Some birthdays the hits just keep on rolling. Although my actual birthday was the 21st., two nights later another Memory Maker at El Jimador in Cayce. Pretty and I met some of our Gamecock Women’s basketball buddies JD, Garner, Brian, Joan and Robert for a dinner at a – wait for it – Mexican restaurant to continue celebrating the euphoria of our third National Championship, and talking up the chances of repeating in 2025 when the Final Four returns to Tampa Bay where Pretty and I attended our first Final Four with the Gamecocks in 2015 when, alas, there was no victory to celebrate.
Garner and JD found this birthday card that reminded them of my greeting whenever I see them at the games: Hey, girls, hey!
But they also brought me a bottle of my favorite liquor for shots before the games, or really for any occasion. Silver Patro’n Tequila. (Excuse the accent mark error.) Hopefully, you already know the tequila I’m talking about. JD included a container of his famous homemade blue cheese dressing that I could almost drink by itself with or without a shot. Thankfully, I have a bag of Fritos I can dip into it for a tasty lunch today. Yummy.
Brian and Robert treated me to my favorite dinner of two cheese enchiladas with delicious rice and beans as a reward not only for a birthday but also for my win with Pretty for the most repeat viewings of the 2024 championship victory over Iowa in the past two weeks. Our number was 5, but Garner and JD weren’t far behind with 3. If anyone can top 5, please let me know. Coaches and players can’t participate in the contest!
In June of 1967 I was already a sports fan even as I contemplated my graduation in two months from the University of Texas at Austin. This random picture recently came out of the blue to me from another UT friend who lives in Wyoming now. She and I were visiting my grandparents in Richards, Texas. Their house is in the background of this picture of me with my parents’ bird dog puppy Seth. The house no longer is there – it burned to the ground many years ago. I recognize the Texas sweatshirt – they came in all colors, and I had bought this blue one since I already had several orange ones. Check out the vanilla jeans, a wardrobe necessity for me.
That twenty-one-year-old young woman could never have imagined the twists and turns her life would take in the next fifty-seven years, but she would always remember her family on every birthday, holiday, and days in between because she still felt their love from deep in her heart.
Maybe she should write a book about that time, the place and her people. Oh, that’s right. She did. Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing.
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Stay tuned for next post: Meeting a Shero!
I'll Call It Like I See It 
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