The World Cup made me thankful for foreigners. The soccer fans delighted in many of the quotidian aspects of American life that we often take for granted. It can be good to have fresh eyes looking at us.

I jokingly told my thrice-married friend that I would teach him all about women. He responded, “I know a lot about women. . . . I just don’t believe it.”

I learned at the bar trivia contest that the official state motto of Indiana is “The Crossroads of America.” That motto made sense to me. I have entered Indiana from the north, south, east, and west. Every time I continued driving straight through, wondering when I would get to the next state. I, however, have met nice, interesting people from Indiana. I met them all in New York or Pennsylvania.

I had forgotten the German-Turkish-American server’s name. She feigned, I think, that she was upset. I said, referring to the Mexican-American server/busboy standing next to her, “I have known him longer, and I forget his name, too.” She replied, “We call him Doughnut.” I looked at him and said, “Why is that?” He just smiled. She explained. “He went to a house of pleasure, and instead of giving out dollar bills, he handed out doughnuts.” The Colombian-American bartender clarified that the establishment was a strip club not too far away. The Mexican-American server/busboy had bought the doughnuts at a fancy neighborhood shop, and he had given them out to the strippers. He would not tell me what kind of doughnuts they were—I thought that they should have been Boston cream—but his English is limited, and he might not have understood the question. A few minutes later, however, he looked at me with his always sweet smile and said, “Now I am a VIP.”

The billboard from some sort of church warned “LUST DESTROYS.” And here I thought that lust led to the creation of new life.

At this time of year, I remember the country song lyrics: “There are two things money can’t buy: true love and homegrown tomatoes.”

When my young friend turned around, I could not help but notice the shiner under his left eye. Some guys tried to rob him as he got out of his car. A scuffle ensued. My friend adamantly maintained that he got in some good blows, but clearly, he also took one. The would-be robbers ran off when a shopkeeper came out of his store. My friend lost nothing. I commiserated with him and told him about various incidents involving me, the spouse, and the son. I asked him if his girlfriend had been with him. “No,” he said, but he saw her the next day. He said that she had been very sympathetic. He hesitated for a moment. A slight grin appeared—his first smile of the evening. Then he said, “Sympathetic sex is very good.”

A supposedly wise person once said, “Friends are people who dislike the same people.”