‘All right; assume the position’

Until that glorious day when I get some of my own (hint hint hint, O Child), I borrow my bro-in-law’s grandchildren.

He has three; all extremely adorable girls. This Memorial Day was the tenth anniversary (gulp!) of their coming to Amagansett for an action-packed visit.

Since they’re not my grandchildren, I won’t show the little girls’ faces. But, as you can see, they have pretty adorable backs. And their Grampa, seen giving them fond good-bye hugs, is pretty cute too

While hanging out on the deck one morning perusing the paper, my also extremely-adorable (and extremely perceptive) niece-in-law pointed something out to me.

Watch faces in ads always have the time set to 10:08. Sometimes 10:09 or 10:11. But always thereabouts — she told me

I’m ashamed to say that I’d never noticed this. Have you? Extremely perceptive N-I-L had a few theories about why this is so. 10:10, she said, whether it’s AM or PM is a kind of hopeful, nonstressful time. You’re not rushing to work or school or hurrying to get dinner on.

Here’s another, from a magazine this time. Note uplifting, positive hand position

Of course Dude Man had his own theory. “They do it that way so the hands don’t cover up the name of the watch,” he pointed out in his oh-so-practical way. “Okay,” countered N-I-L, “then why don’t they use 7:20?”

She was still thinking about this on their way home. As for 3:10, I told her I thought that was a very discouraging time: too late for coffee and too early for cocktails

Thinking about the position of hands sparked another thought of mine. “Stand up and put your hands on your hips,” I said to her.

Dude Man standing with hands on hips. Notice anything different from the photo of me doing the same thing at the top of this post?

“What?!”

“Go on,” I encouraged. “Don’t think about it. Just stand up and put your hands on your hips.”

So she did, and her pose looked pretty much like mine up there at the top of this story. Except that she is oodles younger and prettier.

I don’t have a photo of Bill doing this, but here’s another one of The Dude demonstrating what I mean

See, Whitmores always put their hands sort of backwards on their hips. To demonstrate, I got her husband (Dude Man’s nephew and son of bro-in-law Bill, the Grampa of the adorable girls) to do it too. Yup. Same deal.

Here’s the first person I noticed doing this: Grampa Whit, the father of Grampa Bill. And yes, that’s The Child frolicking in the surf with him

It’s kind of like that Asparagus Pee Thing. Or that Rolling Your Tongue Thing. Hereditary. Go ahead; try it. Are you a Frontwards or a Backwards?

There’s my dad, far right in the back row, demonstrating the Frontwards. Henrys are all Frontwards. Note one of my cousins, Frontwards in the front row, striped shirt

Once I started searching, I found tons of photographic evidence of both Frontwards and Backwards — and of how consistently people did one or the other.

Honestly, I couldn’t find anybody who switched around — or at least any pictures as proof that they did. The best I could do was to find some people (like me at the top of this post) who sometimes mixed things up by balling their fists in Frontwards position, a pose I like to think shows determination and power.

Here’s The Child, showing her Whitmoreness in a crowd of Petersons and Henrys

And here she is again, demonstrating that you don’t grow out of your hands-on-hips position

I could go on and on. But I have to get my act together to drive back to the Very Hot City, where I have places to go and people to see. You can bet I’ll be keeping an eye on where everybody puts their hands.

Sometimes it’s fun to put your hands on somebody else’s hips (!)

Amagansett, New York. May 2022