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rate, I hung around the podium until the lecture hall had cleared and did something I had never done before. I informed the grizzled old codger that I enjoyed what he had to say. |
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In what I've come to learn as the typical Cosmo Leach acerbic manner of fielding compliments, he informed me that he appreciated my kind remarks but that he was equally convinced that a good 80 percent of what he had to say went over my head. |
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Surprisingly enough, that was the beginning of our relationship. |
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Cosmo is somewhere in his seventies and does not fall into the category of lovable old man. His red and wrinkled face emerges above a fleecy white beard like a cloudy sunrise. He has a bulbous nose and mean little green-blue eyes which are hard to read. That's because they are usually hidden behind quarter-inch-thick, tinted lenses encased in an outlandish pair of black and blue striped plastic frames. His mouth is hidden by the aforementioned beard, and long strands of stringy white hair flare out from his partially bald head to conceal too large ears. He is ornery, chauvinistic, vitriolic, brilliant and bullheaded. And, as you can plainly see, I treasure the old fart. No man studies another unless there is something there that he admires, and I've been studying Cosmo Leach for a long, long |
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