Prior to a weekend just past, a phone call came from a neighbour who lives a couple of country blocks northeast of WestWind Farms.
“What are you doing this Sunday?” was the question that was asked. I replied, “Sitting on my butt on Jennie, my jitney, and cruising around, talking to and petting the animals.”
“I’m going to Fergus right after lunch.” Knowing that Fergus was the former stomping grounds of my Little Lady and I, he added. “Do you want to come along?”
“Certainly,” I quickly snapped back. “What is the occasion?”
“Do you know Don and Mary Doyle who used to own the paint store?”
“I sure do,” was my reply. Don and Mary are guilty of changing the colour of all the rooms in every house that we lived in during the 30 years that we resided in Fergus, and the outside trim as well.
“Don is celebrating his 80th birthdate at the Legion, from two to four o’clock. I suppose you know where that is?”
“I sure do,” I said. “My 80th was celebrated there three years ago. Pick me up about one o’clock.”
That started me thinking – I would have bet my bottom dollar that Don was older than me. As long as I knew him, he had what most would recognize as a receding forehead, which, in turn, brought back long-ago memories of what my mother used to quip.
“A man who is bald in front is a thinker. A man who is bald in back is sexy. A man whose baldness in front meets the baldness in back is a man who just thinks he is sexy.”
If it be so, I imagine. Mary is a little tight-lipped on the subject.
We arrived just a few minutes past two o’clock and were not surprised to find a lineup before us. Upon greeting the birthday boy and getting a welcome hug from Mary, we sat at a nearby table to enjoy a lunch from an overloaded table.
Don, among other things, had apparently joined a crooning group, and I suppose because of the number, though I didn’t count, they were known as the Baker’s Dozen. They entertained the packed-room gathering by belting out several of the way-back tunes that I well remember.
The first of which was “Gonna take a sentimental journey, gonna set my heart at ease. Gonna take a sentimental journey, to renew old memories.” The second, being so appropriate, was “Hello Mary Lou, goodbye heart, sweet Mary Lou, I’m so in love with you.”
Both of these tunes hit the jukeboxes back in the late 1940s, so Don and Mary, if you reverse the math, were in their teens along about then and probably shoved every nickel they could find into those state-of-the-art restaurant tableside song selection machines. I know the Little Lady and I sure did.
After the formal entertainment, I started to feel a little guilty, as in tradition I had tossed aside my signature hat, my visor, so I felt not many would notice me. But that didn’t happen.
After the main program, there were very few minutes when a hand didn’t touch my shoulder, with people waiting in turn to say hi to the guy who writes in the paper. Some I knew, some I did not. It was a day that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Take care, ’cause we care.
barrie@barriehopkins.ca
519-986-4105