Butch and Mrs. Butch are Throwing a Party

I'll be heading off to North Dakota in a couple of hours to my parent's place for the weekend. My Dad, Butch, and my mother, Mrs. Butch (I didn't think of that for this site. One time this guy from my hometown showed up at my apartment when I was in college. It was late at night after the bars had closed and a bunch of us were still having fun. This guy was almost 30 -- he was a friend of the guy that was dating my sister. Well, anyways, he was talking with me and he asked, how's Butch? Pretty good, I replied. How's Mrs. Butch. And I laughed. My mother may be married to my Dad, but, she's not exactly a Mrs. Butch.) are throwing a party for all of my siblings and their families. It should be fun. After the jump, a few words about Butch and Mrs. Butch.

My parents were married on May 2, 1964. If I would have been alive back then, I don't think I would have wanted to talk to my parents so much then as my grandparents, Fred and Viola and Adoph and Dorothy. My grandparents were all relatively young then, with my oldest grandfather Fred being 57 on that date and my youngest grandmother Dorothy being 43. That's right, my grandmother was younger on the day my parents got married than I am right now (my daughter is 2). So, for one thing, if I could transport myself back there, I would be in the same age bracket as my grandparents -- and my parents would be a couple of kids. And they were a couple of kids. My mother had just turned 19 and my dad was 22. I'm not sure what the hurry was, I mean I would be coming along quickly, but as of then, I wasn't yet started. I have to believe that my grandparents were a little anxious about the whole thing. My Dad wasn't a college guy, he'd gone to barber school and he was cutting hair in SBGville along with my grandfather. My mother went to a year of juco and was working at a bank in the closest semi-big little town. Both of them were still living at home. So, yeah, I'd have wanted to talk to my grandparents and pick their brains a little about this decision. Were they worried? Or was this just the way things were in post-war, pre-Vietnam America? You got married young and college wasn't really all that important. I would suspect that they were a little anxious about two young kids getting married, but then again, maybe they weren't. My Dad was the youngest of three kids and his siblings were already married off. My mother, though, was the 2nd oldest of eight. She was first to get married. My grandmother Dorothy had to make sure that someone was watching my four year old uncle that day. So, maybe Adolph and Dorothy were a little more nervous.

Well, the years have flown by. Actually, some of them have flown by, some of them have crawled by. And now, 45 years, and then some, have passed since that fateful day. My mother got pregnant immediately, and I showed up before she was 20. My sister showed up before she was 21. A couple of months after she was 22, my brother showed up. When I was 22, I was drinking beer with my college buddies, playing wiffle ball in the front yard of our apartment and chasing girls, not chasing after three little kids. In one sense, I wish they would have had a little more time to grow up and experience life before they got married, but at the same time, I definitely enjoyed having young parents. My parents worked hard. Until I was 7, my dad had three jobs. My mother sewed our clothes and cooked, I mean really cooked. There weren't any pre-packaged meals back then that you stuck in the microwave (oh, I suppose that there actually were TV dinners). One thing that I really appreciate now is that they had the energy of youth. I would imagine that they got tired, but they weren't chasing 2 year olds in their mid 40s. When my mother was 44, she had three kids out of college. My parents never had a lot of money and we didn't have a lot of things. But, we weren't hungry. We had food on the table. There were clothes on our backs. There were shoes on our feet. We had enough.

I remember the day my younger brother was born. I was 11 years old and it had been just the three of us for a long time. But, my brother, the former Mayor came along when my mother was 30. I was talking to my sister recently about this -- I remember thinking that Mom was old to have a kid (30!). My sister related that she was embarrassed! Embarrassed that her old mother was having a kid! For the record, my sister's oldest just turned 13 last week. That would have made my sister, yes, 30(!) when she was born. Old!

My parents' lives together have not been without their ups and downs. There have been good times. There have been bad times. But, they've stuck it out. Maybe that's what the conversation with my grandparents would have been about back in 1964: sticking it out. My grandparents are all long gone now. My mother's parents were married 38 years when my grandfather was killed in a car accident 29 years ago. I sent my uncle a note on the anniversary of that day and I mentioned that I could not believe that almost 3 decades have passed. And he responded, well, a whole lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. True enough -- Jimmy Carter was president when my grandfather died. We hadn't yet boycotted the Moscow Olympics. The Hostages were being held in Tehran. My brother was four then, and he's now been married 10 years.

My dad's parents were married 48 years, I think, before my grandmother passed away. So, my parents' marriage has been almost as long as either of my grandparents' marriages and they are still relatively young. My mother is now 64 and my dad is 66. He is retired, but still works part time at a couple of jobs that he has. More accurately, he works once in a while for a couple of guys when he feels like it. I mentioned above how I wish my parents would have had that time as young people, free from the cares of raising kids and so forth, to enjoy life. Ironically enough, I've already lived that part of my life -- and they are now enjoying that part themselves. They aren't young, but they aren't old and infirm, either. They are in good health overall, they've had an empty nest for fifteen years, and my Dad hasn't had a fulltime job for four years. They've fixed up their house and just enjoyed life and their grandkids. They've earned a nice retirement. By the time Miss SBG graduates from college, I'll be 66, assuming she gets done in four years. Hopefully by then, I'll be able to retire.

I am grateful for my parents. I talk to one or the other of them almost every day. I am happy for them. They are having a good life. So anyway, my mother wanted to celebrate 45 years of marriage. Her idea was to have a party at her place. She's going to have all 12 grandchildren there on the Fourth of July. There's going to be lunch, a trip to the zoo (25 miles away), swimming, a barbeque, a bon fire, fireworks. (I'm going to make a side trip out to the farm where Adolph and Dorothy lived. The house and barn and other buildings are gone now, but the area is still there and it's not been plowed under and farmed. My mother doesn't want to go out there and I can understand that, I guess, but I do want to go out and see it again.) Dad's putting up a couple of tents in the back yard for the grandkids to sleep in (not Miss SBG, I wouldn't wish that on her cousins). Grandpa Butch is going to take them all to the Tastee Freeze. Big doings. My daughter is very excited.
Me: Where are we going tomorrow? Miss SBG: North Dakota! Me: Who are we going to see? Miss SBG: Grandpa Butch! Me: What are we going to get? Miss SBG: Sausage! (True, we buy sausage and other meats from a guy in town. This is a another digression in a post full of digressions.)

Twelve grandkids! And my daughter is the youngest, even though I'm the oldest child. That is the wish, to celebrate 45 years by enjoying those 12 kids. I'm looking forward to it, in part because I know that Miss SBG will have a lot of fun. But, mostly, because I know it will make Mom and Dad happy. Oh, and I'll probably have fun, too. There will be beer at the bonfire, after all.

Together, the four of us kids have been married a combined 45 years, almost exactly. I think I'll mention that to Mom. We've all had our ups and downs, too, just like anyone else. But, we're sticking it out. Somewhere, I suppose that Adolph and Dorothy and Fred and Viola will be enjoying this party, too. Any fears that they might have had that day would have long ago melted away. Butch and Mrs. Butch have stuck it out. They've weathered the storms. Time to get the kids together and celebrate.