“Formal, but here to party”

Builders,

An acquaintance of mine sent an email saying “I’ll bet you don’t even own a tie.”  Well, below is the photo showing he is incorrect.  Never pays to jump to conclusions about people, they might be a lot more classy than you first suspected….

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Rachel Weseman took this photo of me arriving at their post thanksgiving party last year. Every year Dan and Rachel host a big event that starts with a Skeet shooting contest on the south overrun, morphs into a cookout-pool party, and ends 10 or 12 hours later with a giant bonfire. As a guest, I never like showing up empty handed, that is why I rode over with a box of clays, 200 shells and a 20 gauge.

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While many airports, particularly big public ones, frown on dirt bikes and firearms, our little grass strip is still a place which understands many forms of expressing ones sense of freedom, and how the perfect afternoon can often be made by the judicious (but sequentially intelligent ) blending of these expressions.

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Although I am known for a wardrobe best described as “Clothing discarded by the homeless”, I would still be the first to deride America’s relaxation of formalities of proper guest behavior. Simply put, there is no reason why a civilized person would RSVP a social gathering, and then show up without a Club tie in a Windsor knot on a Brooks Brothers shirt.  In a time of ever coarsening behavior, perhaps we can all agree on better manners.

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-ww.

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Confession: The title of this story owes it’s origin to the sagely advice dispensed by one of the greatest southern sportsmen of our times, Cal Naughton Jr. An immensely influential person, his observations on the human condition bring sense into a world woefully short of it, and offer a philosophical path for many of your countrymen.

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