Category: Family

Here’s Grace Anne Blackwelder in her church clothes on Father’s Day. She sported a formal, black and white frock. At one-month-old, she is already a classy dame. Her acre of hair is topped off with that colorful and bigly Hair Bow o’ Gracie’s Day. She is following in my bow tie steps already. Bishop Travis and Bishopette Collette better like her style or learn to hunker down and deal with it, cuz my bow tie influence on Gracie isn’t going anywhere. [Here, my Bow Tie o’ Father’s Day is the closest in fabric design I could find to one of Dad’s red hankies (sometimes blue), which he always carried. I never once caught Dad hanky-less, even when he was in the hospital having heart surgery.]

I promise I won’t continue to inundate y’all with pix o’ Amazing Grace forever. Over the years, one of the things I’ve learned is that we each feel like the babies in our families are the absolute cutest, and we are certain everyone else wants to see dozens of pictures of them. Guess what?! They don’t. They might wanna see a couple of pix of your babies; but after looking at a few photos of the family babies you love, they’re saying to themselves, “MY baby is cuter than your baby. Your baby looks like a chimpanzee. MY baby never looked like a chimpanzee. I hope your baby outgrows its chimp face.” And on and on.

I’m utterly intrigued by Miss Grace Anne, but TIE O’ THE DAY posts must continue to honor neckwear. Gracie’s parents can let her star regularly on THEIR social media pages. She is theirs, after all. If they want to, they can bombard others with pix of Grace to the point of others’ silent chimpanzee comparisons.

But for right now, permit me to be crazy about this wee mammal who we never thought would find her way into Bishop Travis’ and Bishopette Collette’s life. I think we had all given up on that possibility years ago. And suddenly, Gracie sauntered into their lives– and our lives– like she owns the place, like she was just taking her sweet time to get here. And now that she’s here, it’s like she wants us to put on our bow ties and party– complete with Funeral Potatoes. Or, at least, put on our bow ties and go to Sacrament Meeting. Smart chick.

M&M Bow Tie o’ Father’s Day comes to us courtesy of Nuk, my oldest sister, Mercedes’ husband of at least 8416 years. I swear they have been married since before the Pre-existence. Nuk got this M&M’s bow tie for Dad’s Day. Mercedes and Nuk always make sure they send me photos of whatever post-worthy neckwear they run into– even if they create it themselves. They are sometimes my photo suppliers. They are my dealers.

Nuk, whose given name is Kent, is one of the most hilarious people I have encountered in my long, long, long, crazy life. He can find a joke or snarky comment regarding anything. In the 80’s, when I attended Weber State, I had a professor who was boring to the point of actually putting me to sleep in class, more than once. In class, the prof had never once come close to being anything even resembling interesting, and he would not have recognized a sense of humor if Joan Rivers had come into class and performed a routine.

I lived with Mercedes and Nuk at the time, and I expressed to Nuk my frustration with Brother Boring. It just so happened Nuk knew the guy from some church work, so he had also experienced boring, mind-numbing time with my professor. With classic Nuk perspective, he simply said, “That man is drier than a popcorn fart.” Nuk nailed it. The truth is the truth.

Sunday was another Provo outing to attend church with my Sister Who Wishes To Remain Nameless, at Bishop Travis’ and Bishopette Collette’s ward. Of course, month-old Gracie was there too.

Since it was Pa’s Day, Bishop Travis held Gracie in his arms as he sat by the podium. Bishopette Collette’s plan was to let that happen for a few minutes and then go fetch the baby when she started to fuss. Neither Gracie nor Bishop Trav fussed one iota, so Gracie lay in her father’s arms the entire Sacrament Meeting. Bishop Travis grinned at Gracie constantly and kissed her tiny hands, while Bishopette Collette kept an eye on Gracie’s behavior from our bench, waiting desperately for a reason to go steal the baby from the Bishop. Though Gracie was positively fine being held by her dad, I think Collette was experiencing some separation anxiety.

