A Jack Benny Birthday

It was a dark and stormy night...

No, wait, that's another story.  Actually, it was getting ready to be a dark and stormy couple of days, culminating in a meltdown of the two foot of snow that had fallen in 1979, flooding of the Tarkio River, and a moat around the little house on the bottom that would be home to three.  Only if Blake could leap the ditch with baby Lee, because her mama certainly couldn't.

And now you are grown with husband and kids and responsibilities and the same house to clean that you grew up in...

......with loving family and pets....

and a great big birthday to celebrate....

Happy Jack Benny birthday!

39 and holding..!

Close Encounters

 I  seldom return from even the most mundane of errands without Blake asking me, "Did you see anyone while you were at..(fill in the blank with HyVee, Rock Port, Dollar General, Torrey Pines or Casey's)?   Tarkio being a very small place, I usually have seen SOMEONE, but I know what he really means: "Did you see anything interesting, fascinating, worth noticing?"  Alas, unless I see one of the grandkids, or some unlucky out of town driver nabbed by a diligent patrolman, I rarely have eye-popping news to relate.

That is why, when traveling, we are always on the lookout, scanning the crowds at airports or restaurants, particularly in locales where we think beautiful or famous people might be hanging out just waiting to be noticed.

Let's be clear about chance encounters of the famous kind.  A photo op in a meet and greet doesn't count.  We've had our picture taken with folks like Jack Hanna, host of animal shows, Mike Rowe when he was Aaron's biggest hero with Dirty Jobs, and this year, Reba McEntire while in Nashville.  She was gracious.  We didn't wait around to get a picture with Peyton and Archie Manning, even though I think they are great personalities.  A picture taken with a politician usually has cost you money, though there are always exceptions.  We were just behind a whole group of FFA kids in their blue jackets when George W. Bush visited an elevator in Aurora, Missouri.  Ben was with us that day and I was so impressed with the warmth and enthusiasm Mr. Bush showed when it came to reaching over and through the crowd to shake every one of those kids' hands.  Blake and I were once so close to candidate Ronald Reagan that my flash picture of him receiving a beautiful dove colored Stetson at a rally at a ranch near Kansas City back in 1980 was actually overexposed.  Funny story that: we rode down to the rally with Harry Broermann and after we signed in, we were asked if we'd like to stand behind Mr. Reagan while he spoke.  We were thrilled and soon found ourselves with a close up, though rear view, perspective on the rally from atop hay bales behind the podium.  Never mind that we were chosen to be targets: the serendipity of being that close more than outweighed whatever risk there was of a sniper on Jewett Fulkerson's ranch.  I'm not sure that  incident counts as a "meeting" but it was odd enough to be one of our favorite memories.

Farther down the political ladder, we once saw political analyst Michael Barone and author/raconteur P.J O'Rourke in a hotel bar in Washington, D.C while Blake was on the phone to Ben at home, a big fan of P.J. O'Rourke.

 Blake asked Mr. O'Rourke to please say hello to Ben and with an impish grin he took the phone from Blake, saying, "Ben...your parents are both gone...you should raid the liquor cabinet!". It was a hoot, though not quite up to having Cardinal baseball announcer John Rooney record the voicemail message on Ben's cell phone.....

But the A Number One encounter with fame and celebrity, one that epitomizes Hurst family lore and the quintessence of personal experience is the day Blake saw lead vocalist and guitarist Ray Benson of Asleep at the Wheel at the airport in Kansas City.  Now, understand, we have seen famous people at KCI: Tony Dungy for instance...and a very tan Roy Williams was on the same flight to Hawaii as we were...though not in coach!

Blake's encounter with Ray Benson, singer of Hot Rod Lincoln and Boogie Back to Texas, occurred under much more personal circumstances....as a matter of fact, one could say they were side by side.....

 P. S.  Other hits include Route 66 and Big Ball's in Cowtown....

Get Your Kicks!

Clothes Make the Man

There are funny ha-ha stories and there are funny humiliating stories.   And every once in a while ha-ha and uh-oh come together to make the kind of tale that bears repeating year after year......

