by Robert Bowie, Jr. | Mar 25, 2025 | Featured, Humor, Poetry
If you’re like me, the best memory you ever have had is an act of self-deception that you can’t remember. However, if you happen to stop forgetting for only a fraction of second it will be abrupt recollection.
It is like if you have ever accidentally slammed a door in your own face. It’s not easy to do, but you’ll remember it if you succeed.
On the first day of spring this year, I had one of those abrupt remembrances.
My New Year’s resolution this year is to get into better physical shape this spring. Unconsciously, of course, I have been getting less and less inclined the closer I get to springtime when I must start fulfilling my commitment to myself.
The truth is this New Year’s resolution has been the same New Year’s resolution I have made each year for over 20 years, but each previous spring I had successfully forgotten that years’s resolution.
Then I stumbled upon one of the sonnets in the book I wrote more than 20 years ago, entitled “Marathon Man.”
This year the door slammed in my face. Coincidentally, it occurred on the first day of spring last week, at a doctor’s appointment when I was told I must start exercising. I had forgotten that over 20 years ago I wrote “Marathon Man.” which made it much worse.
It starts:
The Marathon Man
“In a world of educated guesses
About one’s loves, integrity and health,
It is my custom to keep promises,
Even if they are only to myself.”
This is the perfect example of delusions of grandeur, which I had pleasantly forgotten into a magnificent memory of never committing to exercise, which is regrettably false.
As early as I can remember, I have consistently joked that I was so lazy I played goalie in all sports to avoid running laps. (The coach always shoots on the goalie while the rest of the team runs laps.)
But in my defense, technically being a goalie is not about the commitment to never exercise. It is a commitment not to exercise that I practiced religiously. I never committed to exercise. That’s entirely different.
Nonetheless, I’m highly competitive.
My memory is that I have saved myself from exercise to avoid injury so I will be ready for the senior Olympics when some doctor finally tells me I must exercise.
I have been told this before over 20 years ago when I was the marathon man but still as lazy and competitive as always.
Back then, I challenged a friend who is a very good runner to a 10 K race, but I got a 10-minute reduction of my time as a handicap to even the odds. For about three weeks before the race, I committed to run a mile around the high school track and, as a further commitment, I would eat four raw eggs poured out of a blender because I had seen “Rocky” the movie and Rocky did that.
It didn’t go well, which led to the delusion of grandeur in the form of a marathon. As is indicated in the third stanza:
“I trained on a treadmill, March to July.
Got my first runner’s high at 55.
Depleted my life‘s endorphin supply,
and blew out both knees and begged to die.“
So this time the doctor prescribed a certain number of steps as a target for each day. The doctor reminded me hopefully that it would also get me outdoors and into sunlight neither of which happened.
At the end of every day around midnight, before bed, I would find myself doing endless laps around the dining room table to meet my minimum requirement of steps.
Covid helped me along. My wife, who exercises regularly, proudly told me one evening her total steps and asked me about mine. I had decided to take the day off, so I happily worked and read pretty much all day. My total step count was around 50. Which probably is two trips to the bathroom and one to the kitchen.
Then I ran into this damn poem and I don’t feel good about getting ready for the senior Olympics. I feel my lethargy has not sufficiently ripened.
The sonnet ended with this final couplet:
“Oh yes, but the hell with all this fun;
Next year, for sure, I’ll be ready to run.”
— “An Accidental Diary: A Sonnet a Week for a Year” by Robert Bowie, Jr.
https://a.co/eg2uDCx
That was 20 years ago. No escaping it now. The door slammed in my face.
I guess I better go try to find my shoes.
by Robert Bowie, Jr. | Mar 18, 2025 | Featured, Humor, Personal, Travel
In Buddhism, there are instances of instant enlightenment brought by shock or surprise.
(I feel it is okay for me to comment on Buddhism and its wisdom as long as I admit to you that I know nothing about it.)
Nonetheless, I offer an example:
There are instances where a monk will slap a student of Buddhism to surprise them or shock them into enlightenment.
I have always worried about this experience of receiving shock and resultant enlightenment ever since I may have accidentally shocked some Buddhists out of their enlightenment.
It all occurred in the second floor men’s room of The Charles Hotel in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Many years ago, I took a morning plane to Boston dressed travel casual, with my blue suit, white shirt, tie, black socks and black lace-up shoes in my suitcase. I was to attend important meetings that afternoon in Cambridge.
