It's Not Easy Being Green

Today marks the 62nd birthday of Kermit the Frog. Hard to believe the little green guy could be a card carrying member of AARP, but he is, or is he? He is not because, unlike us, Kermit has never aged from the time he broke onto the scene in 1955. I grew up with Kermit on Sesame Street, one of the first original characters of that show, and so did my daughters. Kermit was the star in our house daily as my oldest daughter at the age of 2 played a Sesame Street video of a "Greatest Hits Countdown" type of show Muppet Style over and over. Kermit's contribution to the countdown was a song called "Doo Wop Hop" Most afternoons Leah was in the living room hopping right along with Kermit. My earliest memories of Kermit were the Reporter on Sesame Street with standing in Trench Coat and Press Hat, and always opening with "Kermit the Frog here." I was in high school when The Muppet Movie came out, and I knew all the words to Rainbow Connection. I saw it at The Willow Lawn theater, now torn down, and I'm pretty sure I saw it more than once. Kermit was always the straight man, and he played it well. I have always said that Jim Henson, Kermit's creator and his voice, was a genius. I have never watched Kermit or any of the Muppets for that matter, and thought, "That's just a puppet." They have always been real live personalities to me. I used to say I would never want to go to the warehouse or room where they are kept when they are not "performing." It's pretty amazing to think that some green felt with half ping pong balls for eyes can be that real, but he was to me, and still is, and I imagine will be for many years and generations to come. Happy Birthday, Kermit! Thanks for making our lives a little greener!

It's My Daddy's Birthday

Today, my daddy would have turned 81. He has been gone almost 9 years, and at the typing of this my eyes are welling with tears. I was definitely a daddy's girl, and I think I will always miss him. Lately I have been thinkning about him a lot. He was a staunch Republican, for one. I grew up in a house that believed Nixon was railroaded. I'm serious, but I think even Daddy would scratch his head at this year's Republican nominee. Daddy might even, dare I say it, vote Democrat this year. Politics was not the only thing where my father and I differed in opinion, but I could always count on him to tell the truth, something rare these days. I especially miss being able to ask him for advice. Although he dropped out of high school, he knew something about everything. He could tell you anything about cars. He knew if he was getting a good deal, and if he was being rooked. He tinkered a lot and could fix most anything.
He would be fiercely proud of his granddaughters. He would have cried a river watching Leah graduate from college this past May, and shed just as many tears listening to Georgi's angelic voice singing some of his favorite Simon and Garfunkel songs. I love that she discovered them on her own, and loves their music just as much as my dad did.
I guess what I loved the most is that I know my daddy loved me. With all the hurt and brokenness in the world, I realize more and more each day how lucky I was. With all of our disagreements, I KNEW I could count on him for anything. He believed in me and supported me without me having to ask for a thing. He wasn't perfect. No one is, but I wouldn't have traded with anyone. I miss you, Daddy! Happy Birthday!

What Rhymes With Duck?

Seventy-five, the diamond jubilee, 3/4 of a century, milestone. Today the number 75 belongs to my mom. She was born on this day in 1939. I often joke that I can remember my mother's age because she was born the same year that "The Wizard of Oz" (my all time favorite movie) and "Gone with the Wind" were released. What stellar films to share your birth year with, but I digress. My mother was born Peggy Anne Meintel to Margaret Chapman Oliver and Alfred John Meintel. She was their second child having an older brother, Alfred John Meintel, Jr. She grew up in Canton, OH but moved here to Richmond, VA, in her tween years to stay with my aunt as her mother was having major surgery. She would tell me stories when I was little about how she was scared to tell anyone who she was at school because her name, Meintel, was clearly German, and Germans weren't the most popular in America in the early 1940's. My mom was a teenager right smack dab in the middle of the 1950's, a decade my generation glamorized with musicals like "Grease" and the television show, Happy Days. From the pictures I have seen of my mom at that time, I fancy her a bit of a rebel. She didn't have the high pony tail like every other girl, she had a ducktail. She went away to school for her Junior and Senior year to PEACE college in Raleigh, NC. All the pictures I've seen of her, she was a beauty, and still is for that matter. Fast forward a bit. In the late 50's she was working for a company called National Cash Register or NCR for short, and one of the cash register repairmen fell for her. That man was my dad, Ralph Jackson Moore. In 1960 they were married, and that proved to be no easy task as they had both had previous marriages and many pastors refused to marry them. What a difference 54 years make, huh? In two years they had my sister, Jenna, and I came along on Halloween day in 1963.
So, if you ask my sister, she thinks I'm a freak because I remember things in major detail, sometimes down to what I'm wearing. I remember a lot of things about my mom from my very early childhood, as early as age 3. I remember driving down to Florida in our brown station wagon, me and my sister laying down and sleeping in the back as we left mega early in the morning. We stopped at some restaurant to have breakfast, and I have a memory clear as day of my mother sitting me on the back of the open tailgate of the station wagon changing me from my pajamas into a Peanuts White sweatshirt, a pair of dungarees, as she called them, translation: blue jeans, and a sailor hat with the brim turned down. I remember her always having spiced apple rings at Christmas dinner because I liked those. She sang to me a lot when I was little. The song that really stands out to me, oddly, is Here Comes Santa Claus. She always put the tree up and decorated it on Christmas Eve, and she was a great cook! We spent most weekends with my grandparents, and I can remember coming home on Sunday nights and taking in the smells that were wafting out of the kitchen of whatever she had cooked for her and my dad. My favorite? Hamburgers, gravy and rice. I had those leftovers many a Monday morning for breakfast. One of my absolute favorite memories involving me and my mom is, ironically, not the best situation for me, but it's one of those, we'll look back on this and laugh one day kind of memories. I was about 7 years old, and my mom, my sister and I, were shopping at the A&P, a grocery store in our neighborhood. We were coming down the dairy aisle, and I asked Mom if she would buy me some canned whipped cream. She said no. I trailed along behind my mother and sister making up my own cuss words. Now, I must insert here that my family did not use cuss words, I had only heard the occasional damn, and my mother's personal favorite when things weren't going right, hell's bells, but none of the biggies! I decided this day to make up words that rhymed with duck. You see where this is going, right? "Duck! Muck! F**k!" My mother wheeled around so fast, and I knew from the look on her face that I was in big trouble, but I had no idea what I'd done. Of course her first inclination was to ask, "What did you say?" So, of course, I repeated it right there in the aisle of the A&P right next to the Hostess snack cakes. I don't remember a whole lot immediately after that, but I do remember when my dad got home, my mom had to write the word down to tell my father what I had said. They swore I heard it from someone, but I truly had just picked the wrong letter combination.
In spite of my raucous language, my mother decided to keep me around, and we had many, many years of great memories. She has been there for me in some of the most difficult times in my life. She was the best Grandma my girls could ever have, and there are too many valuable things to name that she has taught me, and I will forever be grateful. Happy Birthday, Mom! Have a duckin' great day!