Señora and I, the last few years, around her birthday, have made an overnight trip to Pere Marquette Lodge just across the mighty Mississippi River in Grafton, IL. The lodge is in a heavily wooded state park and very much away from all big city distractions. We find it a nice retreat for some couple one-on-one.
We generally go during the week when we can take advantage of their Eagle Package: the room, dinner, breakfast and two drinks for a very reasonable price. Of course, since Señora’s birthday is in February, a slower month at the lodge, since the packages are from Sunday through Thursday when most folks are working, and since it is a bargain, Señora and I frequently feel like the youngest guests there. I suppose senior friendly is the term I am choking on.
After dropping off Princess Lily at her second home, we were making our way out of town on I-70. This particular interstate is one of my least favorite roads. It is a major trucking route and always full of semis. It goes past Lambert International Airport and is almost always overly trafficked. It also goes through some of the least scenic parts of the St. Louis metropolitan area.
As we were driving on this road, along came a car traveling much too fast, even if the highway had been basically empty instead of its usual crowded state. Naturally, this want-to-be Richard Petty was weaving in and out of traffic, channeling their inner NASCAR.
Señora made a comment about this car which I do not remember, but it was not a compliment of their safe driving skills.
I advised her to remember what the Sage of North Barrington is prone to say about these type of individuals.
She looked at me with a quizzical expression on her pretty face.
“You can’t fix stupid,” I answered her charming, expressive countenance.
“Oh, the sage you are talking about is Harry,” she remarked.
“Clearly,” I said, “what other White Sox wise man would you find sitting on a warm rock upon a lofty Barringtonian peak, enjoying the sun, surrounded by books, contemplating the wondrous navel of the Windy City, proclaiming his own unique version of the Serenity Prayer?”
And so it goes on the race tracks that are St. Louis’s Interstates.
Another Voice
Channeling his inner Kant, the Norman Ascetic frequently expresses his version of the Serenity Prayer by declaring, “it is outside my locus of control…an illusionary concept in any case.”
The Serenity Prayer
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
~~Attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr, Lutheran theologian (1892–1971)