When I got to The Charles Hotel in the early afternoon, I was informed my room was not ready. I had nowhere to change into my suit.
I was told the delay was because the Dalai Lama and his large entourage were staying at the hotel. The Dalai Lama was there to plant a tree in Harvard Yard with the Harvard president and then scheduled to go off to Foxborough to give a message to the masses in the football stadium. Apparently, the hotel was behind schedule because of these new guests.
Since I couldn’t get into my room, my only alternative was to go to the second floor men’s room of The Charles Hotel with my suitcase and haul it into the handicap stall of the public men’s room, where I would have enough room to change.
I put the suitcase on the toilet seat and began to disrobe and change into my business attire.
I hung my suit on the back of the stall door, unpacked my black shoes and pulled out my dark socks, and was starting to put on the white shirt when I heard the unexpected sound of chattering female voices exploding into the men’s room.
There seemed to be a great urgency and effort to bring in two people who were in wheelchairs. One, a very old woman and the other, a very old man. These voices were not in English.
I stood there, stunned with my suit pants in one hand and a black sock in the other and stood listening. It sounded like a kitchen in a busy restaurant.
I tried to peek through the crack in the door, but only saw a flurry of female activity. All I could make out was at least one person, perhaps more, had an urgent need to go to the bathroom.
I waited patiently with my sock and my pants, but nobody was leaving. It was as if everybody, male or female, had to urgently go to the bathroom.
I waited for nearly 10 minutes, but I was late for my meetings, so I had to make a decision about what to do.
I quickly dressed and repacked my suitcase. I decided to open the door and just march straight through this mob of people.
Given the circumstances, this was a very rude thing for me to do, but given the fact that I was in a men’s room, I felt entitled.
With my suitcase in one hand, I pushed open the door and confronted the group.
Instantly, there was stunned silence and, as if my mind were a flash camera, I had a mental picture of as many as 20 colorfully-dressed people staring at me with their mouths open.
There were people staring as they stopped washing their hands. There were people staring as they stopped midway through entering or exiting a stall. Everything was frozen.
Then there was a collective gasp. Not a shriek or anything, just a gasp. I tried to pretend I was invisible as I barreled toward the exit with a sea of bright colors parting on both sides.
I may have caused significant damage. Or, possibly, I shocked some of the entourage into a different vision of enlightenment.
First, it was clearly an emergency of some sort. Somebody had to really go to the bathroom badly and I fear it was an old person.
Second, these were elderly people in wheelchairs and I am not handicapped but I was in a handicap bathroom.
Third, and finally, I consider myself a very sensitive person but even if I had no empathy at all, one must consider reincarnation in all of this.
I offer no excuses. I think there may have been damage done to me, as well. I’m certain my karma is permanently shot. If there is reincarnation, I shudder to think what I will come back as.
So I’ve confessed it. I will also confess that I’m a believer in the “butterfly effect,” which is that every action causes a ripple across the universe.
If anything good comes from this, it is simply that I can warn you to be careful if you run into a similar situation.
You never know when a cosmic event will hit you.
by Robert Bowie, Jr. | Jan 15, 2025 | Featured, Humor, Personal
At 8:30 pm, kickoff time last Saturday night, it was four degrees below freezing but that didn’t bother me because I am still a young man and invincible. The truth is I was probably the oldest geezer at this playoff game at Ravens Stadium that night.
The only concern I had was how many layers I needed. I figured about three or four layers would keep me warm. I put on hiking boots, double socks, old long johns, regular zip-up khaki pants, zip-up snow pants with a snap at the top to hold it all together and then, above the waist, two parkas layered on top of each other, and my Ravens’ Ray Lewis jersey, then finished off with thick gloves and a hat that I could pull down over my ears. I probably looked like a Michelin Man moments before a career ending explosion.
As I dressed for the game, it never occurred to me that this might be absolutely the coldest I wiould ever be in my whole life.
Susan and I have compiled six season tickets on the rail at the corner of the end zone. These tickets are great because they are so close to the field it is like watching high school football.
I bought the tickets over 20 years ago when my son, age 12 and under five feet tall, announced he wanted to be a quarterback and begged me to get us Ravens tickets, which I did.
