Ye olde red-and-green, starry starry Bow Tie o’ the Day. Santa face. And critical thinking on top.
Busy Thinking
14 Years Ago Today, Dad Went To Hunt Coyotes In Heaven
[This is Dad’s obituary, as printed in his much-beloved SALT LAKE TRIBUNE. Note that Dad is wearing a Tie o’ the Day in this photo, and he was rarely a tie guy.]
Ronald Wright 6/13/1930 ~ 12/4/ 2007
DELTA- Ronald Edmond Wright, 77, died on Dec. 4, 2007 at home surrounded by his family after a valiant struggle against multiple health issues. Born June 13, 1930 in Nephi, UT to Walter Edmond and Zola Walker Wright. Married Helen Anderson, his high school sweetheart from Oak City, UT on July 26, 1948 in Manti LDS Temple. Ron graduated in 1948 from Delta High School.
After graduation, bought father’s bee operation and was known as knowledgeable, reputable beekeeper. Shared expertise, labor and equipment with local beekeepers and others he met while traveling throughout the west. To stay home more while the children were young, Ron took a second profession as brick mason. Dad enjoyed outdoor activities and was an avid hunter in his favorite Millard County mountains. Also took forays to other areas, notably Alaska where he hunted moose, caribou and Kodiak bear. The trophies hung in the old First Security Bank and in the former Wolfe’s Sportsman store. Dad was never happier than when being stung by a bee, or holding a baby.
Survived by wife: Helen, of 59 years; children: Betty and Kent, Anne and Gary, Ron and Marie, Rob and Mary, Helen E. and Suzanne; 18 grandchildren, 30 great-grand-children- and three more in a few months; sister: Shirley (Pete) Petersen; a brother: Derral (Shirley) Wright; and a sister-in-law: Joanne P. Wright. Preceded in death by brother: Wally Ray; dogs: Dumb Dumb, Becky, and two Berts.
Services: Sat. Dec. 8, 2007 at noon, Delta LDS 1st Ward. Friends call Sat. morning at church, 10-11:45 a.m. Burial Delta Cemetery.
My Tiniest Chuck Brown X-mas Tree
With a jumbo Bow Tie o’ the Day covered in wrapped and be-ribboned presents, I present my munchkin-est Charlie Brown Christmas tree. It stands at just under a mini-majestic 10 inches tall. Its singular ornament is a milkweed pod creation by my grandma, Zola Walker Wright. She made it in the early 70’s, and it is indeed the beauteous Zola whose photograph adorns this particular ornament. She made similar photo-personalized milkweed pod ornaments adorned with pictures of each member of the the family. When she and my grandpa, Walter, decorated their X-mas tree with all the milkweed pod faces, it both figuratively and literally became a family tree. I still have my precious Zola-made, milkweed pod face-ornament. It is securely stored away somewhere so secret and safe in our garage that even I can’t find it. 🤓🎁
The 2021 Christmas Neckwear Begins
If you’re a long-time dedicated reader of TIE O’ THE DAY, you have probably been suspicious that something is bigly and seriously wrong with me. Normally, at this point on my tblog calendar, I would have been wearing holiday neckties and bow ties for weeks now—in my seasonal attempt to wear every piece of holiday neckwear in my collection. For example, last year on this date the TIE O’ THE DAY Holiday Tie Tally shows that I had already worn 92 Christmas-themed neckties AND 22 said-themed bow ties. The complete 2020 Holiday Tie Tally total of what pieces I wore ended up at a whopping 209 seasonal neckties and 93 jolly bow ties. All the holiday neckwear filled 6 storage bins in the Tie Room and garage. The annual endeavor is always fun and challenging for me, but I’m taking a break from it this year. There will be no wearing of a dozen ties at one time. But worry not! I will still be sporting festive neckwear from now until January 1st. I have no doubt I’ll come up with plenty o’ other gimmicks to keep y’all entertained for the holiday season as best I can. I will be super-selective in my 2021 Christmas season neckwear choices. My first Bow Tie o’ the Day choice of 2021? Santa-hatted yellow lab puppies. Enjoy the merry tie offerings for the coming weeks. And a heartfelt HO, HO, HO to y’all!
Our 2021 T-Giving Feast
I was going through photos on my phone this afternoon when I realized I had not yet posted anything about our bigly Thanks Feast of last week. I admit I had a cheese bread hangover for a couple of days after the event, and that’s the likely reason the documenting photos slipped my brain. Note this: Turkey Tie o’ Thanksgiving can also function as a handy bib!
Anyhoo… We stayed home this year for the holiday, so it was just me and Suzanne and the skittish Skitter for the entire day. When it’s like that, you know I have to put my spin on the traditional food offerings. I once again prepared food one item at a time, at various junctures throughout the day. I launched the festivities with the opening of the can o’ jellied cranberry and dumping it on a plate—thus, causing the traditional cranberry-blob-from-the-can-suck sound. And we were off.
