In this exotic slide, Tie o’ the Day is worn in by none other than my grandpa, Walt Wright. He was my first tie influence. We look like we were probably ready to head off to church. Note my red/orange shoes! I doubt our dog, Dum Dum, was going with us, but I’m sure Dum Dum tried to follow us. It’s just what Dum Dum did. She’s so light in this slide, she looks like a ghost. Well, we kinda all three look like ghosts. Apparently slides don’t hold up well when nobody knows where they are for decades. But that’s part of their charm too.
I’m overjoyed to share this. It is a slide, among many, I ran onto today—after 40 years of not really knowing there were missing slides of my childhood. My slide projector still works, with its 40-plus-year-old bulb. I am flabbergasted and astonished at my luck in finding these. Sorry that my walls are textured, so it makes the image look like a puzzle I put together. Be warned! You will be seeing more slides o’ my kidhood past in the near future. I’m sure tall tales and half-truths will abound. Like in my usual posts.
Rosy Bow Tie o’ the Day is a velvety wonder. Trust me—velvet works with redneck style. Think: Bright paintings of Elvis on black velvet. Personally, I’ve never owned a black velvet painting of any kind. However, I did once own a sculpted portrait of The Three Wise Men, constructed out of macaroni glued to an empty cardboard fabric bolt, then completely spray-painted gold. (My grandma, Zola, created it.)
Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to be a redneck. I am a highly educated redneck, it’s true. But I have never allowed my advanced education to lessen my redneck IQ. I have proudly had an old couch on my front porch at times—to provide plenty of cushioned room for any stray guests who might redneckly drop by without invitation or warning. (Yes, on the infamous Delta porch.) I have also had an old mattress on my front porch, reserved for my passel of mutts and any cats, goats, toads, or wandering fowl in the neighborhood. And as a redneck bonus, I can fix anything mechanical with duct tape and/or baling wire. My redneck dad taught me well.
For decades, Mom and her best friend, Peggy, made a daily Pepsi run. Peggy would drive one day, Mom would drive the next. They’d pull up to the drive-up window at any one of a number of Delta’s finest establishments. It was the Cardwell gas station for the last few years of their Pepsi-running. There was always a brief tiff over whose turn it was to pay. Drink in hand, they would cruise the roads of Millard County. Even the Stake President once acknowledged their presence in a Relief Society meeting by referring to them as the ladies who drink and drive. His wife made him apologize to them later, but they thought it was funny. And all the church ladies of the Delta West Stake understood and thought it was funny too.
There came a time when Mom could no longer drive, so I drove them when it was her turn. When Mom got rid of her car, I began to drive them in Peggy’s car when it was Mom’s turn. Eventually, I became the official chauffeur of their daily forays to and fro across the county, always in Peggy’s car. If you ever experienced the comedy routine that was Mom’s and Peggy’s friendship, I don’t have to explain how exhausting and enlightening and uplifting it could be to be around them. If you never had the chance to see them be friends live and in-person, all I can say is that you missed something wonderful. Now Mom lives in a care center and Peggy is gone.
It was because of Mom and Peggy that one day I truly regretted not having bigly bucks in my bank account to waste on one humongous good laugh. It’s the only time in my life I have been ticked off that I wasn’t awash in wealth. We had just picked up our daily drinks and we were driving out of Delta on Lone Tree Road, when I got this vision. I wanted to buy a motorcycle, with two side-cars attached for Mom and Peggy. I wanted to jump on the bike and drive Mom and Peggy—and their drinks—up over the overpass, and up and down Main Street, then all across every paved and dirt road in the county. And the old broads would have gone along with it—once, just to make everyone who saw them laugh.
Well, of course, I told Mom and Peggy my plan-which-wouldn’t-happen. We all got a kick out of envisioning it. I said, “You know you would do it.” The minute I said that, they both replied in unison as if they’d practiced the line for years, “Yes, but not on hair day.”
I couldn’t find a side-car for my bicycle, but I did manage to find a bike trailer for Skitter to accompany me on my bike outings. I’m letting the skittish mutt get used to her trailer for a few days before we head out on an actual trek. Here, she wears her Tie o’ the Day, looking forward to our meandering daily journeys. We wish Mom and Peggy could come with us.
