The Visitors

    Story:  When I was very young, I remember friends who came to our house to visit each week were a welcome sight.  Life wasn’t easy growing up in the 50’s and 60’s in southern California .  The most enjoyable friends were those who always knew when dinner time was, always arrived like clockwork, and as usual, I could hear there voices coming from our living room.  I remember this particular bunch, because they always told funny stories which made us all laugh.  This was significant because during those years many families were on hard times for one reason or another.  While listening to the jokes, I would glance up just in time to see Dad resting his eyes.   Dad had to drive 60 miles to where the real work was, and as such, usually arrived home after midnight .  It was a rare treat to have him home with us at dinner time.  For one reason or another, He was always ‘the new guy’.  Mom basically raised all of us, and except for those rare times when she got to sit down for a moment while cooking dinner, she was busy cleaning house and trying to teach her youngest son the ‘devil math’ (algebra) until 3:00 in the morning.   I will always remember how special it was, and how rare it was to see the two of them laughing together on those special nights.  Our wonderful friends made that happen!  They came to visit every Thursday evening, around 6 p.m. , just about dinner time.  A special treat for all of us, because it brought us all together.  Dad will swear he doesn't know them personally, yet, like the rest of us, he knows their first names and would recognize them anywhere!  You couldn’t help but smile the moment you saw these four, they lit up the whole room!  Every Thursday, we all knew that for at least a half hour we would be entertained and Mom and Dad could leave the worlds troubles at the door.  Mom would be in the kitchen cooking; she loved to cook and did it so well.  She knew every spice.  A perfect night was the aroma of my mothers cooking filling the house and our four friends in the living room making us laugh.  Growing up didn’t get any better than that.  I will always remember Mom calling from the kitchen for words in the punch line of a joke she missed.  ‘What, what did they say?’ Our friends would always tell a story of humanity, there was always a point to learn; and as we listened, each of us silently knew he or she was the first to get the joke.  There's nothing like having friends over.  I will always remember those visitors who made life so wonderful back in the day.  We were lucky compared to others in the neighborhood.  Things were simpler then.  Laughing was something to be cherished and its cause remembered and shared.  A smile given freely by others is always special, my pockets full of them and I’m better off for it.

    For lack of a better word, I will call our guests, ‘The Honeymooners’, the wonderful Jackie Gleason, Audrey Meadows, Art Carney, and Joyce Randolph.  I will always cherish the way they came into our living room and entertained us, if just for a little while, around dinner time.  RJ

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