I Didn't Get Finished Mowing, And I'm Okay With That

For various reasons (one of which was me taking Kid1 to open a checking account--how old am I now?) I didn't get started working on the yard until about 4PM yesterday.

I was all iPodded up. Audio quality on one of my sermons wasn't too good so I decided to save them and went with the Foo Fighters as my background music.

Weed-eater going. I have the electric kind so there are starts and stops while I'm moving the plug in.

Sam The Retired Widower Neighbor pops out. He catches me between moving the plug.

We chatted.

For long enough to keep me from my appointed rounds.

But we chatted.

And I found out about how he and his wife went to Oklahoma to get married. She was 16 and he was 18. Apparently, that was cool back then. He said the scuttlebutt around them was that the "had to" get married. He joked that was true, but she just carried the baby for five years. His reasoning for "had to" get married was that he fell in love. "Most people don't have anything to do but get in other people's business," Sam told me.

We talked about his golf game, or lack thereof. His Liar's Club morning meetings have been more about breakfast than golf these days, but he thought the recent snap of good weather might get them all back out. "Our game hasn't gotten any better over the years, but our lying about it has," Sam told me.

We talked about family coming in for Thanksgiving. He's got his daughters and son-in-laws coming in. "They're handling it all--cooking, cleaning, all that. I'm just bankrolling the project," Same told me. He wasn't sure of his Christmas plans yet.

We talked about being the only guy in a house full of women. "I must've done something wrong in a past life because God cursed me by being surrounded by mean women who just wanted my money. I got Him back, though. I just didn't have any money. I'm so poor I can't even pay attention," Sam told me. He also winked a lot telling me the stories. We both know the rewards of the situation outweigh any and all inconveniences...but we joked about it just the same.

We talked about baseball. "The Rangers will never win anything," Sam told me. I didn't like it that he might just be right.

We talked about the Cowboys. "I stopped going when Jimmy Johnson and Jerry Jones got involved. Just doesn't seem like the Cowboys, even though they won more Super Bowls, it just doesn't seem right," Sam told me. Even though I didn't move here until the 90's, I knew what he meant.

He made fun of my dog Lloyd, "He's like a dog, only smaller," Sam told me.

We were in the middle of the street the entire time. It was long enough to cost me enough daylight to avoid mowing the back yard.

I'm okay with that.

I got a lot from the stuff Sam told me.