HAT TIPS
Good morning!
Well, I did it! And it made me feel so grown up!
I’m writing this from a motel in Amarillo, Texas. And I made it all on my own. I carried my own tickets, checked my own luggage, boarded my own flight, and switched planes in Denver all by myself.
I’m 62 years old and I finally did it all by myself. Shirley never let me do it alone. And I guess you could say I can’t blame her. It started thirty some odd years ago. I say thirty odd, because in forty years of marriage, many have been odd.
It’s like the guy who was asked how long he had been married. He replied, “I’ve been happily married for twenty years.”
Someone said, “Twenty?”
“Yeah,” he says, “Twenty out of forty ain’t bad!”
Anyway it started thirty years ago. Shirley and I hadn’t travelled much. And we were going to Vegas, or a cattlemen’s convention, or somewhere important.
Being the man, I had control of the tickets. Well, I was upset. It was like picking up the Sunday paper. There were ads for hotels, rental cars, show tickets. I had a bundle of stuff. As we were walking, actually kind of running through the airport, all these papers started bothering me. So I threw them in a trash can.
When we got to our gate, Shirley turned to me and asked for the boarding pass.
“Boarding pass! Really! There was a boarding pass in that bundle of junk?”
Remember those ads where O.J. ran through the airport jumping over stuff. That was me. Oh, I didn’t jump over much stuff. And maybe I wasn’t near as fast. But, if you are as scared of Shirley as I am, I was picking them up and laying them down pretty darn good. I knocked some kids over and pushed one old lady out of the way. It was a mad dash through the airport to a garbage can.
I turned it upside down and started going through papers. I karate kicked a security guard and fought off a custodian with a push broom until I found the tickets. And we made it.
Since that time, I swear on a stack of Bibles, Shirley has never let me carry the tickets!
But, today, as I’m travelling with a cowboy from Harding County, I got to be in charge. And we made it!
I feel so big. Amarillo by morning!
Wait! What’s that you say? This isn’t Amarillo! It’s Abilene! Holy Batman! I’ve got to go!
Tell you about it next week!
Later,
Dean