Twilight

 It's a beautiful evening here as I sit on the back porch writing.  Twilight is setting in.  The clouds are a mix of pink and and purple and a weird blue-gray.  The moon is out -- a waxing gibbous, I think it's called.  Looks like it'll be full in a few days.  It's a painting.  God doing his best Bob Ross.  Or maybe God let Bob paint this one...

I don't know what it is about Father's Day that makes me think about my dad.  Just one of life's little mysteries, I suppose.

Saturday, the plan was to meet Dad and his wife and go to supper and to the cemetery where his parents are buried.  (I've written about the cemetery here.)   Dad wanted to meet at 3:30.  It's about a 45-minute-to-an-hour drive to the cemetery.  So I'm thinking we'll get there at 4:30, leave the cemetery around 5ish, and be at the restaurant by 5:15 or so.  I know they like to eat super early, so that seemed like a good compromise.

I cannot adequately describe the moment of surprise and just wanting to burst out laughing out loud as Dad blew past the exit to the cemetery and I realized, "Oh, my dear Heavenly Father, we are about to eat supper at 4:15 in the afternoon."

But that's exactly what happened.

As we were ordering our drinks, my step-mom got water and whispered, "I didn't figure I oughta have any caffeine this late in the day."  Meanwhile, I was looking much forward to my sweet tea and thinking, "I'll be doing great if this is the last caffeine I have today!"

After force-feeding myself a rather delicious meal of a cheeseburger, chili dog, (What?  They're really small!  Everybody gets multiples!) and banana pudding for dessert, we left for the cemetery.

Dad took a different way -- an old way -- and showed us the house where he grew up.  As we continued on the drive, I asked where his high school was, and he started peering off the road to the right.  He said, "You can probably see it behind these new buildings."  The buildings turned out to be the new school. He didn't realize they had built one.  And though I'm sure it didn't bother him, I felt bad for him in that instant.

Later, he took us clear across town to the cemetery where his two half-brothers are buried.  They weren't buried near each other and they obviously weren't buried by their parents.  I wondered why.  Dad didn't seem to know.

At some point as we walked amongst the peaceful rows of markers and flowers Dad mentioned that he and his wife had already purchased their spaces at a cemetery near where they live now.  It's not something I wanted to think or talk about, so I left his words to linger and fade without a response.  At the same time, I marveled at how he spoke of his own mortality with such matter-of-factness.

I think Dad is in a really good place these days.  There's an ease in him now that wasn't always there.  A contentment.  He seems to have found the answers to some of life's many questions.  It gives me hope that I, who take after him in so many other ways, will do the same.

He's all over Facebook now.  He mentioned it on at least six separate occasions during our excursion Saturday.  And when I called to see if he wanted to do this for Father's Day, he was at the gym.

We leave each other with a hug instead of a handshake anymore.  And the "I love yous" are no longer just implied.

But not everything has changed. He's still playing the guitar, still working, still driving the same old Chevy truck, which seems to always be barely running.  He's still in church every Sunday morning and night.  And he remains quite taken with his role as a grandpa.  "Peepaw," Nephew Bone calls him.  Some might say it's the role he was born to play.

Me, I always kinda thought he made a pretty good dad.

"I notice I walk the way he walks / I notice I talk the way he talks / I'm startin' to see / My father in me..."

Who will dance, on the floor, in the bowling alley

For any of you who don't check my Blogger profile daily for changes, I recently reached an historic milestone. As of last week, Thursday-ish, I am no longer a member of the all-important 18-35 age demographic. Needless to say, between that and General Hospital burning up in the Six-Day (and still ongoing) Fire, it was a tough week. Thanks to Pia for the wonderful birthday dedication post. What more could a guy ask for? Except perhaps my very own Wikipedia entry. Oh well, maybe next year.


Saturday night was Bone's First Annual Bowling For VD. Following the unconfirmed success of last year's Valentine Date Skate, I decided to go in a different direction this year, hoping to find an atmosphere with a few more people--um, how shall I put this--over the age of twelve.

The turnout was overwhelming! There must have been around 200 people there. Of course, my excitement was tempered somewhat when I realized that only eleven of the two hundred were there for my thing.

