Friday, September 30, 2005
Hello, Texas! Sure Is Good To See You Again!
(Bonus points if you can tell me in what movie Jimmy sang the song in that headline.)
We're heading out to the Texas Gulf coast tomorrow to spend a few days with family. Man, it'll be great to hang out with my bro, Wayners again. We just don't see enough of each other. Hell, we hardly ever saw each other until my daughter got hitched a few years back, and Wayners came out for the wedding. He ended up spending the weekend holding my melancholy ass together, for it ain't easy giving away your little girl. Later, I started freeloading off him for a place to stay when Jimmy would come to Dallas. I still remember his and Janner's virgin concert. We showed up in Dallas a couple of days before the show to hang out, and decided that first evening that we just had to have some seafood. So off we went to this fish joint Wayners knew about, and what did we find when we arrived? A pre-concert party with the Lone Star Parrothead Club. There must be a thousand seafood restaurants in DFW, and we picked purely by accident the one where the Parrotheads were all hanging out. It was kismet. Fate. Meant to be. We headed over to Smirnoff Arena the afternoon of the show, and there we found what's got to be the best parking lot party ever. It seems Parrotheads came from all over the country to enjoy the Dallas party. The powers that be in other venues refuse to open their lots up until a couple of hours before show time, but in Dallas, people camp out, cook, and build stages and shit for a couple of days. It is off the hook crazy fun. About halfway through the show that night, Wayners took a big sip off his beer, looked me in the eye , and said:
I'm a Parrothead.
Hallelujah! The conversion was complete. We've been more than just brothers ever since. The common bond of one man and his music has helped us to become the very best of friends.
You see, the men of our family seem to fall into one of two categories: Bible thumpin' Baptists, or hard-drinkin' hellraisers. I tried that religion thing, and allow me tell you that it just makes the hell raisin' look all that much more attractive. The only church for me is The Church of Buffett Orthodox, and the only cathedral I want to enter on Sunday is Texas Stadium. I don't think Wayners strays too much from that path, nor does his son or neither of mine. Hell, I've been carried into my house by my two boys after they drank me under the table.
Another one that could drink me under the table was my Mom, and she's the reason we're going coastal this weekend. You all know we lost my Mom in July, and her desire was to be cremated and have her ashes spread where she was born and raised, off Rockport, Texas in Little Bay. Monday would have been her 81st birthday, so that was the date we selected to honor her final request.
Wait a minute, here. Why do we always say that? We didn't lose Mom. We know exactly where she is. She's in an urn at Walt's house. There now, see? Mom would have liked that joke. But I digress once again.
Though we're going for a sad reason, we don't plan on having a sad weekend. Mom would have kicked our asses if she thought we would have some maudlin tear jerking ceremony of some sort. So we're going to do what we would have done if she was with us for the weekend: A dinner of fried shrimp till it comes out our ears at The Big Fisherman is a must. Mom had an undying passion for Dallas Cowboys football and beer, so we'll spend Sunday afternoon partaking of both. We'll go out on Little Bay on Monday and release her to the sea while playing country music and yes, drinking more beer. In between restaurants, football, and ash-spreading, we'll probably drink beer. Hey, it's what we do.
Which reminds me of a story:
One day God was looking down on Earth and saw all of
the bad behavior that was going on.
So he called one of his angels and sent that angel to
Earth for a time to check everything out.
When the angel returned, he went to God and said,"Yes,
it's true. The Earth is in decline; 95% are misbehaving, but 5%
are being good."
God was not pleased. He decided to e-mail the 5% that
were good, because He wanted to encourage them, maybe give
them a little something to help them keep going.
Do you know what the e-mail said?
No?
Okay, I was just wondering....
I didn't get one either....
|
We're heading out to the Texas Gulf coast tomorrow to spend a few days with family. Man, it'll be great to hang out with my bro, Wayners again. We just don't see enough of each other. Hell, we hardly ever saw each other until my daughter got hitched a few years back, and Wayners came out for the wedding. He ended up spending the weekend holding my melancholy ass together, for it ain't easy giving away your little girl. Later, I started freeloading off him for a place to stay when Jimmy would come to Dallas. I still remember his and Janner's virgin concert. We showed up in Dallas a couple of days before the show to hang out, and decided that first evening that we just had to have some seafood. So off we went to this fish joint Wayners knew about, and what did we find when we arrived? A pre-concert party with the Lone Star Parrothead Club. There must be a thousand seafood restaurants in DFW, and we picked purely by accident the one where the Parrotheads were all hanging out. It was kismet. Fate. Meant to be. We headed over to Smirnoff Arena the afternoon of the show, and there we found what's got to be the best parking lot party ever. It seems Parrotheads came from all over the country to enjoy the Dallas party. The powers that be in other venues refuse to open their lots up until a couple of hours before show time, but in Dallas, people camp out, cook, and build stages and shit for a couple of days. It is off the hook crazy fun. About halfway through the show that night, Wayners took a big sip off his beer, looked me in the eye , and said:
I'm a Parrothead.
Hallelujah! The conversion was complete. We've been more than just brothers ever since. The common bond of one man and his music has helped us to become the very best of friends.
You see, the men of our family seem to fall into one of two categories: Bible thumpin' Baptists, or hard-drinkin' hellraisers. I tried that religion thing, and allow me tell you that it just makes the hell raisin' look all that much more attractive. The only church for me is The Church of Buffett Orthodox, and the only cathedral I want to enter on Sunday is Texas Stadium. I don't think Wayners strays too much from that path, nor does his son or neither of mine. Hell, I've been carried into my house by my two boys after they drank me under the table.
Another one that could drink me under the table was my Mom, and she's the reason we're going coastal this weekend. You all know we lost my Mom in July, and her desire was to be cremated and have her ashes spread where she was born and raised, off Rockport, Texas in Little Bay. Monday would have been her 81st birthday, so that was the date we selected to honor her final request.
Wait a minute, here. Why do we always say that? We didn't lose Mom. We know exactly where she is. She's in an urn at Walt's house. There now, see? Mom would have liked that joke. But I digress once again.
Though we're going for a sad reason, we don't plan on having a sad weekend. Mom would have kicked our asses if she thought we would have some maudlin tear jerking ceremony of some sort. So we're going to do what we would have done if she was with us for the weekend: A dinner of fried shrimp till it comes out our ears at The Big Fisherman is a must. Mom had an undying passion for Dallas Cowboys football and beer, so we'll spend Sunday afternoon partaking of both. We'll go out on Little Bay on Monday and release her to the sea while playing country music and yes, drinking more beer. In between restaurants, football, and ash-spreading, we'll probably drink beer. Hey, it's what we do.
Which reminds me of a story:
One day God was looking down on Earth and saw all of
the bad behavior that was going on.
So he called one of his angels and sent that angel to
Earth for a time to check everything out.
When the angel returned, he went to God and said,"Yes,
it's true. The Earth is in decline; 95% are misbehaving, but 5%
are being good."
God was not pleased. He decided to e-mail the 5% that
were good, because He wanted to encourage them, maybe give
them a little something to help them keep going.
Do you know what the e-mail said?
No?
Okay, I was just wondering....
I didn't get one either....
