A VIP Kinda Town

 

A friend of mine recently asked an interesting question. If I could go back and change one thing, what would that be?

Of course, a million and one things blew through my brain all at once.

I would have worn white every fall after Labor Day, eaten dessert for breakfast, and never turned on the blessed TV.

I would have thought twice before leaving the house, even if it was only to the grocery, wearing my hot pink scrunchie, no make-up, and my pajama top charading as an extra-large Tee.

I would never have let my mom talk me into picking out Periwinkle (is it blue, is it purple? Who care?)for my bridesmaids dresses because I wanted black instead.

I would have laughed harder, even if I accidently snorted or spewed liquid from the side of my mouth and nose.

And I wouldn’t have felt silly for crying, even though my heart felt slightly closed up, just a little, every time I was done.

I would have liked myself more.

“You’re not dying, for Christ’s sake,” Alicia reminds me. “It’s a hypothetical question. And no, it’s not like Back to the Future where you can wipe out your children’s existence because you wish you and Doogie Howser had met on a blind date.”

“Are you sure,” I ask back. “I mean, I don’t like to tempt fate.”

“For the love of God, just pick one thing you regret from the past and tell me why you wish you could change it.”

One thing. Just one, small thing in a span of forty freaking years. Easy for her to say….she not even 35 (not to mention, she has no idea who Doogie Howser is. As if….)

Then it came to me. Only it wasn’t for a few more days.

“Where’s the older, bald guy with the cool mustache? I’ve missed him for awhile,” I ask someone from the drive thru window of the 19^th Hole after ordering a bottle of Simi chard.

“You mean Super Dave?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” I say, rummaging, as always, through my wallet. “He’s tall, sweet in a gruff way, always laughs at my jokes.”

“Yeah, you’re talking about Dave,” he tells me. His voice is kind. “I’m sorry. He died of a heart attack a week ago Tuesday.”

Finally. Me, a loss for words.

Stay sweet, Super Dave would always tell me. Year after year after year….he’d say, stay sweet. How could I have never, ever, even asked him his name?

He’d pick out the perfect Pinot to have with beef, the crispest white for fried catfish, and best bloody mix for Sunday brunch. Tell me how you like it, he’d always ask me on my out the door.

We talked about other things too, in all the years I knew him. We talked about golf, college football, our lousy island internet connection, seasonal traffic, and all kinds of weather. I saw him at least once a week for as long as I can remember. I knew him, or at least, I thought I did. But I never asked him his name.

I found out even more about “Super Dave” Person, in the days that followed. Things I should have known awhile ago. He was born in Savannah, went to high school at Glynn Academy… the class of’67 to be exact… and served in the Army during the Vietnam conflict. He has two sons and five grandchildren.

Dave Person had been a part of the island, the community, a part of us, for over forty years. And I never thought to ask his name.

Dave. David. Super Dave. David Person.

Stay sweet.

I guess I just thought he’d always be there. Part of a spoke that turned the day to day wheel of my small world I’d like to think of as well greased. Ready to go. Contained. Business as usual.

Y’all have no idea how much I would love to pull up to the 19^th Hole and ask him right now if he could recommend a great Cabernet that’s got the right hint of tobacco, deep red currant, but not too sweet. I’d ask him about the weather, too.

I’d hear a baseball game in the background, smell the faint hint of cigarette smoke, and listen to Dave shooting the bull with his customers as he would ring me up. Then he’d give me the VIP service, as he liked to call it, by scrawling my own crazy signature across the credit card receipt, close the window, and get on with his business….as usual.

Tell me how you liked it.

How I wish I could.

Since Dave died, that Tuesday, May 8^th, I’ve thought a lot about where we live, our small town.

It’s not like I originally thought, each one of us living as separate wheels, moving in all sorts of crazy directions, casually crossing paths now and then, yielding, catching up, or running smack right in to one another, if we’re lucky, to visit and then go off again.

No, I think those of us who dwell here are more like thousands of pieces of a moving ladder, a giant strand of DNA. A living helix that is bound together at the stripped down essence of it all. We may spin and rotate in different directions, separately, molecule by molecule, person by person, all the time, but we still move with the same underlying purpose. Connected. The same strain.

My regret? Easy. It’s not asking for a name.

Stay sweet, y’all.

I'll Have Another

previously published in Coastal Illustrated on May 30th



I stepped in it, y’all.

And I mean both figuratively and literally.

Not too long ago, I was atop my high horse telling everyone who would listen how I was done. Finished.  Absolutely complete. No longer interested in the baby train, dirty diaper, sleepless nights of life on the Midnight Express.  I had gotten off, if you catch my drift, and was well into that Autumn of Motherhood, no longer looking back, but forward, to ten day vacations and available cash.

Then, I brought home a puppy.

It happened on the evening of “the most exciting two minutes in sports” , the Kentucky Derby where the little known 3 year old chestnut colt, I’ll Have Another, came from behind to beat out the favorite to win, Bodemeister, by one and a half lengths.

