No, I’m not going to retire, not for a while at least. Unless…I could beat the odds and win the lottery, which would really beat the odds since I haven’t bought a lottery ticket.
My Morning du Jour was spent with the gentlemen of the Mather Place of Wilmette, a retirement community in, well, Wilmette, Evanston’s ‘burb-next-door. Mather Lifeways is headquartered in Evanston, and they are a good friend to the Chamber. I was invited by the marketing staff to be the guest speaker at their inaugural Gentlemen’s Breakfast. As I am indeed a gentleman, I warmed to the task, regaling in their stories and jokes. I only barely remember one of my grandfathers, so it was particularly nice to ‘rent’ 18 or 20 for an hour or so. My speech was off the cuff(link), and I brought a bag full of ties for them to sport. We had a tie-tying contest, and as you can see, I took pictures of all of them. It was serendipitous to me that I brought EXACTLY the number of ties that I needed. Gentlemen…thank you for sharing your time with me; and to the MPofW…thank you for the lovely parting gift, a gorgeous Mather-orange (what else) tie.
So, here are the pix…in the interest of time and layout, I’ll try to put these side by side…
Bob-Tie No. 98
Russell-Tie No.
Bob & Russell were at my table during breakfast. Russell’s great line was, “A week before the wedding, I sat my wife down and said, ‘From now on, I make ALL the major decisions; you’ll make all the MINOR decisions.’ In 69 years of marriage, we NEVER had a major decision.” After a general table discussion about physical activity “below the waist”, Bob told a Churchill joke. Sir Winston walked into a cabinet meeting; upon being told that his fly was open, he said, “Dead birds never fall out of the nest.” Classic.
Mike-Tie No. 24
Norme-brought his own tie!
Like me, these guys aren’t retirees, either; they work for MPofW. Mike, Norme and Harold…
Harold-Tie No.
Norme had a great Salvation Army story. He was just out of the Marines, and he had a job interview but nothing to wear to it. He used the change from his car to buy a shirt and tie from a Salvation Army. He got the job.
Here are the rest of the guys…
Bill-Tie No. 77
Bill-Tie No. 42
Bill Nash-Tie No. 91
Bill Walsh-Tie No. 74
These are the Four Bills. That’s not their nickname…yet. But just wait until I infiltrate the poker tournaments.
Tie No. 70
Gerald-Tie No. 30
John-Tie No. 45
Lawrence-Tie No. 53
Tie No. 67
Pat-Tie No. 15
Thomas-Tie No. 22
All these guys were really great. And I wish I could have remembered all the cool things they shared. Many of them have outlived their wives, despite being outnumbered, in their age bracket, 6-to-1 in the ladies-to-men department. They did say that dinner inviters were aggressive. So, many thanks to my RWT gang! (Retirees With Ties)
Wow, that’s a lot of pictures. Now, let’s get to my Tie du Jour, and then let’s get the pix from the last couple of days.
My TdJ is from Daniel di Milano, and I have adored their strips on these virtual pages before. They just feel right when you tie them. While the field of the tie is gray, the purple flowers give the entire tie a regally purple tone. At least that what I’m going with, to keep up Purple Tie Week appearances.
Okay, I’m on quite a roll with the pix, so let’s go back to Tuesday…100th TieDay.
Dr. Bob-Tie No. 80
Coleen-Shannon-Tie No. 25
Carin-Tie No. 41
Ok, so this is the squad that is responsible for my pearly whites lookin’ pearly. The Stephens Dentistry team is amazing. They are on our floor, so I went over there hoping to get a couple of pictures. What does Coleen do? She gets the entire office, as should be obvious, to get out there, don a tie and pose. Awesome, awesome Coleen. [whisper: thanks!]
Olga-Tie no.
Lauren-Tie No. 87
Tanya-Tie No.
Sasho-Tie No.
Lindsay-Tie No.
Dr Jim-Tie No. 56
Randy Rocker
And, these two pictures should make two things patently clear (like my teeth): 1) You don’t have to wear a tie around your neck 2) Clean teeth rock!
Sorry about the mishmosh layout today, and sorry I didn’t get to put all of the pictures on here. As I’m driving to Nashville today (adult camp at Camp Marymount, my favorite place on earth), I won’t be wearing another purple tie. But I’ll try to fire up a special ‘picturesque’ edition of 100D100T.
Thanks for reading…Brooke
100 Days, 100 Ties 
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