RETIREMENT PARTY

I never had so much fun at a retirement party in my life. It wasn’t because of the food –which was good, or the crowd of participants – which were many. It was because of one of those freaky coincidences which make you wonder if you are living in the Twilight Zone instead of rural Southwest Alabama.
I was helping out in the kitchen which is never one of my favorite places to be when there is a party going on. I never help with wedding showers if I can avoid it because there is too much quick turnover dish washing involved in serving 100 people with 25 crystal punch cups. I have this motto I try to live by –“neither dragger nor toter be”. In rural Southwest Alabama, we use the word “tote” often instead of carry, so toting is not one of my favorite things to do. Unlike many of the residents of the area, I don’t enjoy being a suffering Christian martyr. That is one aspect of religion I try to avoid. I am with the psalmist who said “In Thy presence is the fullness of joy”. I don’t like the moving tables and chairs aspects of logistics. To me that involves aspects of martyrdom. I’ll prepare food for a gathering any time and always do. However, this was an emergency, so I pitched in. The retirement party was for a man I share an office with. I have worked with him on many projects for many years. We share a secretary who was in charge of the operations aspect of the party. She is 9 ½ months pregnant as we speak. She was dragging and totting assisted by our Senior Aide who seems to be in the throws of changing medications. They both were nervous wrecks. The secretary was having lower back pains (uh oh!). I put aside my anti-dragging sentiments and started trying to help. One of the things I did trying to help was watch the guests go through the line to see if the food needed replenishing. Near the end of the line, I spied a little local man helping his plate. I thought to myself, “I wonder how he knows Norman (the man being honored)”. The little man guest took his loaded plate and went to sit down at the head table. Well, Norman has met a lot of people in his 27 years in the area, but sooner or later most of them come through our office or I have at least heard their names mentioned.
The program started. The Master of Ceremonies gave a glowing testimonial to the honoree. He then started calling on the guests at the head table to do the same. He started down the line. The little man guest was at the far end of the table. As the speakers kept getting nearer down the table to his end, the little man guest was getting nervous. Finally, he could not stand it any longer. He darted out of his seat and ran the length of the hall (about 100 feet) with his hands shaking in front of him. I was sitting at the far end of the room by a local couple. As the little man guest darted past us, he leaned over and said “I don’t even know the man”. At that point, the couple and I collapsed into helpless laughter. If it was one thing we knew about the little man guest, a speech maker he wasn’t, even if he knew the man. When he didn’t know him, he was petrified and had to run.
It was like getting tickled in church. The more you try not to laugh, the more you do. I just dissolved into tears of laughter. When I looked over saw my seatmates giggling, the funnier it got. It was so funny! We laughed and as we shared with those around us, they started laughing, too. Not just at the joke, but at how we were taking it. It was like when somebody lets out a loud poot in a crowd and then tries to look around like it was somebody else and every body knows it was him.As we laughed and got dirty looks from the more distinguished guest around us, we whisperingly shared the joke. They then got tickled, too. The whole table was silently shaking. It beat the heck out of most retirement occasions. The man sitting to my left assured me that though he had enjoyed the joke his retirement was going to be better. He was going to serve liquor at his party.