The kid was 11...

...but he knew all about Jackie Robinson.  What the......?!!  We were watching a baseball game at lunch and a black kid was intently watching with us.  Trying to be a smart-a--, B asked the boy if he knew who the first black man to play in the pros and Ari, the kid, said, "Jackie Robinson."  I was floored.  Wow!

This was during our Christmas trip to Toronto to visit our son.  The flight there was the usual kerfufle of coach people trying to use the first-class washroom and jamming carry-ons into two or three overhead bins rows away from their own seats.  That really pisses me off.  Actually, both MO's piss me off.  The last time we flew first-class, the stewardesses let anyone and everyone use the washroom for which we had paid handsomely for exclusive access.  "Well, what can we say to them?" said one when I asked why she was letting everyone use it.  How about, "It's back there."

Sorry, but when I pay, I expect a few perks.

The visit was wonderful.  We stayed in a (very cheap) hotel, the accoutrements of which indicated just how cheap it was.  Yuck.  But Christmas dinner at the Royal York was perfect -- except for the $500 we shelled out for three people.  Really?  Here we are:

Here are a couple of observations about the "Centre of the Universe":

• The city is at least 80% ethnic, and
• Torontonians are very rude.

We hosted an unorthodox, but lovely, family reunion with a daughter my ex had with a girlfriend after our divorce.  Who knew?  She found us a few months ago and we all got together.  Here we are at lunch:

Eavesdropping, I heard a couple of guys debating tennis.  Naturally, I butted in.  "Lobs are nothing but defensive tennis,"said one, when I remarked that baseline-pounding tennis was boring.  "All the points in baseline-pounding are losers," I added.  "The point ends when someone hits it out, or into the net.  There are no winners like there were back in the Edberg/Navratilova era."  

"I'm getting training for my daughter so she can pound it into the corners and paint the lines," he announced.  "Well, then she'll lose," I said.  All the great players play defensively when they have to, I explained.  But when I called into question the thousands he was paying out so his daughter would never make the big leagues, the conversation came to an abrupt end. 

Turning to the bar tender, who was talking about "hat tricks", I asked, "Do you know where that expression came from?" I asked.  He didn't.  "It began with a haberdasher on Yonge Street here in Toronto who gave a free hat to any player who scored three goals in the game."  What else didn't he know?  Where the name "Habs" had come from.  "Les Habitants," I told him.  Short-form:  Habs.  

Sometimes, old folks know stuff.  But then, like Ari, so do young ones.