The Day Andy Williams Died
Sometimes even I have to recognize the unacceptably ridiculous train of my thoughts. What sometimes I prefer to view as the Orient Express or a Japanese bullet train is often, more than not, a clunky caboose falling off the tracks into woods of rabbit trails.
Like last night, falling asleep…
“I wish I had taken care of that spider under the couch this afternoon. Too bad I wasn’t wearing shoes when he crawled by. I’ll bet he made it in here and he’ll climb up the headboard tonight and get me. Maybe check out my ears… I should just start wearing earplugs to bed. Puck has a box of them in his room from all those basketball games… Oh, by the way, OLeif, I figured out something…”
“Huhmfmm?” The Bear mumbled.
[Like I said, all it takes is 30 seconds to begin the Z’s.]
“I realized that, if I was living in the dark ages right now, my life would be just about to wrap up. Maybe five more years. But I also realized that most women died in childbirth back then. So I think that, if I was living in the old days, I would probably have decided not to get married. But then I wouldn’t have been able to support myself. So then I realized the big ticket – I would have joined a convent. Perfect.”
“But you’re not Catholic.”
“I could still be a Protestant… nun…”
The Bear didn’t try to argue that one with me…
“So what range of time would you have decided on this option?”
“I don’t know. The 500’s through, say… 1950’s.”
“What?!”
Ok, so maybe I was a bit extreme on the modern bookend; I was inches away from sleep myself. I’d go so distant as the early 1900’s now. In retrospect. Good thing I wasn’t born anytime before the last century, I guess.
Mom fixed up omelets and fried apples for breakfast at the house.
They thought Snuggles wouldn’t make it for a few days, his thyroid was so bad. But after a pill fix on Monday, he was ploughing through fat cans of cat food and baby food. Yes, baby food. I believe squash might have been on the menu for breakfast. Meanwhile, Pumpkin looked jealously on, like the brooding prow of a great ship. Or a grumpy gargoyle contemplating the passing of centuries from a French cathedral tower.
Anyways.
I got Francis started on algebra in the kitchen. Joe walked by to start the laundry and pinched his arm…
“Do you work out?” he asked slyly.
Francis just grinned at his goofy older brother.
This is the typical Joe-and-Francis interaction. When Linnea-Irish joined the conversation, they started one-upping each other on swimming, volleyball, and other various sports. Linnea then migrated to her room with a bowl of wilted taco salad while the boys bragged about how long they had gone without showers, and arged about vehicular gadgets for the Big Old Green Thing as some medium-rock blared from the television stereo system in the living room. [Mom had left for Costco with Carrie and Puck.]
Over a large box of chicken bakes for lunch, the boys chatted manly gossip at Carrie’s beauty parlor while comparing weight, height, and quality of their respective scalps. Some things never change…
Mom drove us out to church in Dad’s car after five. Dad had been listening to Andy Williams on the ride home from work, apparently. We, too, listened to some of the “old crooner”, as Joe labeled him. Eighty-four; passed away at home in Branson.