Of course, as soon as I had purchased the tickets, my son asked my assurance that if, per chance, the Ravens went to the Super Bowl we would also go to the Super Bowl, to which I agreed.
Even the Las Vegas odds makers were good with that bet. Much to my horror, that year we went to the Super Bowl and I found myself behind a 711 in a dark parking lot peeling off $100 bills to get tickets to Tampa Bay where the Ravens would beat the New York Giants.
Nonetheless, in the first game of that very first season, way before that Super Bowl, we met lifelong friends who would occupy the seats behind us. The father sat right behind me on the aisle and, next to him, right behind my son, was his son Derek, who was several years older than my son. Derek listened to the game with a headset while we all watched live. The first play there was a whistle blown, and all the people behind us burst into rowdy inquiries about what the hell was that whistle for.
My son, already a scholar of the game, immediately turned around and answered: “The quarterback took a step before the snap.” Instantly, the stadium announcer repeated the exact same words my son had said, as did the announcer on the radio, which Derek then quoted. From the beginning, Derek, his father, his family, and Rick and I became friends and have remained friends ever since. Derek, from the start, was a fact checker and reserved, thoughtful observer.
During the regular season, we give the tickets to our children and watch the games on TV. However, if the Ravens got into the playoffs, you gotta go!
So that’s how I got to see Derek again for the first time this year at Saturday’s playoff game. Everybody was bundled up, but the hugs and the high fives were everywhere as the stadium filled and became more and more raucous.
Despite my layering, I started to get cold as soon as I got out of the car. We had about an eight-minute walk to the stadium. I proved to myself what I had often heard, that you lose 30 percent of your heat from the top of your head, so I pulled the hat down over my ears as I plodded toward the stadium.
I was shaking with cold by the time we reached our seats. I wanted to take pictures with my phone but I had to take off my gloves first. I had no place to put my gloves so, finally, I tucked them into my hat and put my hat back on. Then I started to shake and the hand warmers fell with my gloves, onto the field. After my gloves were returned to me, my hat fell off onto the field, and that had to be returned to me as well.
By halftime, my feet were freezing and I had to go to the bathroom to try to warm up. There was a line in front of the stall where I had hoped to strip off each one of my three layers in order to be able to stand and deliver in front of the toilet with privacy. But because the line was too long, I had to strip down in front of one of the many urinals, and so a crowd watched me slowly disrobe as I tried to unzip three sets of zippers and drop my pants. That took some time, but it got much worse when I tried to pull the three layers back up, because the long johns’ old elastic waist belt had deteriorated and broke so I developed “droopy drawers.”
In order to re-dress myself, I had to move out of the way of others who wanted to use the urinal, so I stood in the middle of the floor with a bank of urinals on either side of me as football fans with beer-loaded bladders filed in, looking at me as I tried to zip up and button up and pull up my pants as they passed. The button snap at the top of the snow pants was an Olympic event.
By the time I reached my seats again, the roar in the stadium had continued to rise so nothing could be heard except the screaming of the crowd. Derek was screaming at the top of his lungs and had moved from his aisle seat down to stand next to me at the rail. The place was insane.
At the other end of the stadium, in the second balcony, a man started ripping off his shirt and started spelling out R-A-V-E-N-S, bare chested, and the stadium burst into cheers and chanted the letters. Then, of course, his entire performance was being performed on the Jumbotrons at both ends of the stadium.
At this point, I was convinced if I thought about how cold I was, I would give my brain frostbite.
I clenched my whole body to try and keep warm. Then there was an explosion of noise all around me. Why was everybody shouting around me and pointing at Derek?
Derek, who had always been reserved, was upstaging the guy at the other end of the stadium, and was now ripping off his shirt to the delight of the crowd. As I was freezing to death, Derek was getting naked on the Jumbotron.
If it takes a village to raise a child, it apparently takes a football stadium to mature a geezer.
I’m not quite as upset that the Ravens’ next game won’t be at home, and I’m certainly not going to Buffalo. If I don’t get pneumonia from the postseason, I’m planning to go to the first preseason game in late August — in shorts and a Ravens T-shirt.
Life has always been good to me as a slow learner. I finally threw away the snow pants with the broken elastic belt.
by Robert Bowie, Jr. | Jun 18, 2024 | Featured, Humor, Law, People, Personal
As I have said before, I loved representing entrepreneurial business clients because they are crazy.
