For Future Reference

I would just like to point out that the old gospel standard "Just A Closer Walk With Thee" is the same exact tune as "Butter Beans" by Little Jimmie Dickens. Or rather, more likely the other way around, I guess. I know the guys all thought I was nuts for repeating that over and over during the church service today, but dag gummit, I'm puttin' it out there. Has this always been the case? Why am I always the last one to know about these things?

Also, note to self: Never sit next to Alvin during a funeral service. Nearly every 5 minutes he was either poking me in the ribs or leaning into my ear to whisper something funny or wildly inappropriate to be said during a church service causing me to hide my face behind my program or risk getting bounced from the joint for snickering like a schoolgirl. As if "Butter Beans" running through my head wasn't bad enough. But getting past all that it was a pretty nice service for Mike's mother. For all the Marx Brothers buffoonery going on in our aisle, it genuinely broke my heart to hear Mike take the podium and tearfully recite "Those happy hours/that we once knew/tho' long ago/still make me blue/they say that time/heals a broken heart/but time has stood still/since we've been apart/I can't stop loving you/I said I made up my mind/to live in memory of these lonesome times." Just a really nice service all the way through. Kind of funny how Joe, Hunter, Alvin and I were probably four of the six white people at the entire African American church and funeral service and members of Mike's family kept asking us if we were "in the band". I guess they meant Mike's band DC3 since he's the only black guy in the group. Mike, of course, thought this was all very hilarious and we were actually pretty glad we could be there if anything just to cheer him up during what had to be a truly emotionally draining day.

After the service, interment, and banquet Joe and Al and I hung out a little at Mike and his dad Ernest's house. Al misheard Mike's father say something like "get the gang a glass (of soda)" as "Pabst" and Al jokinging asked Ernest if he wanted a Pabst. Ernest thought about it for a second and said, "Er... yeah.... yeah, I would like a Pabst, now that you mention it." so Joe and Al and I marched merrily down to the corner grocery to buy beer and we all kicked back a bit to watch Mike's new DVD of Lightening In A Bottle, which I've been telling him forever was really good but I guess he finally got around to buying it now. Al had a meeting in Suffolk so he bolted while Joe and Mike and I ate dinner at Pete's Tent Top, one of my long time favorite restaurants in Ghent, so naturally I chose this day to stray from Atkins a tad and had the chicken and feta pasta, which was typically Tent-Top terrific. I'm mighty sad that Pete removed the delightful velvet painting of Gary Coleman hanging over the toilet in the bathroom there for years. But hey, the food can't be beat. And two guys I recognized from The Pushers were seated next to us, too. Like, eek, man.

After dinner we met up with Alvin again at the Dairy Queen down the street and had ice cream cones (yeah, I waaay overdid it, but it was just me picking listlessly at a little cup of soft serve dipped in cherry hard shell sauce, which made it taste somewhat like bland vanilla-like paste dipped into a waxy, cherry flavored candle) and basically kept each other in stitches for the entire night with our usual non-stop wisecrackery until it was time to break and go our separate ways. Joe and I left the house at 9am and didn't get back home until around 10:30pm. So yeah, I'm a little beat. May be hitting the sackaroo early this evening. But it was worth it all if we indeed succeeded in making Mike forget his miseries for a few hours. At least I hope we did.

Oh my word, so much to catch up on. So much sleep needed. Oh, the paradox.