At this period of time in my life, I was had only recently married Janet. Our social life evolved around many old and new friends of Janet’s that had also recently relocated to Las Vegas. We had not yet had much time to make new friends here.

During this period I was introduced to many Italian slang terms from update New York. I used to tease Janet about how she said the word foggy. Her pronunciation was “fahggy”. It became a new favorite word of mine.

One evening we were out to dinner with some visiting friends of hers from Rochester. One guy was telling stories using very extreme hand gestures, one of which was the gesture shown here. He was talking about two friends and their different reactions to what he was saying. I do not remember what the story was about. Every time he was explaining what the first person was saying, he was using the gesture shown here. Every time he was quoting the second person he used the gesture shown below with his arm fully extended. I was not really listening to what he was saying, I was too intrigued watching the extreme use of his hands during the telling.

During the drive home from dinner, I asked my wife, with my hand like the picture.

” What was with the hand gesture?”

She looked at me with a surprised look, like I was an idiot, and answered,

“That means he was talking on the phone.”

I stretched out my arm, trying to be sarcastic,

” I suppose this means long distance.”

“Exactly”, she responded.

Duly subdued, I reflected on my mid-western upbringing, while my wife laughed at my ignorance. I had never seen such animated use of hands during a conversation before.

We both got a kick with each other during those years adjusting to the cultural differences of our relative upbringing. I think the amusement has worn off for her, but she is still here.