It was quite an exciting race.  And as the patrons from all around hoisted their glasses, chanting I’ll have Another, I was chasing my own dream, a teeny tiny puppy up for auction at Frederica Academy’s Derby Day Fundraiser named Mint Julep.  She was my quarter horse.  I was all in.

Luckily, we came home the winner and I was totally and in love. And life as we know it at home hasn’t been the same since.

See Mint Julep or “Jules” as we call her, came with an actual instruction book which she smartly chewed up upon arrival.  Not to be bested, I was able to look up a few things online (well, before she almost chewed through the USB cord that’s attached to my hard drive) and found out that training a puppy is not that different than “training” a baby.

Baby:

7 AM Feed, change, play, nap in crib

10 Am Feed, change, play, nap in crib

12 pm feed, change, play, nap in crib

Repeat every three hours.

Puppy:

7 AM Feed, walk, play, nap in crate

10 AM walk, play, nap in crate

12 PM walk, play, nap in crate

Repeat every three hours.

See what I’m talking about. Except, I’m beat, missing my favorite pair of flip flops, and can no longer leave the house for more than two hours.

Sounds like motherhood to me.  And now that I have welcomed home yet another bundle of joy- and in the spirit of celebrating this very special occasion- I am writing a letter for my baby just like the ones I penned for my other two babies after I brought them home from the hospital all those years ago.

Here goes: 

My dearest Jules,

If you are reading this letter, it is your twenty first birthday( in dog years- actually in human years it’s your third so guess I will be reading it to you, then again you’re a dog-but I digress.)  Since it is so fresh in my mind, I just wanted to tell you know how much you mean to me and how my life has changed so profoundly because of that Derby Day in May, 2012 when I brought you home, barely three pounds of fluff and fur that I could hold in the cradle of a single arm. 

You see, I loved you the minute I saw you, when those two gorgeous brown pools of reflective light met mine. Actually, to be fair, I kind of stalked you around the Retreat Ballroom because I wanted to take you home so badly.  Even the Humane Society volunteer with the clip board that was your charge probably, at one time or another, considered filing a restraining order. But see, I didn’t care.  I knew we were supposed to be together.  Little did I know that my sweet husband, you’re father, had instructed the volunteer to come to him whenever someone put in a bid to take you home.  He would counter.  It was kismet.  Our fate had already been sealed.

And I adored you even more that very first night, after I took you home and you immediately pooped on my sleeping daughters head and then ceremoniously chewed up every No 2 pencil at my desk, before falling asleep curled up in my lap.  I didn’t care that when getting up and maneuvering anywhere in the house, we had to walk slowly, head down, and alert for any land minds you laid out for us with loving care when we put you down on the ground for just a sec.  I love the way one of your ears flops down more than the other, and how you watch me with such concentration while I type, cook, brush my teeth, and pretend to iron. Not to mention, how you love puddles after a good rain, pouncing through the grass after crickets, pawing one of the cat’s fur balls around the house, and sleeping at my feet, after gnawing on them, at the end of a long day. It’s like you’ve have always been here and it’s only been a few, short weeks.  

     See, you came to be not because of a snow storm in April at a wedding weekend in Ann Harbor, Michigan. Or like another one of my children, as the result of 9 dollar ovulation test kit from the CVS.  No. You choose us, sweet Jules, when you stared at us with those puppy dog eyes and cocked your adorable teeny puppy dog ear.  Also, you came to be a part of our family because of a text exchange I had with your father precisely one week before we took you home.  I’ll share it with you now:

Your Father: I just realized I will be at a golf member-guest party on the 11^{th of} May- our wedding anniversary!  Whoops!  Guess we can go out to dinner another night.

Your Mother: Whoops! Yes, that’s right.  And isn’t it a bit clichéd to not remember when your anniversary is?

Father: I did remember, but I’m not missing member-guest! :)

Mother: Even better! :(

Father: I’ll get u a new vacuum cleaner or a new frying pan to make up for it!

Mother: U can’t stop topping yourself today, can u?  What’s next? A new blender and a dust pan?

Father: U know how Christmas is really for your birthday too?

Mom:

Dad: Hello?????

     So, when our eyes met and we fell in love that afternoon, and your father mouthed the words “No Way In Hell” from across the ballroom, I held up my cell phone, and he knew right then and there that we would be together, forever, as a family. 

Much Love and Always,

Your Mother

It’s important to note that Derby winner, I’ll Have Another, went on to win the Preakness last Saturday in a photo finish against the mighty Bodemeister; securing the second win he needed to capture the Triple Crown. 

But what I take away from the whole experience, besides finding a dog I adore wholeheartedly, was exploring exactly what the phrase I’ll Have Another really means.  For the owner of I’ll Have Another, J. Paul Reddam, it means another cookie after dinner while relaxing on the couch.  For WC Fields, when asked what he believed in, he responded “I believe I’ll have another drink.”

It’s a phrase we use when we partake in something we don’t necessarily need, but want all the same.  For me, it represents a romantic gesture made during the run for the roses. Did I need another dog? No. Did I want her? You have no idea how much. I guess in the end, when it comes down to an act of love, my answer will always be yes, I’ll have another. Please.