My Sister Who Wishes To Remain Nameless and I sat on our bench wondering why the heck we even traveled to attend church with the Blackwelder’s if the baby wasn’t in our pew for us to fight over. Oh, that’s right: We went to church with the Blackwelder’s before Gracie arrived in their family. We’ve always loved the Bishop and Bishopette– with Grace Anne or no Grace Anne. It’s just that Bishop Travis and Bishopette Collette are a little too big for us to hold on our laps, coo at, call dibs on, and fight over.

Here is Grace before she got dressed up in her “church clothes.” I usually carry stick Bow Tie o’ the Day with me for occasions such as this. I wasn’t about to wake the sleeping beauty, Grace Anne, to put a real stunt bow tie on her for a photo. But I had to take a picture anyway. In fact, I snapped so many pix that by the time we left the Blackwelder home to attend church with them, my phone needed to be charged again. That’s a bunch o’ pix.

FYI If you ever want to put a real bow tie on an infant’s neck, I suggest you use a bow tie that’s past its prime. It doesn’t matter if its tag says it’s washable or can be sent to the dry cleaner. Use a bow tie you are never going to wear again, since bambinos have a tendency to produce spit-up, regular vomit, and even projectile vomit. Clearly, a necktie will receive more damage than a bow tie, but neither one is capable of remaining alive after being hit by any kind of vomit. Even plain old slobber can sometimes be deadly for neckwear.

Bow Tie o’ the Day is brought to you courtesy of my oldest sibling, Mercedes. Her given name is Betty Rae, but she’s not fond of it. It’s mostly the “Rae” part that bugs her. And it bugs her bigly! She is known as B.T. (her initials) to most people. But I call her the exotic name, Mercedes. She is definitely exotic, in a Pleasant View, UT kind of way.

Anyhoo… Mercedes sent these photos to me yesterday. The decorative tiger used to be in Mom’s living room but now it lives with Mercedes and her husband, Nuk or Floyd or Kent. Yes, Kent also has “other” names. They are groovy enough people that a single name for each one of them can’t cover their bigly personalities.

I wasn’t surprised to see these bow tie photos show up on my phone. I wasn’t surprised my sister, Mercedes, took the time to cut the tiger’s cardboard “costume” pieces out of the Popsicle box they were printed on, then dress up a fake tiger for a picture. I was amused and appreciative.

I present the photos here to prove that I am not the only person on the planet who does weird stuff with bow ties in order to snap a photo which will then be sent out into the world for others to see. I present them as evidence my sister and I share the characteristic of doing odd things for no apparent reason whatsoever, except the fun-factor. To be honest though, I know Mercedes set up the entire scene just for me. So I guess her stunt truly had an actual purpose: Mercedes wanted to send me some love.

I love you back, Mercedes Rae. 😉

Bee Bow Tie o’ the Day gives a big Swarm o’ Bees salute to Dad for his birthday. Dad would have been 89 today. He made it to 77, which wasn’t nearly long enough for us. For him, it was sorta two years too long. He was in tremendous pain the last couple of years of his life. He endured it as long as he could, to stay with Mom. He didn’t want her to be alone. He finally listened to her when she told him it was okay for him to let go when he needed to. She told him she’d be okay because all of us would take care of her. He told me (and probably others), a few months before his death, that he’d had 75 great years. The last two years, he said, hadn’t been worth shit. He made it a point to never swear in front of women, so I knew he’d be leaving us soon.

This photo was taken at one of Momo’s birthday parties when she lived at Pleasant Acres. Dad’s in his Ronald E. Wright Uniform of beige workshirt and striped overalls. Mom is being Mom, complete with her just-done hairdo. My late grandma Wright, Momo, looks radiant with her pure, elegant white hair. My late Uncle Wally, who I miss too, is the other fellow. And I remember Momo’s birthday cake was yummy.