The time is 5:30 p.m., December 30, 2022. This is the latest that I have written a post on this blog since I started it about 5 weeks ago. What is my excuse?

The temperature today climbed to above 65. The sky was blue. That was my excuse.

Does that mean that I took a 10 mile hike? Nope, it just means I was out and about.

I went to two different laundries, one drug store, one library, one thrift shop, UPS, the Post Office, one funeral home, one coffee shop, one fish store, and one restaurant for lunch. I put 30 miles on my car (Thanks, Prius – I got 70.3 MPG today). I stopped to take some photos. And my very nice lunch with a former law partner and friend (same person) took up almost two intellectually challenging hours.

So who has time to write? Or even has time to think about what to write?

But a couple of thoughts – today would have been my parents 81st anniversary. I thought about putting their picture on Facebook this morning, but realized something I hadn’t thought of before. I don’t think I have a photo of them together (other than maybe at a party or function where they weren’t the sole reason for the picture). Is that weird?

And then I thought of tomorrow night – New Years Eve – the anniversary of my father’s sister Irene and her husband Joe Frey. I think that they married a year or so before my parents. I could check and make sure, but it is already 5:47 and I have better things to do right now.

My Uncle Joe spoke with a heavy Mississippi accent (he was from Canton MS) and was living in St. Louis working as a young salesman for a uniform company – Angelica Uniform Company, it was called. He was a very brash young man, and I know that my grandparents and Irene’s siblings did not think him an appropriate family addition. But Irene liked him (obviously), and they went out for New Years Eve and she didn’t come home that night. Scandalous, they all thought. What to do? What sort of punishment would be appropriate?

Well, no punishment was given out, because when Irene and Joe came back to my grandparents’ house on Jan 1, they explained that it was alright that they stayed out all night because they (like me today) were very busy. What had they done? They got married.

Their marriage only lasted, say, 60+years. Joe died in his 90s and Irene lived to 102. Throughout virtually all of their marriage, they lived in Dallas and they were – wouldn’t you know it – in the uniform business. My memory is that they had shops in Dallas, Houston and Ft. Worth. Joe remained brash, and kept his Mississippi accent. He became, for the entire family, one of their favorite (if sometimes exasperating) relatives.

(A brief, but relevant, digression: do you know that Angelica Uniform still exists? It is headquartered in St. Louis, has about 7000 employees – I have read – and has been in business for 119 years.)

5:54 now. Dinner must be coming along.