Blake got his first real writing gig back in the '90s, in a column called In Real Life , a title so broad it allowed musings on golf, cherry red pickups, Decoration Day, and the various travails of the small businessman as well as forays into farm policy, energy policy, and the overreaching authority wielded by the Endangered Species Act.  One consequence of this dream job was a beautifully engraved invitation on embossed cardstock requesting our presence at the Frances Boyer Lecture at the Washington Hilton on December 6, 1995.AEI

We were thrilled.  Sure, it was on our dime, but the honoree that year was George Will, one of our heroes and besides...reception!  Dinner!  Dancing! What did we have to lose?? It would be a grand outing, a splurge, a tiny little peek through a crack in the fence by us hoi polloi into the rarefied world of punditry and think tanks.

We sent our RSVP; I bought a dress at Dillard's and called the men's shop in Shenandoah to reserve a tux for Blake.  We hurried back home from the Missouri Farm Bureau annual meeting and I rushed up to pick up the tux first thing the next morning.  We traveled light: just a suitbag and carryon with our fancy clothes and something to wear home..one night at the Washington Hilton and the air ticket was as much money as we were willing to swallow for a spree.  There was just time to check in and find the ballroom before we cleaned up the grime of travel and put on our black tie best.

Yep...Blake indeed had a black tie...and studs....and tuxedo pants.  But, horror of horrors, faux pas of faux pas, what was this?  Instead of a black dinner jacket, Blake's tuxedo coat had....TAILS!  In our rush, we hadn't checked the contents of the suitbag.  Through ignorance, or naivete, or perhaps just a mixup at the rental company, Blake was now going to his first Washington DC reception looking like the maitre d'! There was nothing to be done about the situation but brazen it out.  We went to the reception, standing with our backs against walls, or pillars, watching for famous people and hoping no one was really looking out at us.

Not surprisingly, our table...table number 107...was way out on the fringe of the enormous circular ballroom, well away from anyone we could recognize by sight as an influential politician or talking head from the opinion shows we watched back then: This Week with David Brinkley or Washington Week in Review or The McLaughlin Group.  Our dinner partners were folks with vague attachments to the world of agriculture whose way had been paid by someone with better things to do than go to another DC banquet ...definitely not farmers who had flown in to breathe the same air as the elite and hear George Will speak.  At any rate, we spent no time worrying about sartorial miscues while we were seated there.

The lecture was marvelous.  Mr. Will can spin a pithy and acerbic tale.  Later, we happily strolled the perimeter of the ballroom espying celebrities before they departed, having done their duty.  Tails or no tails, we stayed up late to dance to Eric Felten's marvelous big band, figuring those left had partied long enough not to care what anyone was wearing...

....and, after all, the waiters were long gone.........

In case any of you want to read Mr. Will's speech...as relevant in 2018 as in 1995.... here it is:

  George F. Will's Francis Boyer Lecture at AEI Dinner December 1995

P.S.  We solved the tuxedo problem in 2001 when, in short order, Ann got married, we went to another AEI dinner, and Lee got married.  We'd love to dust it off again..... 

And One More Thing....

Years ago, just a few months before Matt performed the proper and very old-fashioned act of asking for Ann's hand in marriage, Blake penned a wry, wondering, and almost touching, essay about being the father of the bride...and just one step on the road to...being a grandfather.  Embedded in the piece was a daydream, a tableau, of Blake sitting on his front porch surrounded by and dispensing words of wisdom to a circle of grandchildren. 

What makes this a mere vision is the notion that Grandpa's grandkids would sit still long enough to receive much less pay heed to grandfatherly advice. Not to worry, because Grandpa Blake is more into teasing and kidding and telling stories to the young ones than waxing philosophic.  He marshals his punditry and saves his very strong opinions for, say, the management of the St. Louis Cardinals...

He's full of advice for Mike Matheny!

And what about me? If the life I am living doesn't exhibit what I have believed or have learned, then my stint as a sage should be pretty short and as highly regarded as Grandpa's tall tales about going to Texas....

Nonetheless....

To: Aaron and Lizzie,  Gabe and Abbie, Josh and Levi:

Be curious.  Ask the question, learn the name, make the trip, read the book, take the class.  Be enthralled with your surroundings and walk with your eyes and ears open to the details and wonders around you.  You will amass more books than you will ever read and chances are you will forget names and places and dates you should remember...but you will have known them once and might still get asked to play Trivia.  

Do one more thing before you go to bed.  Achieving one task no matter how mundane before you sleep makes you feel as if you've got a leg up on the next day.  So put the coffee cups away or start the wash or match some socks....Or maybe that's just me....

