From an obit in today’s N&O:
| He is survived by his wife of 43 years Jo Ann William Gay; daughters, Mandy and Brian Hayes, Melanie Gay; granddaughter, Lizzie Morgan Gay; mother-in-law, Aileen Cooper Williams; brothers, Ray and Emma Gay,Tommy and Louise Gay, Earl and Joan Gay; sisters, Peggy and James Williams, Betty Jean and Randy Jones; nieces and nephews, Greg and Jo Gay, Rhonda and Lloyd Turner, Steven and Jamie Gay, Chris and Anna Gay,Cindy and Andy McClure, Patrice and Jon Foster, Tracy Jones, David and Teresa Jones; great nieces and nephews, Warren, Casey and Erica Turner,Ashleigh and Olivia Gay, Parker Gay, Bradley, Haley and Avery McClure,Mallory, Jonathan, William and Matthew Foster; aunts, Edna Gay Wood,Elizabeth (Rook) Gay Adams; numerous other family members; a special Blue Heeler named “Bandit” and 300+ cows. |
Presumably the cows were not only too numerous to name, but with the space limitation and expense per line of the obituary, it just wasn’t cost effective. I’m just saying.
That aside, nice use of semicolons as super comas.
Where exactly is this West Virgina?
Some t-shirt editor or proofreader is surely looking for a new job!
I worked at Service-Learning today for 3.5 hours, and left there feeling real good about what I’d done—one of the things I like most about working there.
I had prepped some of Patti‘s work, which very much reminded me of my days being an Executive Secretary to an IBM Director, which I did for a couple of years—a job that I absolutely loved for a boss who most appreciated my skills and contributions.
And thinking about that job—it being enough years ago when male secretaries in general were rare, but in IBM, for a director, virtually non-existent—made me think of the question I most answered in the job.
It is a question that inevitably came with probably every third phone call or so, and especially with people calling him for the first time or who hadn’t called him in a long time.
“Frank Skidmore’s office; this is John Martin.”
“Is Frank in?”
“I’m sorry he’s not available right now. May I take a message?”
“Uh, could you connect me to his secretary please?”
“This is he.”
“Oh.”
I met Donna for lunch at one of our favorite old haunts in North Raleigh, Milton’s Pizza. We caught up over lunch, during which my taste buds, once again, still, faded in and out.
I had two slices of pizza, one of which I thought was BBQ, but I never tasted a bit of it. The other slice was ham and pineapple, and at one point, I barely tasted just the pineapple.
I can’t stress enough how boring, wasteful really, it feels to eat without tasting anything.
I stopped by the Lake Dam Road USPS Processing Center to pick up a package. The guy had the hardest time finding mine. At one point he was looking at these huge boxes that were within site from the window and had evidently not yet been shelved.
“It won’t be anything that big,” I offered. “I’m pretty sure it’s a digital camera that I purchased.”
He went “to the back” again, and once again came back empty-handed. “Do you know who sent the package?” he asked.
“It’s a Sony camera,” I offered.
He disappeared and returned empty-handed again. “Any other name it could be under? Anyone else in the household?”
“No,” I said, and off again he went.
This time he came back with a camera-sized package, shaking his head. He pointed the side of the package where, presumably someone in his own office there writes the last name of the receiver down the sides of the box. Mine said, “MART,” with the “IN” part written much smaller at the bottom and to the side. Not only that, it really looked like “IM” instead of “IN.”
Since I passed right by the lake on the way back, I stopped and did the three-mile walk around it. It was stunningly beautiful there—both in terms of the look of the lake at one vantage point and in terms of the incredible weather.
It was one of those times that made me stop and think about how great my life is, and how thankful I am that I’m able to be living it the way I am. Praise the &deity.
I also thought about how lucky I am that such a great place is so very close to my house.
When I got to the boathouse, I walked out onto the deck over the water, sat in one of the rocking chairs, which I pulled into the sun, closed my eyes, and put my iPod on a couple of James Taylor songs while I took in the beauty and serenity of the surroundings and soaked up some sun on my skin.
I put on some Vivaldi after that, took off my glasses, leaned back in the chair and caught 40 winks. Sweet.
This is where I enjoyed my rest:
Once back on the trail to finish, while passing the bulletin board right by the picnic tables, I say a white flier taped to it recounting the whole dead fish story.
I had another tasteless meal before settling down for a two-hour nap.
I met Joe at just after 9:30 at Flex, where it was quite dead, and we heard at least two times, “Maybe people are all over at the new club that’s opening tonight.”
Turns out there’s a new gay bar, called Bump, being opened downstairs from Rush, right next door to Helios. Aura used to be down there, and has closed.
After a couple of games of pool, Joe and I decided to walk over there to check it out, and what we found was the owner sitting out front with a table, some index cards and a roll of raffle-type tickets.
“Looking for the new bar?” he asked us.
“Yes.”
“Well, we were supposed to open tonight, but the furniture didn’t come in, so we’re rescheduling our grand opening until next weekend.
“But,” he continued before we could walk away, if you’ll fill out this card here, we’re offering everyone who comes by tonight a free membership for the first year, no cover charge admission to the grand opening next weekend, and here’s a ticket, which you can use upstairs at Rush, it’s a ‘mixed bar,’ for a free drink—anything you want, including top-shelf mixed drinks.”
We did stop upstairs where I had a CC & DC, and Joe had a Corona. A few queers came in and out while we had our drink, but the place wasn’t at all crowded, with any kind of people—it certainly wasn’t where all the gays had gone this Friday night.
We walked back over to Flex, where it had picked up in terms of the crowd. Phil was there sans his Joe (who was visiting his mother in the mountains), and Joe and I stood and talked to him a little. Shortly after that Randy (of Randy and ex-Emilio) joined us.
Shortly after that Craig, of the twins fame, came in, and about five minutes later, his brother Phil. Five minutes is also significant in that it is the amount of time between their births.
We got one of the pool tables again—free on Friday nights—and me, Phil (of the twins, not of Phil and Joe) played cut throat. I won. All in all it was a fun night, and we were minimally hounded by people we’re usually trying to get away from.