Excerpted from:  Uncle Bob’s Big Book of Happy (2013)

Tag (2010)

      Synthesis: a dab of there and this, a dab of here and that—voila! It’s a new universe this morning.  For a man with stardust for dandruff and feedlot for footing, what say I of hope?  I have lain open the wound of truth.  Now, how do I stitch these gaping realizations and bid the world to live a good life without fear of spilling the heart?

Well . . . there is laughter.  I’m not crazy about jokes or stand-up comedians but I am a zealot for laughter and its accompanying love and loving.  So, I’ll tell you about a game of tag.

My wife Carol and I began our game of tag 41 years ago and, early this morning as I left, saying, “Sleep on, my love, I’m off to the coffee house to write the best book ever,” I noted the binding wrap of bedding about her arms and seized the opportunity for easy coup.  With a quick kiss I gave her a nonchalant tap on the forehead and with cocksure confidence, said, “And, by the way, you’re it!”

 

But, damn!  I hadn’t noticed the free fall of sheet and blanket about her feet.  As I sauntered by, she jabbed me with a darting toe to the hinder.

Until her retirement a few years ago, Carol was a much respected college professor.  I mean she looked and lived the part thoroughly with slacks and blazer and coiffed locks and a rolling suitcase filled with important student stuff and the stride of a get-it-done professional.  However, there were occasions when, as I unloaded her mobile filling cabinet from the back of the car and bade her a good and useful day, she would risk commission of the cardinal sin of tardiness to her own class as she and I parried about the parking lot with volleys of slap-and-leap and cries of “You’re it!” and “Am not.  You missed."

And don’t get me wrong here.  It’s not like we’re youthful and agile, lean and light-footed dancers a-swirl in some rite of ballet-like kinesthetic grace.  With Carol’s metal left hip and my gout and work-wrenched old joints, sometimes it’s just not pretty.  To the passing notice of the serious and solid minded, the sight of a pair of sixty-year-olds out there playing slap-and-dart might seem embarrassingly bizarre.  But beans on the fools, I say. 

Such seasonings of giddy fun are what make the dread realities of economics and gravity bearable.  It’s laughter in the rain, love in the ruins, songs sung  heartily to the stifling silence.  It’s hope, my friend.  Hope and reason for being, regardless of the daunting dimensions of the universe and the crass truths of the costs of living.

Once, I told Carol I had planned out my last words.  In the final moment I intend to sing out Huddie Leadbetter’s best line, Goodnight, Irene.

She said that’s all right but she had a better exit in mind.  As the final breath wheezes from her lungs she intends on touching my hand, smiling up at me, and saying, “You’re it.”