I have purposely tagged all of their side of the family with the same middle name as my own, which is Dale. When I greet them I call them by their first and middle names, which include the women. I think when I first started this, it kind of aggravated Aunt Gladys Dale a little because she seemed to show a little discontent in my greeting. That simply reinforced my actions and for the last twenty years or so she has accepted the idea.

She also knows that the more she resists, the more it makes me want to aggravate her. She’s used to it though, because she’s married to someone who has been aggravating her longer than I have, my Uncle Marvin Dale. We aggravate, in a joking way of course, the people we love and care about. It’s what we men do.

The patriarchs of the family, Marvin Dale and I, do officially carry the same middle name. My Uncle Marvin and I are very similar in personality and actions. We think alike, we look alike, we act alike, we sound alike and we joke around alike.

Over the years of our annual outing at the ranch I have watched the little boys grow into fine young men. Some are married now, some are in college or high school, and we still have three of them nearing high school age in the next few years. The deal is, however, we don’t have to worry about “toddlers” running around and getting into trouble.

This year’s event, however, was very different. It seemed more subdued, more grown up, more adult like. Nothing really happened that was over the top or extraordinary except…well, except…the argument! Now it really wasn’t a real argument, but it was a discussion between men who had their own very strong views about PR. We made the mistake and brought up two subjects that men should never discuss in family settings: Politics and Religion.

All of the men of this family are fairly opinionated. We don’t mind speaking our peace. We can also raise our voices and voice our concerns in a very strong manner, and that is what occurred while we were all sitting in the front yard one night.

Brother-in-Law Les brought up the subject about our current president and he also made a statement about a church leader that raised the voice of Uncle Marvin Dale.

Brother-in-Law is a football coach and his actions on the field are enough to give an elephant a heart attack. During game time his voice becomes a megaphone and his face turns tomato red. His adrenaline rushes as he barks commands across the field to his players. I have seen him in action and he makes me tired just watching. Off the field, he is a low talking, easy-going guy, but get him riled up and you will see him once again go into game mode.

One difference between Uncle Marvin Dale and I is that he expresses himself more forcefully and in a quicker action that I do. He too can turn red-faced quickly and when his voice begins climbing octaves with each word, you know his pot is boiling.

That is what happened the night we began discussing PR. Brother-in-Law made his comments and Uncle Marvin Dale came back with an immediate comment. The exchange of words was being thrown in quick volley and, of course, I jumped in just to aggravate and agitate. The other men began to chuckle and they too were throwing verbal jabs and comments with words none of us really believed, but we said them just to throw fuel on the fire. It was fun!

After about twenty minutes the words subsided with a clear understanding that we were all right in our opinions and we were also all wrong. We had a great discussion! In fact, it was so good that Uncle Marvin and Brother-in-Law Les both called me a few days later and told me how much fun they had this year at our gathering.

Yes, we really, really had a good time this year. The coming years will probably continue to involve more talking than physical activities and I’m sure the best years are yet to come. I’m already looking forward to next year.

Clifford

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed