Many events occur that can change the path of life. The big events usually come to mind when you look back in the past.
A death in the family, a car accident, the first lay, a job promotion, losing a job, marriage, divorce, parenthood or moving out of state.
Just to name a few…
…but what about the little things that happened throughout a lifetime that had a lasting impact?
Sitting on a porch with a grandparent listening to a ballgame on the radio. Going to the White Hen and getting a KayO with your dad. Seeing a Broadway musical downtown with your mom. Playing an impromptu game of hide and seek with the kids in the neighborhood.
Those events happen occasionally and when we think about them… they make us feel good.
Yesterday I planned on going to the Saint Patrick’s Day parade in Forest Park. I’ve been doing it almost every year since 1994.
The first year I went with Bobby Franklin. One year I went with Billy Hamilton and his mother was with us. I went to several with my father-in-law, we smoked cigars. I went with my future wife one year and then one year we brought a baby. Then one year we brought a baby and a toddler. Then we brought a baby, a toddler and a big boy. One year I went with my work wife and his family. I’ve gone a bunch of times with my dear friend Trixie. I marched in the parade with a political candidate the week before China Flu shut the world down. I went back the first year after the pandemic with that same politician.
All these little memories flow together and make me feel happy when I reclaim them to thoughts.
Right now, I feel happy after typing that last paragraph.
Yesterday I took Hazel to her all-day dress rehearsal. George went and hung out with my mother-in-law and I was stuck with Fritz…
… or Fritz was stuck with me?!?!
We went to the cleaners, we went to Goodwill, we bought a new toilet brush at the Ace, we went to the grocery and we went to a hotdog stand.
We sat on a picnic bench on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and ate our lunch together. Just a dad and his fourteen-year-old son eating hotdogs and shooting the shit.
I didn’t wear my kilt. I didn’t drink green beer. I didn’t let any Trinity graduates look under my kilt. No soda bread or corned beef. I didn’t cry when the bagpipe band marched past and I didn’t get funky when Proviso East’s band funked out the day.
I made a better memory….
…. I had hotdogs with a kid that won’t always have pimples and is shorter than me. We watched shit do stuff and we quoted lines from “Blues Brothers.”
I’ll never have a chance to do that again with Fritz on March 2nd, 2024. Just like I’ll never go to Zum Deutschen Eck again and have a bowl of goulash with my dad or go to Tin Star Jail and have a pork tenderloin sandwich with my mom.
I’ll have next year when Clare, Margaret, Maureen or Colleen can tie the bow on my blue ribbon.
This year I had hotdogs with ketchup for the last time with my middle son. He turns fifteen soon and will no longer be allowed to have such a gross condiment pollute his hotdog bun.
It’s going to be a warm and windy day today… go do something small that will make you feel good thirty years from now.
It’s also National Anthem Day. Whitney was good, but Marvin at the NBA all-star game will always be the best.
