When I was an Air Force guy, two fellows came to morning formation and greeted each other.

“You’re ugly.” says the taller one.

“Yeah?” snorts back the short blonde guy. “And?”

“I bet you’re an only child. I’d quit popping them out too if I was your mother.”

“You leave her out of this.” His face gets red.

“Did she make any other ugly kids?” prods his tormentor.

“I’m warning you!” The short guy looks riled.

“I bet she was handsome.”

“That’s it!”

The antagonist got a fist in the mouth.

Captain Mallory arrived on scene and quelled the disturbance. He was the presiding officer, and not a very aware one. Unwisely he sent them to their rooms to chill out.

They were room mates.

They had quite the scuffle after following the order and the clean up took them the rest of the day. I saw the mess. They really went after each other. One of the shoved a bed against the other and pinned him on the wall then turned it upside down on him and jumped on it.

They were friends. This was their style.

My best bud and I were about twelve years old and had just spent the weekend together at his place and it was time for it to end. Our parents met at the school where we parted ways.

“Good riddance!” I told him.

“Finally, some relief. I thought you’d never leave,” he replied.

“Boys!” said his mom in distressed surprise.

“That’s not nice,” mom told me.

We were amused to send each other off with feigned crankiness. We got in the cars.

“I thought I’d never escape!” I called out.

“Yeah?” he said. “Happy ending for both of us!”

As we drove away my mother said, “I thought the two or you got along. I thought you were friends.”

“We do. We are. Why would you think otherwise?” I asked.

That was a great weekend!

Leota was someone I’d worked with years before she retired and I lost track of her then. When I found out that she lived within walking distance I arranged a visit.

She was a nice mix of great character traits and we got along quite well. Honest, a good worker, diligent, principled, and serious.

Here are some of the greetings we shared.

She stopped smoking several times. A famous person once said quitting is the easiest thing in the world – he’d done it hundreds of times. She got the boss to pay her a reward twice for quitting cigarettes a whole twelve months in a row.

I went out the back door of the office to get something from the office shed where we stored documents and found her sucking hard on a cigarette.

“Lee, what are you doing out here.”

“This is for my health, it calms me.”

“Something going on?”

“You! You stress me out. Brat. If I don’t smoke I’ll have a stroke from the stress”

Another time, “Hi Lee!”

“Hello, how are you?”

“Perplexed,” I tell her.

“How’s that?”

I say, “When I greet you I always want to finish the sentence, but I don’t know the rest.”

“Oh boy.” she says with a face like she isn’t sure she wants to hear the pun but can’t resist. What?”

I always wonder, “highly what?”

Leota will always be in my highest regard so I was happy to discover that she lived near. It had been almost a decade since we’d spoken. I knocked on her door and she bade me enter. She wasn’t kidding when she looked at me and said, “I don’t know you”.

I smiled and said, “As soon as I start talking you will!”

“It’s you!” she exclaimed. “Last time you didn’t have a beard and your hair wasn’t so gray!”

We had a very nice visit. Good thing too, cancer claimed her within the month.

When I was a boy, my parents had an interesting way of leaving when they’d gone to visit. First, they’d start saying they were leaving and would periodically suggest it was time to go throughout the last hour of the stay. Then they’d make it to the door. Ten more minutes of gabbing there. Then outside on the porch they’d visit another hour or so. Sometimes less. Then they’d finally go – to the car. The visit would continue another ten minutes with us kids in the back seat and the adults talking through the open window. It was like my dad and mom were talking to a belly with a belt because that’s all I could see.

She called, suffering from the worst headache ever and asked the dad if he could come get the kids and give her a break. So he did.

She asked what they’d likely do together.

“Merry go round at the mall” he said.

It was something thier kids really liked. I wonder if it’s still there. It was one of the old fashioned ones with carved wooden horses, cheezy paintings, lights, and mirrors all over.

For some reason, the children all wanted the other mall.

So they went there instead.

As they rounded a corner the youngest yelled, “Momma!” and ran off to greet her. She was walking hand in hand with her Nigerian friend, happy as can be.

The dad had heard good things about this fellow she was with. Plus, he’d already made the dad’s day. On the way to fetch the children he walked past the Nigerian’s car in which he was napping. It was dusk.

The Nigerian opened his eyes wide and watched. It was the funniest thing because all the dad could see in that darkened car was just the two white eyes.

Now the dad finally got to meet him.

“You must be Al Habingi! My son told me you were teaching him how to do those long winded black handshakes.” the dad said, extending a hand of frienship.

“Yes,” he said, “I show you too.”

And then he did that very thing. Way too complicated for the dad, but fun to attempt. Not more fun than seeing the face of Al’s fully cured consort though!

I developed a habit of disappearing from family gatherings unexpectedly. This was because when it’s time to go, then it’s time to go but people challenge that it’s really time to go.

“Why? Where do you have to be?”

I eventually seized on the realization that I didn’t need permission and I didn’t need to justify leaving when I wanted to. Instead, I just said “Gotta go. Bye!”

“What? You just got here! Why do you have to leave?”

“It’s time.”

“Where are you going? Are you meeting someone?”

“It’s time to go.”

“Can’t you put it off. Do you really have to do that now? Why?”

“I gotta go.”

So that was too tedious. I modified the sequence.

The new method was just disappear. If I fled through the front door, then I’d be seen and apprehended and the same question sequence would begin. Tedious.

So I’d engage with a conversation then suddenly withdraw, giving no indication that I was on a mission to evacuate. Maybe I was just getting a drink or answering natures call. Then I’d escape through the garage, out the back door, or some other way.

“Where is he?”

Someone points to the living room window through which my car could be observed leaving the driveway.

So that’s my preferred exit methodology from places where an explanation and permission are expected before leaving.

Greetings I’ve heard, seen, or experienced:

“Well look what the cat drug in!”

One of my favorites is the cartoon where the little boy is at the front porch greeting a man and his wife and calling out to his mom that they have arrived, “It’s the people you wouldn’t waste the gas to go see!”

Recently I was greeted better than a king. Two girls ran over and hugged me with big smiles. I don’t know how that can be topped. Then one of them asked if I brought graham crackers.

“No”

They both ran off to other things. That made me laugh to think the hug was prepayment for an anticipated treat, but it was still glorious. Fun to be greeted with joy!

On departures, I always told my children that the best time to leave was just before you really want to and it’s still true.

I do want to keep writing about this subject! Bye.