I met a man last evening ...

I met a man last evening, some ten years older than me. There was instant empathy from the start. We talked all through the basketball game. It was him who did most of the talking, actually. I listened to him with interest, trying not to miss the actions of my boy on the court. In barely two hours time he disclosed an ample summary of the history of his life. His words suggested his had been quite an eventful life, far from that of a commonplace nine-to-fiver. It was however the language of his discourse what really attracted my attention. I was surprised by the amount of sayings and proverbs he used to ornament his speech. He had the ability to sneak in one of those at the slightest possible chance, avoiding to sound pedantic at the same time. As far as I could tell he seemed to take for granted they were all familiar to me. Which they weren't.