howdy-do

I could have sashayed out the door without so much as a howdy-do, since technically speaking we were only married in the Biblical sense.

We understand that Fagen hearing Becker play blues guitar in an empty room at Bard College in 1967 is the second-most important howdy-do in rock history — July 6, 1957, St. Peter’s Church, Woolton, Liverpool being the first — but that doesn’t mean we want to repeatedly read about it.

March 24, or “tunnel day,” as it was known, saw speeches, celebrations and the opening up of City Hall, which some excited members of the public took as an invitation to try to “break into the Mayor’s office, just to say ‘Howdy-do.’

He’ll also be in Cedar Falls, before racing off for multiple events in four cities, including a howdy-do at Cecil’s Cafe in Marshalltown with the Marshall County Pachyderm Association.

Which is not in itself unwelcome, but can introduce a hiccup to your howdy-do, and occasionally result in some lipstick slapstick.