The cowboy has a sign above his office door that reads: “Negative Ion Filter, the sky is not falling…you are on the right side of the dirt.” I see it every day as I wander about the house, letting Cody in or out, whatever his little heart desires. Negativity is a brain killer and we both try to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, as the old song goes.
Yesterday I watched the Super Bowl, the first one in a long time and I must say I enjoyed it. Regardless of the team you supported, it was a good game, the score was like a good tennis match, watching the ball and score go back and forth. The two-minute warning lasted fifteen minutes, but that’s part of football. I was ambivalent as to the winner but liked the red and white uniforms and I was glad when the game ended. I thought having brothers on opposing teams was cool, too. Their mom must have spent a lot of time at football practices, and I salute her.
Chris Stapleton blew it out of the water when he sang “Star Spangled Banner.” Hats off to him.
So then, we get to the half-time. Now, I’m old and don’t really have much affection for much of today’s music, but I was ready for some entertainment. I didn’t know who Rhianna is, but I had heard of her, and figured she must have some star talent, maybe even as good an entertainer as Dolly Parton, Cher, or Aretha Franklin or a host of others that our generation knows about. I found a glass of wine and perched on a chair ready to be entertained and I wasn’t disappointed. Fireworks, ooh, yes! I love watching fireworks! They were good, too, high in the sky and lots of them. The show was different from what I expected, and I must say I was totally confused by the alien-bunny suits. Cher, Dolly, and Aretha would have done it differently.
About a year ago at this same party, my readers may recall that a certain blue-eyed cowboy flirted a bit and as the story goes, it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. My mind wandered some, thinking about the adventures of the past year and I poked the mute button on the TV to tune out the entertainment and tune into the cowboy. The 30-minute half-time game pause let me enjoy my cabernet and engaging conversations about adventures. Some of my buddettes and their mates are planning to rent an RV and doing the Alaskan highway, others are cleaning up a book they wrote 30 years ago about Vietnam, and all of us enjoyed the treat table and the well-stocked bar. The cowboy and I are looking at couple trips when the snow disappears and flowers show up.
Friends are an enriching, wonderful addition to our social agenda and as we sat around the wood stove on that Sunday afternoon with a pen of black heifers mooing just outside, waiting for new babies, memories came flooding back. For thousands of years, our clans sat around fires entertaining each other with songs and stories, and if some crazy entertainer got up performing an alien bunny dance, we tuned him out and threaded our beadwork as we chuckled to each other about the hilarious things younger generations think are cool.
There you have it, my comments of the week. The cowboy is right, we’re on the right side of the dirt, so adventure on, ladies and gentlemen, life is grand.
If you enjoy Gail’s blogs, you can read them all on her website gailcushman.com
Gail Cushman, Author
Wrinkly Bits Series, a senior hijinks
Cruise Time
Out of Time
Wasting Time
Flash of Time!!! New book!
Bits of Time
