I’M NOT A CROOK
In a country-club locker room, an old man asked me, “How was it?”
“How was what? I survived — whatever it was,” I said.
“Good! What’s your field, chap?”
“My field? Real estate and writing.” For some reason I didn’t say music.
“I bet you like the writing best.”
“You got that right. My name is Bert Stratton. What’s yours?”
“Tom Stratton-Crooke.”
“We’re relatives,” I said.
“I could tell by the cut of your jib.”
“What’s your field?” I asked.
“Steamships.”
“Steamships?”
“Where did you go to school?” he asked.
“College? Michigan.”
“Ann Arbor?”
“Yes. What about you?”
“King’s Point, the Merchant Marine Academy. Then NYU. I was in Japan and Korea, and Iran, and then throughout the Middle East. The colonel liked my loquacious manner.”
I turned to go. “Nice meeting you, Mr. Stratton-Crooke.”
“Likewise.”
“I’m Stratton, but I’m not a crook,” I said.
“Neither am I.”
5 comments
Country club? Bert? No, I don’t buy it.
If you were talking to an alte kocker we might have believed you. Mr. Cohen maybe?
People join these clubs for the the jolly
good conversation!
Actually, the man should have said: “I bet you like the writing BETTER.”
“I’m not a crook,” I think a former president of ours came up with that line originally. His line was audio engineering.
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