INSPIRASUNS

Over the past few days, there have been interesting conversations happening wherever we have been. Well that’s kind of open-ended isn’t it 🙂 . On Friday evening my husband and I were at a new restaurant that opened a few months ago. Many friends have recommended it so we stopped in just for a beverage and an appetizer. It was nice and the food and beverages were wonderful.

Now to the conversation part. So we were chatting with the young bartender named Kyle. I’m guessing he was 30ish. Somehow we got to talking about old tv shows and he mentioned that he had recently been watching the reruns, (do we even call episodes reruns anymore), of the Dick Van Dyke show and I Love Lucy. My husband and I laughed and commented on how great these shows were and how we missed them. Kyle said he was really enjoying them, “they are hilarious and so fun to watch”.

On to yesterday. My husband and I were chatting yesterday morning and again we got to talking about old tv shows. He went down childhood memory lane and shared that on Sunday they would drive to his grandmother’s house and after dinner, they would, as a family, watch Perry Mason and Bonanza 🙂 . You could just see the smile on his face as he remembered not only the classic tv shows, but the time he spent as a kid with his family.

Last night we had a friend over for dinner and over some appetizers we were talking about the music channel we had playing. It was the Sinatra channel, which took us to talking about the recent passing of Tony Bennett. This took us to talk about all those great “crooners” of the day, Frank, Tony, Dean, Sammy, and for you youngsters out there, they were known as the Rat Pack. They had wonderful voices. Well, this lead us to talking about the Dean Martin Roasts, and then on to the Johnny Carson show and an episode with Jonathan Winters and Robin Williams that was so funny you cried watching it.

At dinner last night we continued the conversation about the old shows, and we shared our conversation with the bartender Kyle on Friday night. After we shared the conversation about the Dick Van Dyke show, I remembered a time in my past when I had dealings with Dick’s family. You see back in Illinois we lived about 40 minutes from where the Van Dyke family lives, Danville, IL. Many years ago I was a co-chair for the local Cystic Fibrosis charity golf tournament. Part of my role was to secure celebrity talent to play and then speak during dinner. Well, I decided to contact the Van Dykes and see if Dick was available. I got the local number and dialed. A woman answered the phone, “Van Dykes”. I introduced myself and what I was calling about and wondered if it would be possible to get a message to Dick. I just assumed I was talking to a family assistant or something like that. Well low and behold, the woman said, “Oh honey, Dick in is LA right now filming so I’m not sure he would be available. But, you might talk to Jerry, (Dick’s brother in case you didn’t know), he might be available”. The woman continued, “Yes, it’s difficult for me to keep up with my boy’s schedules these days”. Um ya, I was talking to Dick and Jerry Van Dyke’s MOTHER… After I got over the initial shock of who I was talking to I asked if she could leave a message for Jerry which she gladly agreed to do. I’m happy to say that Jerry did indeed call me back later that day. He didn’t agree to appear at the tournament, he had another commitment and did admit he was more of a tennis guy anyway, but we did get some great memorabilia for our event from the Van Dykes.

The last several days have shown me a couple of things. They’ve shown me how our lives have changed, silly I know. There was a time when families sat down together to watch family shows. We gathered around the tv together. I’m reminded that some of the actors we used to watch, were just families in our communities. They are just like you and me, not bigger than life, not any better, just simple people doing what they love to do. I’m reminded that we are all God’s children and it’s just that simple.

It’s been a fun few days of remembering, thanks for letting me share it. Friends, let’s get back to doing things as a family, let’s keep Father in the center of those activities, and let’s remember again, we are all His children, and we are better together.

Have a great day my everyone 🙂 .

1 John 3:18
Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.