My mom Betty turned 91 on December 16th. She looks great and is doing great, too, except for her little broken wing (arm). We had her birthday lunch at Santa Fe Restaurant in the Faubourg Marigny of New Orleans (close to the Fairgrounds). I was worried that there wasn’t going to be anyone other than myself to sing the Happy Birthday song. Actually, I had belted out a few bars to my mom over the phone earlier in the morning and it didn’t seem to impress her. When we got to the restaurant, we were seated at a table not too far from the bathrooms which was certainly not the best seat in the dining room. The young man at the table next to us had already directed so much traffic to the little girls’ room, he preempted any questions from us by offering directions as we passed by. I had an idea. Surreptitiously, when my mom wasn’t paying attention, I offered to buy the young man and his girl friend’s lunch if they would join in the Happy Birthday song at the appropriate moment. Not only did they oblige, but they sat with us for a little while and shared my mom’s birthday. The young man is having surgery next week. The young woman was sweet and funny. It was fun to make friends with strangers.
The young man asked my mom: “Tell me the most scandalously funny thing that ever happened to you on your birthday.” Betty thought for a minute and said, “Well, I’ll tell you something funny that happened on a day when I was GIVING birth. It was when Cindy’s sister was born,” she said. “And when the doctor went into the waiting room, my husband Bobby was there with his drinking buddy and they were both three sheets to the wind. When the doctor asked who the father was, they first shrugged and then pointed their fingers at each other. The doctor let in the wrong one. So, the first man to hold the baby was her Daddy’s drunken friend.”
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BETTY!
