My Folks!

I thought today I would blog a bit about my parents. They live in a retirement community in Elmhurst, IL - just west of Chicago. For most of their lives, until their mid-60's, the lived in the Buffalo, NY area. They spent many winters in FL to escape the bitter cold, but one day decided that the best thing to do was move their permanently. It was great for awhile, living in a beautiful condo in Lauderhill, but then, the inevitable started happening. The friends began to pass away and living there was depressing. By then, my brother had married again and a year later, a new baby came on the scene. Since Mom and Dad spent most of time in FL while Rick's kids and mine were growing up, they only saw their six grandchildren at most twice a year. For a few years, it was too much for them to be down in FL in the summer, so they were spending summers in Oak Park, IL right near to where my brother lived in River Forest. Jori, the seventh grandchild was born in 1997 and my folks have been really close with her.

My parents have always been pretty active. They are avid bridge players and my dad loves his sports. The Bears and the Cubbies, especially.

In the past few years, Mom and Dad are no longer able to travel. Mom's eyesight is poor and Dad has Parkinson's. Although he isn't shaky, it still slows him down. He's had some heart problems and internal bleeding from an ulcer, but on the whole for two elderly people who are 86 and almost 87, they are doing fantastically well.

This past Saturday night, my brother had four tickets to the Cubs game. It's hard for the folks to go - all those steps - but Rick and my nephew, Aaron, took them. About five minutes into the game, a woman seated behind Mom, got up with her big cup of beer in her hand to take a picture with the camera she was trying to use in her other hand, and spilled the entire $6.00 worth of beer down the side of Mom's head, in her hair, and just soaked her blouse. It scared Mom - but felt good, since it was about 90 degrees at Wrigley Field that night. According to my brother, Mom went a bit ballistic at first, but she calmed down and the lady and her friend went and got wads of paper towels from the bathroom to try to soak up the mess. My dad got some of it too - but not nearly as bad. My brother had called me last night to tell me about the incident and it sort of struck both of funny. It brought back a memory of another Cubs game - maybe 15 years ago. We stopped at a place called Jake's to get milkshakes and food for the game. Rick bought each of us a bag of peanuts - my daughter's were there with us - and my brother told the kids it was all right to eat the peanuts with the shells too. I told my two, "NO"! A little while later, Aaron barfed up his chocolate milkshake and all the peanuts on the woman in front of him. Luckily it hit her leather jacket. Could have been her hair. She didn't even realize what had happened until we tapped her on the head. How embarrassing and we had a heck of a mess.

Here is a photo of my parents that I took last month at Mom's birthday celebration:
That's my daughter, Jen, who will be giving Mom and Dad their 4th great grandchild next Spring. I just hope I look and great as my parents do in 26 years when I'm their age!