Hello My Baby! Hello My Honey!

The other night I was having dinner with all the in-laws as one brother was in town with his family. Somehow Michigan J. Frog came up. For those of you who don't know, that's the name of the singin' dancin' frog in the Warner Bros cartoons. He always brings to mind a very fond memory I feel like sharing.

Back in the day I used to be obsessed with Gregg Jefferies. At the time he was a Met. As luck would have it, he very often played in Chicago on my birthday so I'd get a special birthday treat. My whole family went for my 18th birthday. But this birthday was a few years later.

My mom and I made a special trip of going to the Mets/Cubs game that year. We drove down to Chicago for the afternoon game. I don't remember much about that except we were two brave gals about town negotiating the Chicago traffic. Before, we'd often taken a bus trip. After the game we made our way home via Michigan City, Indiana. There's not much there except for a very cool outlet mall. We got a room for the night and the next day we'd do the shops.

I have no idea when it started, if it was Chicago or at the outlets, but somehow we got the "Hello my baby. Hello my honey. Hello my ragtime gal." in our heads. I got a keychain with Michigan J. Frog on it. We shopped and shopped and stopped for chocolate sodas at an olde tyme ice cream parlor there at the outlets. I'd never had an ice cream soda before.

Then we took off for the Big GR and if I remember right we stopped and said hey to my brother in the Big Kzoo. Seeing him was a treat back then, as it is now, because he was "so far away". It was upwards of an hour to Kalamazoo. Now he's probably on a ship somewhere off the coast of Alaska.

I remember even as we were having fun that trip that I would always treasure the memory. I got the keychain as a memento. It actually broke not to long after that. But I still kept it to always remind me of that awesome birthday. To my knowledge it's still in my hope chest chock full of all manner of mens toes.

I kinda miss my family sometimes. But, I guess that's what God invented every-other Christmas for. ;) Seriously, though... those of you who have family close to you have no idea how good you have it.