HAGENISMS

MERLE My wife Jennifer has the most extraordinary gift.  She can walk up to a complete stranger and within minutes she's made a new friend. I’ve witnessed it more times than I can count but it still amazes me. On our most recent trip through Canada she made friends with a couple from Israel, a pair of Austrians, a New Zealander, and two Japanese tourists who spoke no English at all but communicated by smiling, nodding and pointing a lot. I've never been nearly as good at meeting people. My job on most of those interactions is to smile, shake hands, and play security. I stand behind Jennifer looking just ominous enough so that no stranger tries to offer her candy and take her away. This morning she didn't budge when I tried to wake her at dawn.  We’d been up late solving the world's problems over coffee with our new Israeli neighbors.  So while I would have loved for her to come along, I didn’t work too hard at it. I decided to drive to the Kanan