The little cases are always the funniest and the easiest to tell.
He was a general contractor who built big shopping malls and was always very gruff, extremely overweight and endlessly funny. He, his wife and I, became friends over time and my professional responsibilities merged into our friendship as we got to know each other.
After making a lot of money building shopping centers and stocking them with commercial tenants, he decided to design and build his own mansion. He bought two adjoining lots in a suburban cul-de-sac, and designed what his wife described as “a Las Vegas hotel — not only embarrassing but gauche.”
In his mansion, he determined that he wanted a large indoor fountain, as well as special toilets for his and his wife’s bathrooms. These toilets would protrude from the wall, but have no base onto the floor because he thought that was classier.
He had absolutely no sense of taste.
He battled with the architect who said that these toilets could not withstand his weight and were not classy just because they came out of a wall and didn’t have a base.
She succeeded in vetoing the lavish indoor fountain, but he won the battle in their matching bathrooms with the “extended toilet” from the wall, which had no connection to the floor.
I was his lawyer but we made each other laugh. As I was thinking back on him, I remembered defending him in a lawsuit many years before he built the mansion. He had put a roof on a tenant’s building and the tenant had decided to represent himself because he thought he knew everything about construction and could litigate better than any lawyer.
It was a little non-jury case to be tried in a packed courtroom full of lawyers and clients waiting for their cases to be called. Trying a case in a court at this level is like litigating in a circus tent a head on collision between clown cars — particularly if a defendant or plaintiff comes to represent themselves. The judges at this level have a rotating docket consisting each day of either misdemeanor, criminal, petty civil or traffic court.
I knew the judge socially. He had developed a sense of humor after too many years presiding over these petty cases and traffic court.
The plaintiff in this case argued that the “neoprene” roofing materials had been inadequate, and he was going to be his own expert witness to prove it. The plaintiff was a buffoon who didn’t know what he was talking about. It was a little case that would cost more to try than settle. The client decided to try it “on principle,” which is always a problem. He told me, “I don’t care if you win or lose, just make me laugh.”
I decided to go for broke. After the plaintiff announced that he wanted to be his own expert witness, I decided I would cross examine him on his qualifications before the judge ruled on whether he could be considered as an expert witness on roofing materials.
I asked him if he knew of the latest advancements in “neoprene” roofing materials. He clearly was uncertain but proclaimed he did. I had him hooked. I carefully asked him if he had ever heard of the new “Neofeces” roofing materials.
He said that he had. I spelled it out for him so he could be certain. He cautiously said he was certain.
So now I was crossing him on Neo (new) feces (shit) roofing materials. Clearly you could feel the courtroom saw entertainment in its future.
I asked him if it bothered him professionally that “neo-feces“ was still regrettably not yet odor free. He claimed it did not. I asked him whether he agreed that double-ply toilet paper was considered sufficient for the removal of “neo-feces.” The courtroom rustled as those watching started to follow the tightening of the noose.
After one or two more questions inquiring about the benefits of “neo-Feces,” I paused between the two words and the courtroom started to laugh a little but the witness did not. At this point, the judge stopped me to preserve order in the courtroom and instructed me that I had made my point and had “won the pot with a royal flush.” This was appreciated by all those still waiting to try their cases, as well as the backbench court watchers.
About a month after my client had moved into their new opulent mansion, I got a call from my client’s wife at around 11 o’clock on a weekend night.
She started the conversation by saying that I must come over immediately because she could no longer talk to her husband, who was presently lying on his back on his bathroom floor laughing hysterically.
Apparently, after a night of much beer and football on the super wide screen, he had sat down on his toilet and it had broken off, and he kept slipping and could not stand up because there was water shooting all over the bathroom. I told her I would contact a plumber to turn off the water and then I would be right over.
I asked her, “How bad was it?” She paused on the phone for one second and then just said, “Let’s put it this way, the goddamn toilets he wanted didn’t work, but that’s okay cause he got his goddamn fountain!”
by Robert Bowie, Jr. | Jun 11, 2024 | Featured, Humor, Personal, Politics
Have you ever just stopped in the street and said to yourself, ”Wow, I wish I had that to do over!” and then found yourself exploring even larger questions?
