Moment of Dad..."Meaningful Muppets"

AS you can tell...this is a clip of The Muppet Show with Linda Ronstadt as guest star.

I've written before about my love of all things Muppet (except those damned Fraggles). The love of Muppet humor extended to the rest of my family as well, and on Friday nights at 6:30 PM, the world stopped so we could watch The Muppet Show.

Dad's favorite episode (or one of them, anyway) was where Connie Stevens was a guest star. Unfortunately, we were so distracted and had the TV up so loud that we didn't see/hear Mom outside. She slipped on the wet sidewalk and fell flat on her back, and screamed for help. We didn't know it until the show was over and we turned the TV off. My mother's yells are hard to miss, so obviously we had the show on at high decibels.

Dad said, "Do you hear something?"

One of us said, "Yeah...I think it's Mom."

Dad replied, "Should we go look?"

We just looked at him, as if to say, "Do YOU want to deal with her if we DON'T look?" He shook his head and we all trooped out.

Mom was laying on her back in a nice outfit b/c she'd just come back from a church function. When she saw the three of us looking down at her, she quickly screamed, "WHERE WERE YOU? DIDN'T YOU HEAR ME???"

Dad responded, "Well, I'm awful sorry, Mary, but...well...we had The Muppet Show on, and Connie Stevens was on the Muppet Show, and..."

Mother glowered from the sidewalk, and we all just kind of gulped in nervousness and helped her up.

This didn't deter our love of the Muppets, but we did keep the TV volume much lower.

Anyway, the song that Linda Ronstadt is singing was one of my all-time favorite numbers. We all liked Linda Ronstadt's voice, and Mom enjoyed it when I harmonized with Linda's recordings.
Another tradition we have (that I started, actually), was singing at the graveside during internment...I think after the preacher says his/her thing. I started it with my Grandpa Dawson and it just kind of developed into something. At first, it was the old standby "Amazing Grace", which everyone knows.

When Dad died, I wanted to do something different, but everyone was so keen on Amazing Grace that we did Amazing Grace. However, Ruthi saved the day when she asked, "What song did you want to sing, Sudie?"

So I sang this one to Mom. I didn't cry one tear until I was done.

This song just seemed to fit their relationship. I wish I had known the intro verse, but I did transcribe it from this clip:

We have been gay,
Going our way,
Life has been beautiful,
We have been young.

After you've gone,
life will go on
like every song
we have sung.

That's how their relationship was, and that's how they related to Ruthi and I as well. We were never "gone" from each other in our hearts, and I don't think we ever will be.

Enjoy this memory. I'll write something funny later.