Happy Anniversary
Mr. BC's parents are celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary this weekend, in Texas. BC loaded up the Mrs. and the children and headed on down there. What? In a Winnebago? Oh, no, no, no. In the private jet. They probably right this minute rustling up the kids and getting ready for a trip down to that most pleasant South Dallas part of town, where is located the State Fair of Texas. Oh, Big Tex, how's your mandible hanging this year? By the way, do you ever get crows stuck in your craw?
You know, if my mother were still alive and the BCs were stopping by to seek out her wisdom before taking three wild boys out to the State Fair, she would have told them not to worry about those three boys, they'll take care of themselves. She would have also most adamantly suggested that BC get the whole family a Fletcher's corn dog from the State Fair of Texas. My mama did love a Fletcher's corn dog. And no disrespect intended but she would be wrong about not worrying about three boys running loose at the State Fair. Oh my God, based only on the fading memories of my own nearly angelic childhood, I beseech thee BC, keep an eye on those boys at the State Fair of Texas. You get 'em a corn dog, maybe a cup of fries slathered in ketchup, some cotton candy, and don't forget to buy more salt water taffy than you can eat in three lifetimes, but don't let those boys realize their fullest un-supervised potential in South Dallas at the State Fair of Texas.
By now BC you are probably thinking well this is a hell of a sorry acknowledgment of my parent's 60th wedding anniversary. A brief opening mention and then nothing but a bunch of reminiscent blathering, based as far as I can tell on your own rather suspect pre-adolescent misadventures. Oh yeah, well maybe I'm working on the patience theme here. Maybe when I try to sum up in my own mind what best describes your parents I keep running into the same theme over and over, that's right, patience.
BC's mom, Mrs. J, having given birth to seven children of her own, certainly did not in her quiet moments alone fantasize about adopting an eighth child, but she got me anyway, and I lived practically all my daylight hours down the street at Mr. and Mrs. J's house (I had twin brothers just above me in my own home life pecking order, how you gonna blame me the escape). And the J's were a cutting edge family, ahead of the curve, and had a room in their house set aside for (or just overrun by, kids). It was called the Texas Room. If you lined the room up on a north/south axis, the part of the room that would be Amarillo, had a bar, and I mention as an aside that one of the strangest but true parts of my childhood is that we never touched the liquor in there. There was a bumper-pool table and then later a full sized pool table in the Texas Room. On the walls were framed prints of dogs playing poker. And the first place I ever saw one of those red plastic ostrich-looking birds that pecks at a glass of water, was in the Texas Room.
And as to my own mother's frequent queries about why I spent so much time down at the J's, I offer lastly, that the Texas Room had its own private back entrance, and offered us a facsimile of autonomy. And really more than just a facsimile once we sent that oldest J off to Notre Dame, and achieved our respite from his name calling (cream puff he called me) and force feeding of Zappa and Jazz and Zen. Oh sure I'm a little better off for the diet but really what the hell was up with that oldest J's attachment to all things Z?
To enter the Texas Room from the outside you came up the J driveway, veered onto the J brick pavers and entered a half-wall enclosed patio through a wrought iron gate. And this is where I get back to the patience theme, regarding Mrs. J. For years, I mean years, she would admonish, plead, scold, but never raise her voice or hit me upside the head with a stick (which is how I would have handled the situation) when she would happen to catch me standing on the bottom rail of the gate and riding it back and forth on its hinges. I barely weighed equal to a sack of feathers most of my life (ok, still) and perhaps she was discounting my behaviour because of that, but finally, one year, as I must have been getting close to a teenager, I saw in her expression the utter frustration of dealing with me all these years, and I decided to stop doing what was pretty much the only thing she ever asked me not to do. I just want to say, now, for the record, I'm sorry it took me 6 or 7 years to do what you asked. And also, while I'm being all gushy here, let me just thank you Mrs. J for never busting in on BC and I while we unraveled hundreds and hundreds of firecrackers for the gunpowder inside, which could have blown up your whole Texas Room, but which we used mostly only to propel miniature man-hole covers perhaps as high as ten or twelve feet in the air, out there on the cul-de-sac, in front of your house. Mrs. J, as I know you are one to embrace the concept of continued education throughout life I humbly offer to you these two premises--it is never too late to discipline your children, and, spare the rod, spoil the child. BC needs you Mrs J. When you hit him over the knuckles with the edge of a yardstick and he cries out, hey, hey, what the hell? you just put it to him straight, you tell him--that's for making bombs in the Texas Room, buster.
So how am I going to tie in the patience theme with Mr. J? Well in the end it will come back to an incident I witnessed a couple of years ago with Mrs. J being really patient with HIM, so it's a loose tie-in, but still, I can show his patience too, in the only way I can show anything, and that is as it relates to me.
I believe over the years I have been somewhat of a loose-tongued potty-mouth and here I'm not trying to get BC in trouble again (although if Mrs. J still has that yardstick handy, I would just give BC another hard rap right now, before you even hear what I say). As a year BC's junior the only way he could convince his friends that I was cool enough to hang with was to introduce me as a kid who could spew every word in the book. And he wasn't referring to the Bhagavadgita. I would spew for his friends a list that possibly pre-dated but nevertheless was very similar to George Carlin's infamous list of naughty words. This childish behaviour of mine would sometimes overflow into everyday interactions with other kids on the playing fields that were represented by Mr. and Mrs. J's backyard and an adjoining yard across the alleyway. So for years of football and baseball gaming it is possible, perhaps even probable, that Mr. J may have overheard me being a foul-mouthed punk, and yet he never gave me a what-for or a hey-kid or a knuckle-sandwich. And all the way down the roads of my life, especially when I may have ventured a bit off the main road, Mr. J has always treated me with what appears to be genuine respect. There were times when it made a real difference to me. As for his patience I can think of numerous road trips where Mr. J chauffeured BC and I around--to minor league baseball games, to the lake, on a guided tour of the Dallas Morning News where we met in person the poster girl for the Classified section, Heather, and giggled incessantly in her prescence--and Mr. J was pretty good about it all, hell, he was great to take us anywhere.
But really all of this previous blathering is just background noise to the anniversary theme. I mean what the hell insight would I have into the 60th wedding anniversary of BC's parents? Absolutely none. I can however offer an insight gathered from a time somewhere close to their 58th wedding anniversary.
BC's got the jet running, says let's go to Texas, I find an opening in my busy schedule and we go off together, visiting my mom briefly and then on to East Texas to visit his parents. The first night we have a delightful visit, watch a movie, and then retire. The next day BC and I and Mr. and Mrs. J meet BC's brother, K (they can't all be J's can they?), at a family style restaurant in a nearby town. BC asks if he can order chicken fried steak as an appetizer. Safe to say that is the first time in the restaurant's long history that they have been asked that but they bring it out for us anyway. Some of us order from the menu and serve ourselves from the buffet and we finish by ordering a number of desserts and sharing them. While waiting on the check, sated, daydreaming on a full belly, conversation at a lull, Mr. J (married to Mrs. J at this point in time for 58 years) playfully picks up one of the plastic butter containers with the peel off lid and tosses it at Mrs. J. She doesn't respond so he tosses another and then another. She just looks at him, neither angry nor encouraging, and the moment passes.
But to me that moment encompasses all what must be great about being married to the same person for 58, or 60, years. I mean what a great commercial for marriage. The playfulness after so much time together. Of course, this is from the male, or, buttercup throwing, perspective. As for Mrs. J, having buttercups thrown at her, well, good thing she's got that patience thing going for her. Happy 60 Jack and Joan.
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