Play music, sing music, listen to music.  The cares and worries of the day will fade to gray and you will be refreshed.  Your music brain will ''cure what ails you."  In the same vein, read your Bible.  Not just in times of need, but routinely. Read a Psalm, or a Letter, or some of your Lord's Red Letter Words to His disciples.  Practice makes perfect...in music...and routine makes for good habits makes for self discipline. Romans 5:4 puts it this way: "and endurance produces character, and character produces hope."

Lift up your face to the world.  Smile at those you meet or give them the good old country wave.  Take a good look around as you go on your way. Your moms and dads are doing a great job of teaching you to work and study and be kind.  I'm just reminding you to multitask and be cheerful at the same time.

I would tell you to plant flowers, but that might be too much pressure! Just because weeding and dirt, daylilies and terracotta are home for me doesn't mean that flowers will be for you. But taking pictures should!  Reflecting on the past cannot help but reinforce an attitude of gratitude, whether boisterous or pensive, joyful or tearful.  Enjoying the good times as recorded in pictures stretches time, brings loved ones from the past to the present and places and stories long gone and forgotten back to mind. Take the pictures....and tell the stories to your children...and your grandchildren...as they gather around you on the couch.

Or on that front porch....

Oh.... one more piece of advice.

Visit your grandma.  

Steaks and Games

This morning my throat hurt and I popped two ibuprofen with my chocolate milk.  There was coffeecake:  it makes the alarm more bearable on Saturday when you remember there's coffeecake. The first gulp of coffee burned all the way down; in this house, we call it "cutting the crap", and though a temporary fix for congestion, it's a homeopathic remedy that's always on hand. 

Cake, coffee and I'm out the door and on en route for some a.m. basketball.  Abbie and Lizzie and Gabe have an early start in Mound City.  I'm behind a semi when Grandma Millie and Grandpa Charlie blow by me running 80 mph.  They are hosting bridge club tonight and won't be able to stay, so I imagine a conversation about being late.  Or, then again, maybe they are paying no attention to the speedometer...they certainly don't see me as they fly by...

Sitting in a small town gymnasium is not a half bad way to spend a winter Saturday.  Kids in bright colored jerseys pound up and down the floor, or the bleacher stairs, or flop down on coats and duffles to stare at each other's phones.  Moms and dads and grandmas and grandpas are, for the most part, pretty relaxed; their kids may be emotional after a game because they won, or lost, or didn't get to play enough, but by Sunday, they're on to the next thing.  A few folks get revved up at the refs, but these games are for exercise and maybe a medal, so how upset can you be?  Our kids win some and lose some and we are home for lunch, a better outcome than the day long wrestling tournaments Ben competed in.  Win or lose, he still had to make weight next time so even the joy of big meal was tempered.

I had a plan this Saturday, and it involved steak.  The wind was strong from the south; the thermometer crept up past 40.  Four thick steaks and the makings for salad came home from the HyVee. More years than not, there's a Saturday evening or two in the dead of winter with a magic moment for standing outdoors with a glass of wine in one hand and grilling tools in the other.  With Blake sharing the gathering twilight, this Saturday is a foreshadowing of all those summer evenings we spend out on the porch while the sun sinks and the smoke rises lazily from the Weber.  A steak dinner is most likely to happen on a Saturday.

Cleaning house on Saturday may not be my favorite thing to do, but it feels like I'm getting away with something when I do.  All of a sudden, Sunday afternoon is relaxing even if I've been at work. Instead of coming home to sheets in the dryer and dust bunnies in the hallway, it's like a good fairy has waved a magic wand; instead of entropy, and chaos, there's the couch with no guilt.

Last Saturday night the kids were here. We ate take and bake pizza and played ping pong which gradually morphed into a rough and ready form of handball...with slippers of various conformations..and finally into a pillow fight..with ping pong balls.

Sometimes it's wonderful to dress up on Saturday night and spend the evening transported by wonderful music and song; but other times staying home and sharing a chair with your grandkid, or practicing Spanish, or putting together a puzzle, or making cookies, or playing games by lantern light, or just watching the Cardinals is like a group hug. I love those Saturday nights...with kids quiet in their beds but for an occasional snore echoing that of the Grandpa in our room.

I even like Saturdays in the spring.  Gabe and Abbie come out to work.  Annie brings the makings for lunch as well as the Schlueter helping hands.  Family at work somehow becomes family at play, even at the end of some very long weeks.

To work, to play, to garden, to cheer, to travel, to listen, to cook and laugh for those I love most....whether its Saturday or not....

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