A Friend Turns Forty

A few weeks ago, one of my good friends reached a milestone birthday — the Big 4-0.  To mark the occasion, his wife asked many of us that have known him for decades to write down stories from days gone by.  Marc, the birthday boy, read the stories aloud and tried to figure out who wrote each one.  When his wife, Amy, first proposed the idea, I thought that I would have no trouble coming up with an appropriate story.  Then I wondered, what is appropriate for such an occasion?  I didn’t want to reveal an embarrassing historic event that he had conveniently kept out of his marital conversations.  The following account is what in my estimation walked the line between funny-enough-to-be-worthwhile and not-funny-enough-to-send-him-to-divorce-court:

“Marc is Forty?”

Forty.  It’s an even number, yet it carries such odd connotations.  When we were much younger, forty sounded old.  Now it sounds just right.  There are certain expectations about turning forty. Some you’ll find are accurate; some are overblown.  It’ll be up to you to figure out which expectations fall in which category.

When Amy first mentioned the idea of writing stories about you, my immediate reaction was that I had a million little narratives that I could string together.  This is true.  Deciding on one particular story proved to be more challenging.  There’s something about putting stories down on paper that lends authority to them, makes them tougher to deny, makes them tougher to accept.  The decisions we make as teenagers and twenty-somethings seem, looking back on them, as gutsy, hilarious, perverted in some way, or just plain stupid.  Marc, you’ve made your share of all of those.

Let’s look at one of your choices that fits into two of those categories: hilarious and perverted.  (At this time, I’d like to make a preemptive apology to Amy – Sorry).  Back in our Ted’s days, we would all gather in the back room prior to starting a shift.  There would be anywhere from five to ten or so employees hanging out, waiting for our shift to begin.  Generally, all of the female employees would change into their brown skirts and orange shirts en masse in the bathroom.  That would be followed by all of the male employees taking their turn at changing into our uniforms.

The way I remember it, Marc was running late on this particular day.  As a result of his tardiness, he ended up going into the bathroom to change by himself.  The rest of us were already donning the brown and orange, waiting just outside the bathroom until it was time to go up front.  The clothes that we were wearing when we arrived at work were stored on shelves in the bathroom, so at this time the shelving units held the street clothes of all of us plus the clothes of the employees who were just about to finish their shift.

There were two female employees that stood out among the workers from the first shift on that Saturday.  Rhonda and Dawn were best friends.  They had certain physical attributes that seemed to please Marc to no end.  Truth be told, workers from both genders couldn’t help but notice these two young ladies.  I think even Joyce N*****, the permanent French fry girl, had a crush on them.  Hell, a blind customer would drool in their vicinity.  Rhonda and Dawn were famous for wearing barely-there mini-skirts.

Anyway, Marc was in the bathroom changing.  Moments before we were to go up front and assume our positions, Marc burst out of the bathroom with Rhonda’s mini-skirt in hand; in fact, he was holding it double-fisted at about chest level.  He gave an excited look to all of us, locked eyes momentarily with each person in his audience, and proceeded to bury his face into the material and inhale like he just broke the surface of the ocean after being held under for three minutes.  He was one happy camper.  My memory of what occurred afterward is fuzzy; I know we were all laughing hysterically.  It was difficult to immediately face the public to take their hot dog orders, even more difficult to look at Rhonda without picturing her skirt plastered to Marc’s face.

That occurred more than two decades ago, one of my favorite memories of that time period.  It was over in seconds, but it captured the spontaneous spirit, comic timing, and sometime irreverent attitude of the young Mr. Marc R******.

Now you’re forty. Forty.

Time flies and people change.  Your decisions nowadays tend to be much more grounded.  The results of the best of your decisions are all around you today.  You have a beautiful wife and family, the love and support of a tight group of friends, and you’ve managed to maintain your incredible sense of humor.  Happy birthday my friend!

Eighty – now that’s old!

Salmagundi

This is my first blog, my first posting, my first cyber-sentence.  In other words, I don’t have the slightest clue about what I’m doing.  At least I have firm ideas about the content that I plan to write about in this space.  Well, that’s not entirely true, and by not entirely true I mean completely false.  I’ll probably write about the minutia of my life, little things that pertain only to me.  If you’re interested, come along for the ride; if you get bored and feel that jamming toothpicks under your fingernails would be more enjoyable than continuing to read, jump off the bus at any time.

Still here?  Okay c’mon then…

I weighed myself just prior to beginning this post.  Climbing up on the scale to check my weight winded me a little.  If you think about it, the very act of weighing yourself is exercise; the scale doubles as a miniature StairMaster.  I actually weighed myself two times in a row, so I was exhausted.  I weighed in at 244 pounds–exactly 72 pounds more than I’d like to weigh at this point in my life.  You see, there are three things you should know about me:

1.  I eat too much.

2.  I exercise too little.

3.  I weigh too much.

I have a hunch, an inkling, that the third item on the list might–just might–have some small relationship to the first two.  Maybe.  I’m not convinced just yet.  Time will tell.

I’m not enormous.  I’m obviously not skinny.  But I’m too big, too big for comfort.  I’ve been charting my weight, on and off, for years.  The charts basically look like sine waves or readings from an EKG.  I’d like to change the charts, flatten them out, bring the slope downward.

I suppose that my ongoing battle with the mini-StairMaster in my bathroom will be one of the recurring subjects of this blog.  Other items sure to be touched upon include acting, poker, teaching, writing, family, loving, and living.  The title of the blog is Salmagundi.  One definition of the word is any mixture or miscellany.  I like it as a title since it gives me permission to ramble on about any and all subjects.  I will.

The bus is just pulling out.  I’m glad you’re aboard.  Feel free to ask the driver questions or make comments at any time.