A Digression

About 25 years ago, Perry and I were having dinner in a bistro in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. A couple was sitting at the next table. It was clear this was, if not a first date, then an early one.

All of a sudden there was a break in the hum of conversation in the room, and the gentleman at the next table could be clearly heard saying,

"My father mounted the elephant in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History rotunda!"