THE LADIES

ANDREA:  I have shown balls maybe three times in my fifty-one years on the planet. Perhaps the biggest came in 1978 when I asked the European Beauty delivering mail to my mom’s house out on a date. I remember thinking that if this went south, I would have to see this girl for the foreseeable future and pretend like the crushing rejection was no biggie. Inexplicably, she said yes and continued to go out with me even after our first date consisted of going to the horse track, drinks at a dive bar called the Token Lounge and a late bite at Denny’s. Oh yeah, I wore light blue pants made entirely of man made fibers and a shiny darker blue shirt with planets and moons. Pure class!

She continued to go out with me even after my asshole neighbor, who happened to be her co-worker at the post office, warned her that by going out with me she “was going to get burned this time”. Geez, you throw a few sodden parties, listen to hours of punk music at ear splitting levels and blow tons of ganja toward his house and this is your thanks.

I believe that in every relationship, it is obvious to the world which person married “up”. I married “up”. Andrea is model pretty (my dad gave Andrea the European Beauty label- he was bombed at the time but it is accurate and creepy). She is also very smart, has a good sense of humor, is a wonderful mom and is the rock of our little family. We have been married for almost 27 years and my only real complaint is that she may have surpassed me in the humorous gas category. Her clinching blow, as it were, came one morning when I got up for work and she saluted me from under the covers with a low, sad breaking of the wind. For that piece of work, she received the moniker of “Mournful Bum”.

In many ways hers is the most difficult blurb I have written, and not just because of my meager writing talents. How do you convey trust, respect, admiration, consistency, honor, courage, and love with words or anecdotes. It’s like living with a boy scout whose ass you want to grab.

I love my wife (She let’s me go out with Tony every Friday night).

BETH: I was leaning against a bar rail having a beer with my brother one Friday night (does every story of mine start that way?), when he moved closer and looked discreetly around me as if he was about to tell a racist joke. “ You know Beth from work?... We have been dating for about five years.”

Thoughts came racing through my head: How could he be dating a co-worker of ours for that long without me knowing?... What about his other out in the open long term relationship?... Had I ever commented about her large breasts in front of Tony?

Once this relationship became public, and Tony’s other situation came to a close, it became clear that these two were going to be in it for the long haul.

I have known Beth through our crappy job for a long time, and always admired her as a worker and a person. She had the rare ability to fit in with people from all walks of life, to make the tense client relax and the crabby client smile. She always made me feel good, and welcomed me each day with a “Hello Mr. Jim.” Any quips toward me from Beth were always accompanied by a huge smile and a quick raise of both eyebrows. More importantly, I greatly admired the selfless way she took care of her ailing dad, never a complaint to be heard.

I was not surprised that Tony and Beth chose to live together in the house we grew up in with my mom, who needs a little extra TLC (whether she cares to admit it or not). I have to admit that I was a bit surprised when they got married as I didn’t know that there was a woman alive who could tame that stallion.

We all love Beth, and welcome her into our dysfunctional family. Just don’t fuck with Bug Juice Friday Nights.

MOM: When I was eight years old and in third grade, the class had to write a story about our moms and I cried. For my mom’s eighty-first birthday, I wrote a note inside of her card and I cried. My mom makes me cry.

In Sister Fabiola’s Fourth Grade class, I faked being sick the morning of a class field trip to the circus. I was afraid to go on the bus to a strange place (and maybe a little afraid of the clowns). My mom easily saw through this, but instead of forcing me to go, or trying to teach me some kind of life lesson, she understood. My mom let me stay home, drop the facade and told me that my dad would take me to a Red Wing game instead. Later that year, I got to stay home for Game 7 of the ’68 World Series.

In this world, people talk a good game. My mom delivers the goods. If she walks into a roomful of strangers, in ten minutes she will be best friends with two or three people and commiserate with them about family problems or revel in their little triumphs. She is Christian, but not pushy. She is sweet, but not saccharine. She is a mom to the core.

She just gets it.

My mom gets a mention here for many reasons, but one is that she is the bookend of the Friday Night excursions. When I pick Tony up around 10 pm, we always stop and look in on my mom. She is lying across her bed, wrapped in an afghan, asleep in front of Frasier DVDs or asleep listening to a book on tape. She always wakes up and asks Tony and I if we have our wallets. Perfect! At night’s end, as I drop Tony off, she wanders out of her bedroom into the kitchen where drunk food is being prepared. Quite possibly the highlight of the week. Tired, crazy hair and ready to talk about the night or criticize the drunk food. Kissing her goodnight and heading home, I feel great, about ten years old again.

I know I don’t have the market cornered on great moms ( my mother in-law Betty was also a mom hall of famer), but, as I used to say when I was a kid, “I love her more than all the grasses and the sands.”