Scattered, smothered, covered and hitched

DACULA - As the famous twang of Hank Williams Jr. blasted from an SUV stereo Friday afternoon, about 30 folks socialized, sipped soda and puffed on cigarettes.

No, this wasn't a Fourth of July backyard barbecue. It was the run-up to a wedding.

In a Waffle House parking lot.

The lucky couple, George "Bubba" Mathis and Pamela Christian - both 23 and employees at the Dacula diner located at the Ga. Highway 316/U.S. Highway 29 interchange - wouldn't have it any other way.

"I don't know, it's something different," Mathis said while fixing his tie prior to the ceremony.

For years, the couple tried to marry on their Independence Day anniversary. But the bride was always scheduled to work. Instead of waiting any longer - she got the day off at the last minute; Mathis had to report for the morning shift - the couple of nine years decided to seal the deal at work.

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Pics

I've come to the realization that most of the pictures I try to take of the kids are when they're doing one of two things; sleeping or laughing.

There are also other times - like this morning, on the way to school, I looked back and Lil Bit had a huge orange head. Her brother had grabbed a basketball out of the garage and brought it into the van, and she was holding it in front of her face. I said "hey, do you have a basketball?" she peeked her head around the ball, grinned and nodded vigorously.

If I wouldn't have been driving, I definitely would have shot that one.

What will be remembered

When you look back at an era, there are things that make those who didn't live then wonder what people were thinking. There are things about that era that was everywhere, then disappeared. What am I talking about? Think about the 1970s. You picture leisure suits, polyester, bell bottoms, disco, Bicentennial hoopla everywhere, smiley faces on everything. In the 1980s, you had Izod shirts, teen movies, Coca-Cola fashion, torn sweatshirts for females and video games at arcades.

What will stand out from now?

My initial thoughts: an obsession with a tractor company, lots of things in pink and brown, ads that repeat 800 numbers over and over and book titles MUST have a colon in them (examples - Tacos: How To Make Easy Mexican Food. Building Your Blog: Getting Heard in Today's Society.).

What else will people look back on 20 years from now and remember about this era? When VH1 does a special on this 10-year period, what will they say? When your kids dress up for "2000s Day" at school, what will they bring and what will they wear?

What qualifies?

Heard on the radio this morning about the "good old days" and what makes them that. It got me to thinking. The good old days generally refer to our younger days because things were simpler then - there's no doubt that life gets more complicated as it goes along. Kids today have to deal with a lot more than we had to as kids, and their kids will have even more to face.

I heard a story from an older woman once that made a lot of sense. She said that kids today are really no different than kids were when she was younger - it's the society around them that's changed. Basically, kids want to have fun, irritate their parents and break rules. The first two parts are easy, it's the third that's gotten more complicated. For instance, when she was in college many, many years ago, you weren't allowed to have the light on in your room past 10 p.m. Therefore, it wasn't hard to find rules to break; they were everywhere. Goal achieved, case closed. Nowdays, kids just about have to kill someone to get in trouble; same goal, it's just a lot harder to reach. Her solution was to bring back more restrictive rules, because kids could get in trouble a lot easier without as much effort and society would be better off.

You know, it kinda makes sense.

UPS warning

Just in case you deal with UPS on any sort of a regular basis:

Delivery failure virus

Future member of ZZ Top?

I was cleaning my face off with the electric razor this morning while Little Man watched. I asked him if he wanted to shave (which I do from time to time). Always before, he's jumped at the chance to run the razor over his still-smooth face. Not today.

"Nope, I wanna grow a mustache and a beard," he emphatically said. He then said he wasn't going to shave until he was 1,000 years old.

I couldn't help but think of a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon where Calvin announces to his mom that he's going to grow a ZZ Top beard. To his surprise, him mom agrees and he spends the rest of the day watching the mirror to see how his beard's coming in.

I decided to play along too.

"You know, if you don't shave at all, your mustache is going to cover your nose, your beard is going to reach your toes and you won't be able to eat because you won't be able to find your mouth behind all of that hair!"

He completely collapsed with laughter.

This and that

My wife has bugged out for a week; she's on the Coast for a conference. Fortunately, my MIL came down so I have some help for the week.

The trip didn't start off on a good note. I get a call a couple of hours after she left, asking me to look in the van (which is what she normally drives; she took my car because it gets better gas mileage). Yep, right there on the floor is her wallet, complete with driver's license, which fell out of her purse. She's gotta go between meetings to get a replacement.

It's been a week since my birthday and I still don't have a present. It's not that I'm not getting anything, it's just that we're still shopping for the right thing (price-wise, quality-wise, etc.). But that doesn't mean I"m not gonna have fun "complaining" that I haven't gotten a birthday present!

Apparently, Sweet Pea is tired of it. She told her mom that she's ready to stop talking about all of this - it's time to start talking about HER birthday. Not too long after that, she walked in with some candy she convinced her mom to buy, saying "Happy birthday, here's your present!"

Her mom just stood behind her and laughed.