TIE O’ THE DAY challenges y’all to guess what major university employs this little Bow Tie o’ the Day’s parents. I’ve promised myself to wear red whenever I’m around Gracie, and to whisper “Go to the University of Utah” in her ear every flippin’ time I get a chance—just to bring a proper Utah balance to our fledgling munchkin.
Gracie’s both. It simply depends on whether you’re counting by months or years. Either way, it was Grace Anne’s birthday yesterday. Her sparkly butt bow on her birthday outfit is our Bow Tie o’ the Day. Alas! For reasons of schedule and then pandemic, I have not been able to see Gracie or her parents—Bishop Travis and Bishopette Collette—in person since just before Christmas. I do not like that one dang bit.
Anyhoo… Gracie is the perfect blend of blessing and scamp. I hear she started walking a few days ago. I also hear she is already a speedy pro. Based on the library of videos starring Grace I’ve watched over the last few months, I can tell you she lives up to her initials: GAB. She gabs away, often at the top of her lungs. As for her pink bear, which has been a way to chart her growth in monthly pix, she now towers over it. Month 1, she was so tiny she was almost lost in the bear’s fur. Now, she owns that fluffy, pink beast!
Mom’s a woman o’ many faces, and whatever face she presents, it unfailingly draws people to her. She’s got that rarest of personal traits: charisma. Even here, in our 70’s-orange kitchen, in her 70’s-orange slacks, with her sassy smile, Mom captivates. TIE O’ THE DAY gives a bigly Merry Mother’s Day shout-out to all of you who who do the complicated work of mothering—with your whole, thinking hearts. Mother on!
Dad’s actual cell phone—with its paint and scuffs—joins me and bees Bow Tie o’ the Day for this post.
Early in the 2000’s, Mom was fine with the kitchen wall home phone and an answering machine. Dad got a cell phone early on because he dragged his bees from here to California and all over creation, and he hunted coyotes who-knew-where before dawn daily. Bee yards and coyote dens rarely have phones or phone booths, so Dad packed his clunky cell phone in his Dodge truck in case of emergency—along with the other lifesaving travel essentials: water, toilet paper, and matches. He rarely made or received a call. Mom finally frequently called his cell from the home phone to check on him towards the end of his days here on the planet.
When Dad went to The Big Coyote Hunt in the Sky, in 2007, Mom naturally inherited his cell phone. With it, she also inherited his cell phone number, and she began the process of gradually becoming one with the cell phone, as we have all done with our own. The landline home phone number which had belonged to Mom and Dad for close to 70 years was only shut down a couple of years ago, but Mom had quit using it long before that actually happened.
He’s been gone close to 13 years now, but I’ve never taken Dad’s name off my cell phone’s contacts list. Nor have I added Mom’s name to my contacts. I call Mom by dialing for Dad. There is something eternally reassuring about calling Dad’s phone number and having Mom answer. Really, it’s just like it always was with our kitchen wall phone. Its number was perpetually listed under Dad’s name in the annual Delta phone book. But it was always Mom who answered the ring.
Bikini Bow Tie o’ the Day couldn’t get Mom to answer her cell phone. I even tried using the old wall phone from our old kitchen in my old kidhood house. Mom didn’t answer that phone either. For a few days last week, nobody could get in touch with Mom. As most of you know, Mom is on pandemic lockdown at Millard Care and Rehab, where she has resided for the last 18 months. No visitors are allowed, so the only way we can keep track of her and remind her we love her right now is by calling her cell phone.
At first, I thought Mom was maybe boycotting me for some reason, by not answering my calls. But over the course of a couple of days, I received many texts and calls alerting me to the fact that Mom wasn’t answering her phone for anyone. Aha! If Mom was boycotting, I wasn’t the only one being boycotted.
I’m the point-man for Mom’s phone issues because her line is on my account, and everybody in the family knows it. So if Mom’s unreachable for some reason, I get screamed at. Mom has occasionally had real phone troubles, but nothing major since she quit answering it with wet hands while washing dishes or cooking. She went through 3 phones in the 3 years before she went to live at MCR, where she is not allowed to do dishes or cook. Since taking up residence there, her phone problems have had to do with her accidentally turning down the volume, or otherwise touching a wrong key.
