I spent last week in the Crossroads of America: the great state of Archway cookies and Seyferts potato chips and Johnny Appleseed and racing cars that bear the nickname of the capital. The residents are called Hoosiers, and no...nobody really knows where that term originated.
Spending a week living with my parents is an occasion for circumspection, self-awareness, and room freshener. Seriously, my dad is the king of flatulence. I once saw him clear out a whole section of the Allen County Memorial Coliseum during a Komets game. It even melted a section of the ice...the Zamboni got stuck and the hockey game had to be postponed.
If you've been around Almost the Truth for a bit, you know that I like to give the people in my life hip-as-all-get-out nicknames. (Beloved=my wife, AngelFace=the oldest daughter, ActorBoy=my only begotten son, etc.) So, in contemplating a posting about spending a week Back Home Again in Indiana, I tried to come up with something appropriate for my parents: GasKing and SweaterGirl? (Mom is always cold and wears a sweater.) SayWhat (Dad's got hearing aids he seldom wears) and WordSearch (Mom's favorite word game)?
Nothing I came up with could beat their actual names: Clarence and Georgina.
Clarence was born in 1924 and has known little but hard work his whole life. Well...hard work and lots of meat and potatoes. Lots...of meat...and potatoes. He fittingly likes to say that he has furniture disease. That's where your chest has fallen down into your drawers. But it's not that he's fat. He's just always been what used to be called stocky. As in, he could lift a stock car by himself.
Georgina entered life on Planet Earth in 1929 and in addition to raising five children, she has worked as a secretary in both a distribution center and a church. It's good that she got out of the secretarial pool when she did, though, because computers absolutely freak her out. Did I say "computers?" HA! Her phone doesn't even have an answering machine. In fact, mechanical pencils make her break out in a sweat.
They do like their satellite dish TV, though. Where else could they still watch Bonanza, Gunsmoke, and Hee Haw?
Endlessly.
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