We ate “canned”-ied yams and baby corn-on-the-cob and stuffing. At some point, Suzanne ate a whole can of olives. In lieu of mashed potatoes, I slaved away baking tater tots, which is one of Suzanne’s all-time fave potato creations to eat. (It’s true. When I’m in the proverbial doghouse with Suzanne, I just drag out the tater tots, and I am immediately forgiven.) We ate bow tie-shaped ham and turkey sammiches. There are no photos of the loaf of cheese bread I sculpted, because we were so busy eating it while it was warm that it would have been blasphemous to take up valuable eating time to find my phone or camera. And since we live in Utah, I served up green Jell-O—bow tie-shaped, too. Also, of course, we napped-and-snacked intermittently. For dessert that evening, I scooped up mounds of Dreyer’s pumpkin pie ice cream for us to snarf down until we were beyond full. Fortunately, we ate so much that I’m sure we won’t need another meal until Christmas—or possibly Easter. Yup. Mission accomplished.
A Vehicular Decision
I channeled Dad in order to make a final decision about purchasing the new truck I’ve been eyeing. Dad knew his trucks. Also, Dad always had a red or blue hanky dangling from his back pocket, so I wore a hanky-esque Face Mask o’ the Day to the car dealership yesterday. I doubled-down with the black in my Bow Tie o’ the Day and the yellow in my shirt—the two colors signifying the bees Dad expertly cared for in his life-long work.
I picked up Suzanne from her office and took her on a test-drive in my potential auto acquisition. Suzanne’s tummy gets hyper-queasy when riding in bouncy vehicles like my old jalopy truck, so I wanted to make sure she could stomach the ride in this new vehicle. If she couldn’t relax and enjoy the truck’s ride, I would not even entertain the idea of acquiring this truck candidate. At some point during the test-drive—as I drove, and as Suzanne played with all the gadgets and controls in the cab—Suzanne seemed to be remarkably pleased with the level of smoothe-icity of the truck’s ride. Suzanne’s perfectly settled stomach was saying, “Yes!” to the truck. Consequently, I made my bigly decision to buy the 2022 Ford Maverick—and in my kind of flashy color, called Velocity Blue. When we finally returned the demo truck to the dealership, I was grinning through my face mask as I signed my “Helen Hancock” on the necessary paperwork. Oh, happy, wallet-emptying day! 💸💸
The bad news is this: My brand new travel toy is a special order, and it will not be built and delivered to me for 2 or 3—or maybe 4 or more—months. The good news about the bad news is this: If I don’t explode to smithereens with anticipation before my truck gets here, I will have grown my patience to superpower-strength. That kind of patience comes in handy on this planet full of imperfect human beings. Patience, I fervently believe, is the next best quality to kindness.
This Is Not A Paid Advertisement
But it could be. Now that Mom no longer cooks her Christmas confections, I have been on a quest to find acceptably tasty holiday goodies. Bow Tie o’ the Day and I made a winterland-worthy discovery today: Reese’s Peanut Brittle peanut butter cups. If you like peanut butter, I promise that you will want to snag some of these before they’re gone from the Christmas candy shelves. Now, I have to quickly end this post and go finish eating the whole bag. But I wanted you to know about my new, sinful find.
I Got Distracted By A Material Object
I really did intend to write a post yesterday. I threw on a polka dot Bow Tie o’ the Day and drove Suzanne to her office because her foot is still under the weather from her surgery. It’s healing well, but it is literally a big pain in her hoof. After I got her settled in her office, I headed home to write something for TIE O’ THE DAY. Somehow, I found myself pulling into a car dealership to test-drive a new truck. And then I fell into material love with the vee-hicle I drove—a 2022 Ford Maverick. I was indeed sidetracked all day with the entire process. I haven’t decided for sure if I’m going to buy the pretty thing, but I’m leaning towards it. My 23-year-old jalopy truck cannot last forever, although I mostly wish it would—if only for its passenger window which still has my long-departed Araby’s doggie snot-and-slobber smudges all across the in-side of it. When the two of us were in our Millard County environment, Araby was a happy, barking fixture in the bed of my truck. When we were in our bigly city world, Araby was my eager shotgun-rider. She’s been in mutt heaven for over 8 years now, and I will never wash her beloved smudges off “her” truck window. The smeared mess is worth more than the truck itself, at least to me.
Too Farctated To Write Anything Today
Merry T-giving, Y’all!
I am always grateful to this world for more than I will ever be able to properly express. In that vein, I thank you folks for putting up with me and my TIE O’ THE DAY project.
This photo is one of my school pictures from Delta Junior High. Here, I adorned it with my turkey before-and-after Tie o’ the Day, to make the photo more palatable for your eyeballs. That’s truly asking a lot of one solitary tie to do!
Enjoy your thank-y day, my pals!