Normally, I would text my/my sister’s hubby, Gary, to drive the mile to the care center to see Mom and solve her phone issue, but that’s not currently a possibility, thanks to the COVID-19 lockdown. After calling Mom’s phone for the zillionth time, I figured she had most likely accidentally turned it off. I texted MCR and requested they check out Mom’s cell phone to make sure it was turned on. Someone at MCR solved the problem by simply turning Mom’s phone back on. Sure enough, Mom had somehow used one of her many superpowers to turn it off, but she apparently has lost the superpower that turns it back on. When you are approaching 90, you naturally lose a superpower here and there. And that’s ok. MCR can help you fix it.
BTW Mom is doing dandily. She did ask me to send her some spiced jelly beans though. I’ve been saving them to give her when I see her again, but I think I better mail them ASAP.
The Tie Room 2020 Census continues. Here again is my one and only blow-up Tie o’ the Day. It was given to me by my bro-in-law, Nuk, my oldest sister’s hubby. If you’re whitewater rafting and you and your tie fall out of your raft, Tie will stay afloat so somebody can find it and your body that it’s attached to. Tie can also act as a pillow for you when you’re bored at the office or in church, and you just need to close your eyes for a minute. Tie stands alone in its Census description category.
I must admit that The Tie Room Census has been a rather welcome and important distraction from the continuing, sometimes boring, drama of COVID-19. The Census gives me a good reason to do some bigly needed re-vamping of The Tie Room. My collection needs both a more streamlined organization, and a more jumpy-outy-but-presentable way of being exhibited to visitors. I have so massive a neckwear collection that sometimes I can’t find the precise piece of neckwear I’m searching for. Also, there are folks who visit us who would like to gawk at the amazing adventure that is The Tie Room. Maybe I’ll sell tickets. You’ll be invited, of course.
Remember when you were a kid and you got a cool new clothing item you’d been bugging your parents to buy you—like a swimming suit or moon boots or a holster for your cap gun? Remember when you finally got it, how hard you then worked trying to convince your parents you just positively had to sleep in whatever new thing it was? You pleaded. You begged. You played out all of your best kid-brain parent manipulations right up until bedtime, when your parents finally got so worn down and sick of your tricks that they gave you their ok to wear whatever you wanted to sleep in, if you would just get in bed and go the heck to sleep. “But don’t put any caps in your cap gun,” they said. Which, of course, you loaded up with a full roll immediately—even as you were swearing to your parents you would never be so stoopid as to sleep with caps in your cap gun. And remember when you just had to shoot a cap off every so often under the sheets so you could see the spark and smell the smoke? And then one spark got on your new swimming suit and melted a hole in it, while burning you at the same time. And remember how you tried to get out of bed to save yourself from what you thought was an impending house fire, but your bigly moon boots got tangled in your sheets mostly because you were wearing a pair of your dad’s old spurs on them? And then remember how you frantically rolled out of bed and onto the hard floor, because when you were a kid, carpet hadn’t been invented yet? And remember when your dad woke up because of the commotion you were making, and when he walked into your bedroom to check on you he didn’t say a word? He saw you weren’t injured and nothing was on fire, and he put all his effort into trying not to laugh at you in your predicament. He simply turned to go back to bed, holding the back of his garments shut as he chuckled in the kitchen. And remember how you deduced your dad had shared your little fiasco with your mother almost immediately, because five minutes after you were re-situated in your bed, you could hear both your mom and dad laughing. Remember when that happened? Or maybe it only happened to me. Probably more than once.
Anyhoo… I admit right here and now that I have used and abused amazon prime far too much since our lovely pandemic has kept us homebounder-than-usual. But guess what got delivered to me yesterday? My new pair of Hello Kitty sunglasses, which I soooo had to sleep in. Check out the bling on Hello Kitty’s Bow Tie o’ the Night. Best. $4. With. Free. Shipping. Spent. Ever.
