Mike and Dave

I'd been thinking about Dad's birthday party and I realized that no one from his family had been invited, not that anyone lives closer than an hour away, but still . . . so yesterday I set out to change that.

First on my hit list was Cousin Mike, simply because I had his cell phone number from when his mom was dying.  So I sent Mike a text that included this line "I wouldn't expect you to come down with this late notice, but maybe you'd like to send a card."  Mike's response?  "I am planning to attend."  When I told Dad this last night, he reminded me that Mike's grandfather and Dad's grandfather were brothers, but Mike's mom was the same age as Dad so we've grown up as "cousins".  I haven't seen Mike since his sister's wedding twenty-some years ago.  This is going to be fun! 

Next I remembered Cousin Dave lived here in the Cities.  I wasn't expecting him to come down at all, but I thought maybe he'd like to send a card.  The phone number in the white pages for Dave is actually for his ex-wife Gail who was kind enough to call me back and give me Dave's number in UTAH!  It turns out that seventy-year old Dave is a ski instuctor in Utah and he won't be coming back here until the week after Dad's birthday.  But his brother, Lon, who lives fifteen minutes from Dad, had called Dave to tell him about Dad's birthday so I told to invite Lon over for cake.  Who knows?  Seriously, I haven't seen these guys in like forever!  We were laughing yesterday because I had mentioned my sister (who is only three years younger than me!) and Dave said, "You have a sister?"  To which I retorted, "You guys were always outside playing football and we were in Wilma's toy room playing with the dolls."  I'll be it's been over fifty years here, folks!

But Dad was so excited that HIS family had been remembered along with Mom's, his church family, his neighbors and his children and grandchildren!