Hams, Grams, & Gracie.

The Honeybaked Ham gift certificate that I lost at Christmastime was found at Eastertime as I fished underneath the seat of my car at an Arby's drive thru. A timely find indeed, since this weekend was my Grandma Murl's 70th birthday party. It was a Luau, so I drove home with 8 pounds of pig, my contribution to the festivities.

Let me just tell you that the Honeybaked Ham store has quite a bit of business around Easter. Enough to warrant not one, but two traffic cops in the parking lot and movie theatre-like rope lines inside. It was a Hamstravaganza! (not my word).

Grandma turned 70 amongst friends, family and fake motorized palm trees.

As two of these friends came walking up the drive, I did a double take. It was Benny and Betty Bradley. These two sixty-somethings I remembered from the two years that my family spent in Conroe, TX. Benny went to elementary school with my grandpa in Irondale, MO and moved to Conroe several years before we did. My dad became fast friends with these two home-towners when he traveled down there solo, setting up camp before we arrived. My father showed up on Betty's doorstep one day and announced who he was and she invited him in for dinner, Benny came home from work and they all ate. When my dad stood to leave, Betty looked pleasantly suprised and uttered "You're leaving?" When dad confirmed this, she said, "The last time a boy from Irondale show up on our doorstep he stayed for three weeks, and I had to TH'OW HIM OUT." She liked my dad much better after that. I hadn't seen them in sixteen years. I think I must have been very impressionable at that age, and I remembered everything, the name of their English Bulldog, Gracie, with her wayward lower jaw. I remember laughing so hard when we went over there that I couldn't eat. I remember a sense of home, when we were so far away (they had the "You been farmin' long?" poster that seems to be a southern MO staple). Benny retired at 55 and they bought a giant RV and traveled the country for 6 years. They bought a house back home in Missouri, and depending on which one you ask, they are moving to Alaska in a year (Benny) or they are DONE traveling (Betty). They both agree that they are getting another English bulldog.