by Bob Sparrow
Every year we throw a party for our neighborhood to kick off summer, and because I’m a Jimmy Buffett fan I bring in a Margarita machine and Jimmy’s Landshark Beer and call it Margaritaville. I also bring in a Pina Colada machine and unfortunately this year I mixed up the concoctions and put rum in the margaritas and tequila in the pina coladas, (which was even before I started ‘testing’ them), so we ended up drinking Margacoladas or Pinaritas. No one seemed to mind, or maybe I’d done enough ‘testing’ that I didn’t care whether anyone minded. There was also plenty of wine and mixed drinks – no one went home thirsty!
This year I emphasized to our neighbors to bring their parakeets (the definition of a ‘parakeet’ is a neighbor’s child of drinking age). I had to tell neighbor, Marc Webb, who had a beer keg brought in for his eight-grade graduation, that I meant the LEGAL drinking age. We ended up with about 15 parakeets in attendance, which is the most we’ve ever had. Two of the parakeets, Chase Johnson, son of Mark & Kathy and our son, Jeff, along with me, provided some entertainment in the form of singing some songs during the course of the evening. Chase and Jeff have performed under the name of ‘The Two Handsome Men’ and since I was joining them, we were known as ‘The Two Handsome Men and the Old Fart’.
Price of admission to Margaritaville is an appetizer, and the ‘hood, as always, went all out – it seemed like we had every kind of food imaginable, from sushi to pizza and everything in between. Truly amazing! So we had a great evening of good food, good drink (or at least interesting drink) and a mixed bag on the entertainment, the Two Handsome Men were great; I sounded a bit like an old fart.
Special shout outs go to Marge Dunn, who creates an amazing centerpiece each year and our next door neighbor, Steve Monsanto, who not only put up a ‘Margaritaville’ sign on the outside of his fireplace chimney that shined into our backyard, but he also created a special green light affect in our palm trees that was truly spectacular
The evening started at 6:00 pm and ended sometime around 2:00 am – I didn’t know I could stay up that late – actually by that time, I didn’t know I was staying up that late or how I was going to get home. Oh yeah, I was home!
We’ve lived in this neighborhood for 41 years and we’re not the
longest in residence here. Over the years, some have moved out or were asked to leave (I didn’t want to mention any names, Pacellis) and live only a few miles away. We do have some that we still stay in touch with that live in Texas (Hendrix) and South Carolina (McKinley); I’m sure there are others that don’t come to this foggy mind right now.
So, it’s pretty remarkable that we have all stayed in touch, and since no fights broke out at the party, I’m assuming we’re all still getting along. In a world where many people don’t even know their next-door neighbor, we feel very lucky to be part of this amazing neighborhood.
Hats off to a great ‘hood; let the summer begin. Fins up!!
