from our vacation destination. I actually managed to leave the laptop and ip

Mid-June Thursday Style. . .

A nother pretty typical variation on the theme for late spring, summer, and very early fall. I'm a huge fan of Madras and have several such shirts in the seasonal rotation. Lightweight, exceedingly comfortable, and even dressy when pressed and tucked in, which is the usual way of things here at Totleigh in the Wold. Now, if I had my druthers, I'd still rather be skiing the trails in the upper half of "The Mitten" (of Michigan), in the Upper Peninsula, or Ontario. But summers ain't so bad either, and I'd look pretty funny walking around in cross-country ski attire during June. -- Heinz-Ulrich

A Lazy Saturday at the End of June. . .

A sleepy first half of the weekend here at Totleigh. Warmer and quite humid ahead of an approaching cool front here in Mid-Michigan. Perfect for yet another pair of chino shorts an a seersucker shirt -- tucked in of course -- with the usual leather deck shoes and ribbon belt. Otherwise, not much accomplished beyond a page or so of writing and monkeying around with audio settings for an upcoming podcast episode. However, I was not completely useless yesterday! I made a huge fruit salad for dinner, which the Grand Duchess and I enjoyed a short while later at the table on the back porch. The Young Master, as is his wont on Saturday evenings, took his dinner on a tray in the TV room upstairs where he whiled away a couple of hours on Flight Simulator, flying some sort of commercial airliner to some destination across the Atlantic or Pacific. I would have loved that sort of technology at about nine or 10 way back during the late 1970s, aka The Stone Age. As it is, my sister and

Classic Style

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