Lunch with Velma



I had lunch with Velma in celebration of her 93rd birthday.  I dated her son in high school which is when we met.  I ditched the boy and kept the mom.

It’s interesting how long- term relationships change: this one has gone from adult role model to a teenager; long married wife to a newlywed; widow to a divorcee; finally to adult contemporaries.  It’s nice to have someone say, “Oh, you’re young yet.  You can _______ what ever we’re talking about,” because to her I am actually still young! 


She quit driving when she turned 90 but up until then, she’d hop into the car and take off to go visit her friend in California, her sister in Redmond, etc. The Central Oregon run  included me in Powell Butte.  Velma’s family had a ranch just a couple miles from my place when her kids were in elementary school; they actually attended the little brick Powell School which is still in operation. That school is where I cast my votes in the days before Oregon changed to a mail-in ballot election.  Sometimes she’ll talk about life on the ranch.  She and George would drive to Prineville, (10 miles or so) for dinner and dancing.  George would dance a couple then bow out but Velma loved to dance and dance and dance.  George didn’t mind, he liked watching her.  So there she’d be, out on the floor with the likes of Les Schwab, doing the twist.  “Let’s twist, like we did last summer.”

We blew off the Super bowl party and went to McGrath’s for lunch, (of course I had to tell the story about my chance visit to the men’s room,) and the only concessions to the indignities of old age was that I read the menu to her.  That gave me lots of control because she worries that I’ll spend too much although I’ve reassured her that she is a cheap date. 

Our young man server was very attentive and we enjoyed a nice meal and entertaining conversation. We indulged ourselves in a shared dessert, a birthday after all, German chocolate brownie with vanilla ice cream, the German chocolate referring to the coconut and pecan topping.  Heavenly.

Our server cleared the table and as he walked away I heard Velma say, “Nice wiggle.”

One beat
Two.

I looked at her.  Our eyes met.  We burst out laughing.








Comments

Mrs. Tuna said…
Haha, good for you old girl.
Mon Feb 03, 05:30:00 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tastes like Chicken

Image
  Jim visited brother Dan in Palau mid 70s and came back with some wild stories of these gloriously beautiful tropical islands.  The ones that stuck with me are pretty much food related, go figure.  There was an open-air movie theatre in Peleliu filled with wooden benches for seating.  Rats were bold enough to scavenge food whenever, so movie viewers kept their feet up on the forward bench.   Hamburgers were served with a cabbage leaf for greenery, there being no iceberg lettuce on the island.  He met our friend Virginia there, she was maybe 13.  That girl took down fruit bats with a sling shot, a treat for her grandmother. They are a large bat species with a two-foot wingspan. She’d spot a roosting fruit bat hanging upside down from a tree branch, pop a small rock into the slingshot, eyeball the angle and let loose.  She had incredible aim.  She’d  nonchalantly balance in a squat to  husk a coconut wit...
Read more

Ethel strikes back

Image
  Grandma was a teacher and she drove the 18 miles from Powers to Myrtle Point every school day.  It’s a pretty drive on a narrow road that hugs the hillside high above the snaking south fork of the Coquille River, past high pastures and a few scattered houses. One day there went Ethel on her morning commute when she noticed “Howard Post” boldly painted on a large rock embedded in the hillside.  She kept going and there was another one.  Then another one. For a stretch of several miles young master Howard took it into his adolescent brain to spray paint his name on many, many exposed boulders in the hillside.   My grandmother’s solution to this embarrassment was to buy her own can of spray paint and on the way home that day, wearing a dress, (she wore only dresses then,) she stopped the car and over-painted every “Howard Post” she could reach.   It took many years for that paint to fade.  
Read more

Pasta ala Norcina from America's Test Kitchen

Image
I’m a fan of America’s Test Kitchen on PBS.   Any recipe from their site that I’ve cooked has turned out beautifully.   The great thing is they do all the testing and tweaking so all I have to do is follow the recipe.   At least the first time. A recipe for sausage and pasta recently aired.   I limit pasta in my diet these days, but every once in a while I’ll indulge.   And this recipe looked so good I made a mental note to cook if for Terry, being certain he’d love it. Then a friend who’d suffered a serious illness was released from the hospital, and here was my opportunity to give this a try.    I doubled the recipe, filled a large casserole for my friend, then one for Terry, and had enough left just for me, me, me.   And it is superb! Four fork review from all who were treated to this dish. It's not real pretty but the rosemary spiced sausage makes me forget that. Serves 6 White mushrooms may be substituted f...
Read more