### Sometimes minor. Sometimes major.
As time goes by and curmudgeon status has been achieved, I have developed a preference for:
- Libraries with large numbers of books and very few computers.
- Libraries that are called “libraries” and not “learning centers.”
- Churches that are predominantly churches, not social justice agencies.
- A military designed to win wars.
- Contracts (and instruction manuals) that the average person can understand.
- Discovering new and great writers.
- Books with a plot.
- Food that is not an ordeal.
- Window seats.
- Leather briefcases.
- Elmore Leonard novels.
- Doctors who don't rush to prescribe the latest pill.
- Saying no.
- Architecture that lifts the spirits.
- Marriage.
- University departments that are intellectually diverse and not ideological seminaries.
- Hercule Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, and Jackson Lamb.
- Budgets that balance.
- Hiring the best qualified person.
- Laws passed by legislatures, not cooked up by courts and administrative agencies.
- Better pay for excellent teachers and termination for the poor ones.
- A daily sense of gratitude.
- Noble dogs.
- Beautiful horses.
- London.
- Courtesy.
- See’s chocolates.
- Tulips.
- Hitchcock films.
- Great coffee.
- A sizable zone of indifference.
- Brave people.
- People who do what they say they will do.
- People who go the extra mile.
- Shakespeare and Dickens.
- Banks with human tellers.
- Books on real paper.
- Art museums.
- Memorizing poetry.
- Cursive.
- Fountain pens.
- Left-turn arrows.
- Washington and Lincoln.
- Politicians who don’t get rich from public service.
- Compiling family history.
- Silence in movie theaters.
- Being out of touch.
- Crossword puzzles.
- Homemade chocolate chip cookies.
- Over-tipping.
- Journalists who just report the news.
- Black-and-white photographs.
- People working in offices.
- Colored lights at Christmas.
- Thank-you notes.
- Bay Rum cologne.
- Doing the right thing instead of trying to convince others that I’m right.
- Lawyers who tell clients when they don't have a case.
- Communities where you know people via personal contact and not simply online.
- People who've overcome setbacks.
- Being able to call an organization and get assistance from a real person.
- Saturday nights without phone calls.
- The desert after a rain.
- Baseball games on the radio.
- Spencer Tracy films.
- Ecco shoes.
- A statute of limitations on dumb things I said and did 40 years ago.
- Button-down collars.
- The Oxford comma.
- Flip charts.
- C. S. Lewis.
- Swiss Army knives.
- Birdwatching.
- Kids playing games outside.
- Adults dressing like adults.
- Experience over education.
- Slow reading.
- Ancient Rome.