Can We Talk 2

90th Birthday

         My dad doesn't like a lot of attention. He retired at 87, but refused to let us have a retirement party. But his 90th birthday is coming up, and it's a good excuse for the rest of us to have a party. So I have to coordinate this with two brothers. There are so many possibilities. Staying at home is not my idea of a good time, because you have to do such a good clean-up before company, cook, bake, and then there's the aftermath. I don't belong to The Elks but I know someone who does. I'm checking that out. There's always restaurants, park shelters, etc.

         You can't decorate a picnic shelter or a restaurant, so that takes out that element. A restaurant limits the time and space for visiting and mingling and remembering things from 50 years ago or more. I don't have any large rooms at home for mingling. I've got a good restaurant north of town with affordable meals. They have a banquet room where I could serve our own cake. But on a Saturday night, we won't be allowed to have the whole room to ourselves unless we have 60 guests. I'm predicting 30 max. Price wise it might be a little much for families with 3 children who are picky eaters. This restaurant does have a Clint Eastwood burger and a Chuck Norris burger, as well as the usual dinner entrees. I'm not ruling out the Elks Club yet, or even my church. I can fall back on this place.


         90 is fairly significant. You deserve a party for making it that long. Being the backbone of my family even though he's getting feeble is worthy of celebration, too. So I have to figure out who goes on the guest list and what to do to make this memorable. Most importantly, how can we make him realize how special he's been to so many people?