Because of my short-lived political background, I ponder irrelevant questions and worry about them all the time.
I have some regrets.
For me it all happened back in 2014, but it only became clear what my concern should have been about two weeks ago.
Back in 2014, I was asked a question that I couldn’t answer. That was the problem.
Back then, I hated gerrymandering and concluded that the country was getting dangerously divided because of it, so I ran for political office on a theme that ”We must not lose our common ground.”
My strategy would be to find common ground with every person in my divided district and thus bring them together so we could reason together.
Maryland is two-to-one Democrat and the state legislature had crammed as many Republicans as possible into the district where I lived. I am a Democrat but I was sympathetic to my outnumbered Republican neighbors. I consulted the experts and was informed that I had at best of five percent chance of winning as a Democrat in this district.
I jumped right in!
I really believed I would win if I could find some common ground each time I knocked on another door.
I was all in. I contributed my own money to the campaign and I raised over $150,000. Susan and I and a small group of overoptimistic diehards spent that summer and fall knocking on 5000 doors, and debated the three incumbents who raised only around $5,000 together. They did not need the money. They had all been in office for over a decade in this gerrymandered district.
Late one hot summer Sunday morning, it turned out I didn’t know “ common ground” as well as I thought I did. Only about two weeks ago, did it all became clear.
When I knocked on the doors, I always had the same pitch: ”I believe we must find our common ground so we can all talk together.” Then for humor I would add, because I was over 65 years old, that ”if they were worried about term limits, nature would take care of that in my case.” Everybody laughed, and we talked as friends until I was asked whether I was a Republican or a Democrat, at which point the door was slammed in my face.
Of course, I remained optimistic. As I would drive home while the sun was going down, I believed the depth of my commitment would pull me through.
The depth of my commitment was only challenged once, when I could not find “common ground.“
Late in the August heat, I knocked on the door of a well-kept home in a trailer park, which had three steps on either side of the front door.
I knocked on that door and a heavyset woman dresses in a giant muumuu answer the door and after my pitch she announced: “I can’t talk to you right now because I don’t have any underwear on.”
How was I to answer that? For the first time maybe ever, I was speechless.
I couldn’t say, “You don’t need to be wearing underwear to read my materials,” or, “No problem I’ll wait til you put on your underwear.” I was dumbfounded. I could find no common ground.
For almost ten years, I have pondered this interchange. I thought and rethought about my inability to find an answer. I have not hesitated to tell this story to others in the hope that they might suggest something. Then about two weeks ago, a friend of mine had an answer right off the top of his head!
He said, “You forgot your theme. Why didn’t you just say, “That’s okay, I don’t either!”
by Robert Bowie, Jr. | Oct 10, 2023 | Featured, Humor, Personal, Travel
You think you’ve been embarrassed? Well, I’ve got you beat.
First, it all happened to me on the other side of the planet so I couldn’t go home, turn off the lights and put my head under the pillow.
It happened in Xi’an, China, in an airport the morning I was scheduled to fly to Chongqing to see a panda sanctuary, then board a boat to go down the Yangtze river through the Three Gorges, and then down to Shanghai.
Second, I was traveling with a small group and the Xi’an Airport was huge, so I had nowhere to hide as my embarrassment went on and on and on…
It all started innocently at dinner the night before we were scheduled to fly out of the Xi’an airport the next morning. Our guide addressed the group and informed us that because our plane left so early the next day we all must have our bags packed and outside of our door at 4:30 so they could be picked up and taken to the airport before we went to breakfast.
Everything had to be packed except the clothes we would be wearing the next day and whatever toiletries we required for that morning.
We were told that those toiletries, once used, had to be carried on our person until we landed at Chongqing airport several hours later at which time we could return them to our suitcases.
After dinner that night, we all went up to our rooms, picked out the essential toiletries, which in my case was toothpaste, toothbrush, shampoo, razor, soap, and hairbrush. I also chose my clothes for the next day, which in my case, were one of my endless pairs of khaki pants, a blue long sleeve business shirt, underwear, sox and shoes.
All the rest was packed in the suitcase, which I put outside the door right before I set the alarm and went to bed.
The next morning when my alarm went off, before I showered and shaved, I peeked out the door. My suitcase was gone and on its way to the airport. I looked at the clock and measured the short time I had to get to breakfast.
