HOW DO YOU DO?

Recently TLW (The Little Woman) and I were invited to a family reunion. It was neither of our family’s per se. But indirectly related to TLW’s. I guess we were adopted for the evening, kind of ‘Rent–a-relative’.

They dimmed the light when I showed up!

Going to family reunions are always interesting if you haven’t seen people in years and they vaguely look like themselves with a few white hairs more, or few hairs less or even pounds accumulated or disposed of. It makes you wonder what they see or don’t see since they last saw you.

Usually you know everybody and there is very little new in terms of faces. Unfortunately, this family reunion included people I never met before. In fact there were even people from France! People from France with French names no less are introduced to me.

Monsieur What's His Name

Introducing me to someone new is not worth the trouble: I meet him or her, repeat his or her name and forget it in the next breath. I am the worst when it comes to remembering names, first or last It wasn’t until I was 6 years old that I started to get the hang of Mom’s name, and Dad I was 8.

The Frenchman’s name I forgot, but the Frenchwoman, his lovely wife’s name was easy: Noelle, because she was born on Christmas Day! So the good people sat me with Noelle and her husband across from me, What’s His Name. What’s His Name is a handsome man in his mid-40’s, who did not speak much English, but was able to get me to understand him to some degree. He had to ask me to please slow down when I spoke because he needed to catch the words.  They were an extremely charming couple, and Noelle would translate to What’s His Name what he didn’t understand. I wish I had remembered his name but it was a French sounding name other than Pierre, so it threw me.

Madame Noelle

There had to be over 30 people at the event and the titular head of the family, a fine man by the name of Ilario, long since passed was remembered respectfully and fondly by one of his children, who told us stories about his Dad. One of the best people I ever met.

My suggestion is that starting right now, everyone go out and buy a name tag. That’s right, because if I know you, I may want to talk to you for some reason, and there is too many What’s His Names in this world already!