You can’t get up until the whistle blows

It was our oldest son’s 30th birthday yesterday. How old can one get? Us, not him. He told his brother, and who knows who else, he would evaporate upon turning 30, he was still here at 6:19 am this morning, Saturday May 1. Reminded me of my generation and the movie "Wild in the Streets". Right, never trust anyone over 30. It doesn’t seem to take long to live through that age and move on the the next birthday
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6:19 am. He was up. But not for long. When he and his brother were still in cribs, they would climb out and go into the living room and turn on the TV to watch cartoons. He and his brother are eleven months apart, so, today they are now a year apart in age, the oldest being 30 and the youngest being 29. I think, actually know, the youngest revels in the fact they are the same age for almost a month. Anyway, we lived in Mexico, Missouri.

In Mexico there is a business Crown Cleaners, I guess Crown Laundry would be its real name. They do commercial linens and such. In the old days, they used steam. At 7am, noon, and 3pm, they would blow the steam whistle. As they got rid of the steam and went to other forms of heat, they wanted to stop blowing the whistle, the town drew up in arms and Crown put in a new whistle. Because we did not need to get up before 7am, and the boys would, the rule in our house was "you can’t get up before the whistle blows".

At times you could hear them talking, wondering if the whistle had blown and could they get up. It is a treat listening to under 3 year olds discussing such important matters. Actually, I am not sure how much the discussions have changed over the years. However, we no longer live in Mexico, so no whistle. We get up around 6 am, sometimes before, sometimes after, but on average 6 am. It is Saturday, so, "At the Movies" is on. We don’t go to the movies much anymore, thank goodness for Red Box. It used to be Netflix, but instant gratification is more the American way. Suzanne used to be the first at Blockbuster, when we lived close to one, and she would rent the new movies, whether she was going to watch them or not, go figure. I think it is like a shopping compulsion. She buys cleaning supplies she will never use, or never use up, as well, thank my lucky stars it is no shoes, clothing, and jewlery.

Ryan and his 2 year old daughter, soon to be 3, came to visit us for his birthday. We live on a very large lake and are out in the woods but only 5 miles from town. When we lived in Kansas City, Austin, Anchorage, Springfield downtown was more like 12 miles and you had to drive through traffic. Now we have to watch out for the deer and turkey and make sure we drive slowly through the Boy Scout Camp. Ryan went to town last night, about the time we went to bed to celebrate his birthday with friends, at a friend’s bar and to sing Kareoke. He was back before 12:30 am, I know this because I was up and took inventory of the people and dogs, checked open doors, which were closed at 10:30 pm, and the lights in the basement were on and he was at the computer.

So, we were up watching our Saturday morning show and heard some rumblings from the bedroom he uses when he is here. He was looking very chipper until he asked the time. 6:19 we told him. He performed an immediate about face and was back in bed before we could ask how his evening went. If only we had a whistle, like the one in Mexico, he would have known it was not even close to time for him to get up. Actually, I think the second whistle is more to his liking when he is here.