After my shower, I bundled up my toiletries, put on my blue business shirt and started to pull up my khaki pants, but couldn’t understand why I couldn’t get them on until I realized that the only pair of pants I had to wear were actually those I had mistakenly packed, which unfortunately belonged to my teenage son.
My son has a 32-inch waist. I do not.
I was running out of time. I had to get to breakfast.
I grabbed both sides of the pants so that my fingers gripped the pockets and I hoisted as hard as I could. No progress.
Next, I lay on my back on the bed with my feet extended in the air and bounced on the bed to get maximum leverage, kicked my feet into the air and yanked with all my strength. No progress.
The top of the pants made it to maybe slightly above my crotch. I’m pretty certain I did not get the pants high enough to halfway cover my back end. Nothing.
Next, I tried straddling a chair and forcefully rode my pants like a cowboy rides a horse in order to force the crotch into submission. I then tried jumping up and down to get maximum thrust, lift and torque. Nothing. This was not good!
I had to get to breakfast but I couldn’t leave the room. This was not good at all!
I reassessed my situation.
I still had to put on my shoes and socks. I would have to roll up the bottom of the pants so that I wouldn’t trip over them.
I was able to walk, but only if I could hold the top of my pants up as high as possible, and walk with my knees banging together every time I took a step.
I searched the room for any possible help. I was fortunate to find yesterday’s Chinese newspaper — bright with color — to cover my crotch.
It was a very long and slow elevator ride for every inch of the decent down maybe three floors. I noticed that the Chinese people in Xi’an, at least in this elevator on this particular morning, tended to be very quiet as they tried to find someplace else to look other than at my crotch.
My group at breakfast was less forgiving. They had to stop eating because they couldn’t stop laughing.
Our guide tried to be helpful and encouraged me to wander the airport to find a clothing store, apparently in the hope that I could learn Mandarin instantly and acquire a pair of pants that was twice the size that any self-respecting member of the culture would never wear.
The guide was just trying to be helpful I know, but didn’t seem to understand that I was really, at this point, no longer interested in clothing. I was no longer hoping to fit into the culture.
I was hoping to vanish from the face of the earth.
Everyone in the airport seemed to be walking by and rubbernecking in order to catch sight of whatever everyone else was laughing at.
I was completely hunched over, gripping my newspaper and pants, with my pant legs rolled up above my ankles and, just to add to my unlikely assimilation into the culture, I was wearing my disposable razor, shaving cream, toothbrush, toothpaste and hairbrush bundled up into a boutonniere blooming from my shirt pocket to add to my look.
The Chinese newspaper was fast becoming my most valuable asset since, as it turned out, my seat on the plane was between two meticulously dressed, very frightened Chinese businessmen who apparently feared any eye contact with me, their fellow traveler, for fear that it might prompt me to flash them.
In times like this I try to focus on making my situation into a positive learning experience.
After thinking about my situation for a little while, I concluded there wasn’t a lot to learn so, in the alternative, I thought it might be helpful to try to imagine what could be worse than what was happening to me at this exact moment.
I no longer wonder what it must feel like to wear a miniskirt if you are knock kneed, but that wasn’t bad enough, so I tried to imagine what it was like to wear a miniskirt, knock kneed with high heels.
I made sure that I would be the last person to leave the plane when we landed. in order to give the baggage handlers extra time so when I went to pick up my bag it would be there.
I hid in the airport men’s room for a while. I was afraid I had permanently injured my lower intestines. I was sure I had bruising. I couldn’t really lift or lower my pants now.
Eventually, I built up all my courage and raced through the teeming airport hunched over, with one hand holding the top of my pants and the other gripping my newspaper.
I swooped down on my bag and hauled it into the men’s room, found a stall, opened the suitcase, liberated myself of my son’s pants, and instantly threw them away for no good reason other than I needed to purge them.
A few months ago, I went on a trip with some of that same group that had gone on the China trip. When my story came up, I refused to relive the experience, so they went right ahead and told it anyway. They kept on embellishing the story at my expense.
The trip to China was 10 years ago, and the listeners could not stop laughing. Apparently, it gets better and better.
One person, who I am not sure was even on the China trip, claimed to have seen it all from the back and referred to it as “the morning the moon rose over the Yangtze!”
I must now live in infamy forever.