Things started off well enough. I had a 105 through six frames of the first game. But when I rolled my first ball of the seventh frame, my foot did not slide. It just stuck. Evidently, I had stepped in some spilled Mountain Dew. How come things like this never happen to Walter Ray Williams?

Well that was all she wrote for game one. Mister Sticky Shoes wound up bowling a 138. Then I spent about five minutes between games wiping my shoes on the carpet. That seemed to help and I rebounded for a decent 165 in game two. Also, for future reference, if you ever drop something on the bowling alley carpet, I would say just let it go.

Around 9:00, they pulled down this big movie projection screen in the center of the bowling alley. "Alright, it's movie time!" I exclaimed, only to be informed by Kywana Jr. that it was actually music video time. They proceeded to play what I presumed to be many of the popular videos of the day.

Unfortunately, I didn't know any of the songs they were playing. Fortunately, I've been able to master a couple of dance moves that I can use to blend in and appear hip for just such times. One is where I extend my right arm fully and appear to be bouncing an invisible basketball up and down about head-high. In the other, I... well, you'd just have to see it.

Over the next hour, they actually only played two songs that I recognized. And one of those songs was "Billie Jean."

I should probably mention here that as a kid, I would imitate Michael Jackson at holidays and family gatherings. Mom always made sure to bring the Thriller cassette along wherever we went. I would leave the room, wait for the music to start, and emerge with a dizzying array of movements and yelps.

I knew every "Oww!" and hiccup in every song. Sometimes I'd even wear the zippered jacket. If Michael Jackson impersonators had ever become as popular as Elvis impersonators, I would've had a whole new career on my hands. Or, a career.

So it should come as no surprise that I instinctively started moonwalking when "Billie Jean" came on Saturday night. Sometimes 1983 returns unexpectedly. The kids loved it. Why? Probably because the moonwalk is only the single greatest dance move of all time. "Teach me to do that," they pleaded.

But you can't, you know. It's like saying to Bob Ross, "Teach me to paint friendly clouds like you."

"Billie Jean is not my lover. She's just a girl who claims that I am the one. But the kid is not my son..."

A bachelor looks at thread count

"I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?" ~ Ernest Hemingway

I think I may have made a big mistake.

I purchased some new sheets this past weekend. They were of the higher thread count, extra soft variety. And now all I want to do is lie in bed. Granted, that's mostly all I wanted to do before, but now it's even worse.

Have I ever shared with you my deep affection for sleep? I love sleep. Literally love it. I think I could marry sleep. Really. I'd have no problems with the vows. In sickness and in health? Till death do us part? Please. I sleep when I'm sick. I sleep when I'm well. I'll sleep till I'm dead. I'll sleep dressed in red, said Fred.

Sleep and I have had a long relationship. At times we've been almost inseparable. When I was little--and by little I mean between the ages of seven and eighteen--it was so difficult to wake me that my mother resorted to dripping icy cold water on my face. In thirty-five years, n'er a day has passed that sleep and I haven't spent time together. I thought I knew love, er, sleep. But I didn't know anything until I met these extra soft high thread count sheets.

To me, sheets were always kinda like underwear. Just something to help keep you from getting itchy. Often, my parents would get me some for Christmas. And when I did buy my own, I went for the lowest price. After all they were just sheets, right? Oh, how naive I was.

Now, it's like sleeping on a happy, fluffy, velvety cloud in a Bob Ross painting. No, make that a velvety fog. Yes, that's it. It's like sleeping on Mel Torme's voice. Sometimes I just lie in bed and run my hands all over her, I mean, them. Throw in a new foam mattress pad and it's a horizontal Xanadu!

I may never get out of bed again, save to golf and work and go to Bama games. And work would totally be negotiable except that's the only way I can afford to do the other two. And by can, I mean, can't really but do anyway. The only thing that bothers me is that I'm just now discovering this. I've basically deprived myself of thirty-five years of velvet fog sleep that I can never get back.

Well, here's to making up for lost time. As if it wasn't hard enough for me to get out of bed in the morning already.

"I've been a-waiting for you most of my life. Now that we're together and we're where we belong, I can't help but wonder why, why did it take so long?"