Reality Bites by James Norton for the week of July 5
Fireworks, phallic devices and berets – some of the topics of discussion at lunch

I was out the other day having lunch with three movers and shakers around here ‚Äì enjoying their company and talking about goings-on around the city.  It was refreshing and enjoyable to be able to talk freely and not have someone worry about whether something he said would be repeated in the paper. Or would it?
  Three people reading this just gasped a little.  Relax.

  It started off slow enough ‚Äì a little chatter about the weblog and just how much I personally knew about who said what about whom and so on and so forth.  That‚Äôs fine, I‚Äôve gotten used to that over the last year.  I did my typical song and dance about not knowing much at all about it ‚Äì and keeping it that way ‚Äì to preserve the right to free speech.  Eyes roll, but it‚Äôs the truth.
  There was a considerable amount of chatter about our kids and our wives ‚Äì and how enjoyable they are to us ‚Äì and how sometimes not so much.  That‚Äôs life, I guess.  I probably didn‚Äôt have to go into the rant about how much displeasure I had hearing about my 11-year-old daughter‚Äôs considerably older boyfriend, but who would blame me?
  None of these guys did.
  It‚Äôs funny, you know people as well as you know them and it amazes me how much you can learn about them personally by breaking bread and having a beer or three with them.  Okay in the interest of full disclosure, I don‚Äôt drink beer and I was drinking Diet Coke at the time. But it was good nonetheless.
  The conversation somehow moved on to schools we went to and who we knew growing up around the neighborhood and how some of our families have been intertwined for years.  Two of us are eight years older than the other two, so this portion of the afternoon actually lasted a long time and was the most fun.
  The food and drink kept coming and coming and time started to slip away at some point.  Not having to rush somewhere for this or that didn‚Äôt hurt the good moods all around either, I can tell you that.
  The next topic turned back towards the weblog, which was probably a result of a few beers (keeping in mind I took my own car, so no alcohol for me).  There was considerable discussion about comments posted on the weblog about this one and that one ‚Äì not that any of these three did them, don‚Äôt get the wrong idea ‚Äì just that they had seen them and they were funny or right on the money ‚Äì stuff like that.  I could see the writing on the wall now ‚Äì personal comments about certain individuals started flying.
  Everyone from the fictional characters to the full-blown, in your face public figures became the next topic of discussion.  From people like Dr. Mrs. McCarthy and Steve Cockneck to The Skipper, John L, Tony L and The Cambriville News.
It was hilarious, that’s all I will say.
  Then I doom the lunch and ask the question:  ‚ÄúYou guys have any ideas for my column this week?‚Äù  I sometimes ask my family, friends and people I know when I‚Äôm having one of those weeks where I‚Äôm teetering back and forth between writing about something either fairly low-key to just plain out hammering someone.
  Historically speaking, it has been more therapeutic for me to blast someone or a group of wanna-be someones.  Quite frankly I‚Äôve also gotten tremendous response from the general reading public when I go ballistic, but I don‚Äôt always feel great about it afterwards.  Oh what a line of bull.
Well when I asked these three guys the question, the floodgates opened.
  Based on the length of the lunch, the amount of food and beverage consumed and the nature of our personalities ‚Äì NONE of their suggestions made the cut this week.
  Sorry guys ‚Äì I decided to just write about our lunch ‚Äì leaving the readers to wonder who you are and what else we talked about that never made it to these pages.  This week.