Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner

Admit it...when Dirty Dancing comes on (I get pulled in if I watch more than 5 minutes of it, Patrick Swayze, dead or alive, will always be Johnny Castle, and Johnny Castle is magnetic enough to snatch you through the TV set quicker than you can say "Carry me to the Catskills") you're gonna watch it, especially if it's the last 5 or so minutes where Johnny Castle utters that immortal line "nobody puts Baby in a corner".

I don't have to watch any other part of the movie, those last 5 minutes are the part that I've bought my ticket  to see.  And for that entire time, this plus-sized, old Southern Baptist married person and mother (which means that we did not grow up dancing in our household and I will forever blame my parents for making me the left-feet on the dance floor that I am.  I know you and daddy jitter-bugged, mother, you just did it before I was ever born and I never inherited any dancing skills, shame on it all) is indeed Frances "Baby" Houseman.  It's ME that Patrick Swayze, a la Johnny Castle, is flinging and slingin' around like a rag doll in a rat terrier's mouth, and it's ME that flies off that stage in that lift that Johnny and Baby could never get right any other time.  I am too fine. I know all the words to the song and he's singing it to me although it's a little hard to hear because I'm huffing and puffing after doing all those fancy moves.  But not to worry, we finally slow down at the end and do a big smooch and the world is all peach pie and ice cream.

I don't give it any thought that after Baby and Johnny finished the dance and her doctor-daddy had packed up the sedan that Baby went home, started college, probably joined the Peace Corps afterwards, than married a nice Jewish lawyer and Johnny probably went home, joined the Painter's and Plasterer's Union alongside his own daddy and was too tired to dance except for Saturday nights after a hot hour of League Bowling.  There were no cell phones in 1963, long-distance calls were way too expensive and writing letters was probably out of the question...guys like Johnny Castle didn't do well in high school;  English was not one of his better subjects and if it hadn't been for that cute little cheerleader (you know there had to be a cheerleader involved) that helped him study or gave him the answers, he probably wouldn't have even graduated. But it really doesn't matter to me because I don't let Dirty Dancing take me that far.  I don't ever leave the Catskills. And Johnny Castle never ages one day, no one gains one ounce and I am forever and always Baby...and I never get put in a corner.

Bah Bah Mother's Day, Have you any wool?

Readers beware:  This is not a sweet and frilly mother's day message.  For one, I am not a "frilly" person and sometimes I'm probably not even sweet although I try to do my best.

Mother's Day was a day, in my humble opinion, invented by the Hallmark industry and the International Brotherhood of Restaurants (I just made that up but it sounded good) to guilt-trip hapless men and women into buying cards and going out to eat at 12:00 noon on Sunday with their mothers.  In theory there is nothing wrong with this...every mother should get sweet cards from their children and should definitely be honored at a meal often and maybe even oftener (another word I just made up) but why do we have to be like the sheep that we've made ourselves to be and wait for Hallmark to tell us when to do it?  You just try and take your mama out to dinner this Sunday after church and you'll see how many other sheep have gotten there before you and are holding one of those little beepers in their hand just waiting for a table that's not going to be called "yours" for a good, solid hour!

Mothers should be loved every day.  We should send them cards in months that don't always begin with an "M".  Restaurants will be glad to seat you and your mother most any day of the week, last time I checked, and the food will be just as honorable then as it is on mother's day.  Wouldn't it mean so much more to you if your children called you up on another day, during another season even and invited you out someplace just because they loved you?  Wouldn't a card mean so much more if you got one in Junevember from someone just telling you that you'd done a great job raising your children?

Sorry folks, that's my tale and I'm currently sitting on it...riding in a car on my way to the beach and yes, my mother is with us, and yes, we'll be sitting somewhere in a restaurant on Sunday looking out at the beach...but I can promise you, the card that I bought isn't frilly!