The Neighborhood Block Party

One of the major drawbacks of being married to an organizational, intelligent woman who has good ideas: She's the one who is picked to be in charge of the operations of an event or club. We live on a U-shaped street with thirty-two condos. Since these dwellings are located on Muirfield Village property and were the brainstorm of Jack Nicklaus everything has to be constructed according to his code. Would you like to freshen up your condo with some new paint? You can if you get permission from the Condo Association. Do you like pretty trees? Don't dig the hole unless you get the okay from the Association. I find it could be a pain in the rear but it's not too much a bother for me since planting a tree or painting over wood aren't on my radar.
There was a movement afoot last March to get more people involved in the Association and to become friendlier with each other. It's a fact that outside of the immediate neighbors on your right and left the rest of the homeowners are foreigners to each other. Unfortunately, we were nominated to have an open house which means I had to make nice with everyone. Our little cocktail party went well, even though only ten people showed, and it was decided come August there would be an outside gathering, a potluck. Once again, we were in charge so I found myself setting up tables and chairs on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. Our neighbor two houses down is a lovely woman. Being somewhat of a pessimist I mentioned to her if ten people showed I'd take my wife and she to dinner. She jumped on the bet. I lost. There were twelve in attendance--total. I'm going to get to the point of this blog post quickly after one side note. I had set up four long tables. The purpose of which was for the attendees to place their casseroles, desserts, baked beans, meats and fruits. Being an Iowan and considering this was August I decided this was a recipe for disaster. None of these people brought coverings for their food. I waited for the armies of black flies to descend on the offerings. Nothing. I grew up in Boone, Iowa and in a situation such as this for every mouthful of beans I would have swallowed ten flies and fifteen sweat bees. They would have found their final resting place in my throat. In Ohio, I saw two black flies. They settled on the side of potato salad bowls, looked around at the landscape, then skedaddled off to God knows where.
Two men caught my interest. One of them was my age----old. He had a block haircut that hung four inches over his collar. He carried around a glass of wine. His attire: an untucked blue, long-sleeved shirt and blue jeans. he wore wire rim glasses and Birkenstocks. Let's face it. He still longed for the Sixties. And, when I offered a five year old a cookie he jumped up and asked the kid's mother if he was allergic to peanut butter. You get the picture. The other guy, slightly younger than I, was employed by Columbus City government. There's no nice way to write this. His belly hung down to his kneecaps and his face saw a razor every four or five days. It was told to me that one of his co-workers was a former student and athlete of mine from Rock Island, Ill. from the 80's so we chatted about him. The guy's background was that of an adjutant at Rutgers who taught government in an earlier life. He was also a history major so we shared this info. There was a nice conversation for awhile. That's when the thing that hits the fan occurred. My good friend and neighbor brought up the fact that he had had a conversation with this fella a few weeks before about history. He mentioned how they had disagreed on a few aspects of government. Can you say, "Red Flags"?
I listened without input as he went on about the origins of the Democrat and Republican parties. It's when he said, "The Republican Party began in 1854 but they weren't racist at the time".  Time for MJ to jump in action, right? My comeback was, "Do you really want to get into this and have your ass decimated"? Being the liberal that he is he gave me a snarky answer. It was then that 'Birkenstock Boy' chimed in with, "We could talk about the TEA Party" then both goobers chuckled. I responded with, "Yes, hang the bastards. Their call for limited government, adherence to the Constitution and limited taxes is obscenely radical". And I did something I've rarely, if ever, done in sixty-eight years. I got up and walked away.
Truth be told I was pleased with myself. Coincidentally, yesterday happened to be the fourteenth anniversary of when I stopped drinking. Lucky for 'Belly Boy' and his pal because my old Jack Daniels mouth would have been a train wreck for me. There might be a correlation to this: booze and arguing. Maybe I've matured. Besides, we all know I have an alligator mouth and hummingbird butt. All in all it was an okay day, if you like those types of socials.