17, 18, 19

How did my kids get such old parents?

Their father, wherever he may be, turned sixty-two today. These remembrances are so rare as to be a shock when they pop to the surface. It was a ridiculously long time ago that I lived in Omaha, was married, and had three little sons. Even before the sons arrived there were St. Patrick's Days. Mid-March in Omaha usually meant a dang cold night on Dodge Street in the Dundee area eating corned beef and cabbage.

One year we celebrated St. Pat's on the 17th with my in-laws at the 18th Amendment bar. It's a surreal memory. Hanging with my mother- and father-in-law  never happened before or after. "Old ladies" in their mid-fifties had green fingernails.  The low drop ceiling was what one might call "festooned" with dangling green balloons and twisted crepe paper streamers. The corned beef sandwiches were on white Wonder bread. My father-in-law who almost never spoke in my presence explained that the earliest one could plant peas in Omaha was March 19th, coincidentally the date of his only son's birth. A green spotlight shone on a revolving disco mirror ball. The Eighties were a scary time! The real-true-actually-happening-global-warming has probably shifted the pea-planting date for Omaha.

© 2013-2016 Nancy L. Ruder