Making a personal list of the “big events” of a certain year can sometimes be challenging, but 2024’s list is very simple for me. I got married.
In fact, I got married to a wonderful, beautiful woman who has blessed my life every moment since we met. Folks who have seen the wedding photos talk about how much I was smiling, and I was because Leslie brought the happy back into my life.
We are very different people with different tastes. For example, she likes burned bacon and peanut butter and jelly; I on the other hand like things like fried polenta and cheese grits. I observe family traditions like black eyed peas and sauerkraut for New Years; she doesn’t understand. But for all the differences, we also have so many things in common including a bizarre sense of humor: frankly anyone who spends much time around me better have a sense of humor or they will go insane.
One of the things Leslie and I enjoy about each other is a sense of spontaneity. I think most of my life I have come up with tons of ideas or things to do. Most have gone unfulfilled.
With Leslie, I kind of have a partner in this folly: I can dream something up and she often takes the attitude of OK, lets do it. She has also helped me realize you can try something different.
A perfect example was Christmas. In all of my years, I have never not been home for Christmas. Whether it was a big family thing or a smaller version, I was always at homebase for Dec. 25.
This year was different. Most of my extended family had been in town for Thanksgiving, so Christmas was going to be scaled down. Dennis has an idea: “let’s go to New York for Christmas.”
We were there in December last year and it was fun, so why not go for the holiday? As hard as it was for me to believe, Leslie said, “OK.” So we made our plans and together with my son Derek, we flew out on Christmas Eve to be in the “Big Apple” for the holiday. We arrived in time to shop at the big Macy’s on Christmas Eve, ate at a New York deli and had time for a Christmas Eve church service at one of the really big churches in the city.
Christmas day, we found a nice Irish pub which had the Chiefs game on, although the sound was muted because everyone else in the place were watching and listening to the New York Knicks basketball game. We had a Christmas night dinner cruise and then the next day a trip to watch the Rockettes. Even though we had planned much of the trip in advance, one detail still undecided was what to do after the Radio City Music Hall show.
Most of the Broadway shows were sold our or too expensive and many of the other options weren’t that much different from things we could do in KC. Somewhere I came across an advertisement for a murder-mystery dinner show near Times Square. I said, “I think we might have fun,” Leslie said “OK.” That evening we went into what I guess is a fairly-famous Italian restaurant, Carmine’s and headed to a back room.
There were the makings of a 1920s speakeasy. The place was full of notorious characters: Joey Twohands; Donna Badthing; Polly Graph; Lucy Morals and the piano player, Keys Yacar. The joint was run by the mob boss, Lou Zar. All of the guests are teamed up at tables and between meal courses our job was to walk around and question the various characters to determine who had committed a murder.
It was an entertaining evening and now I can brag that on top of all my other accomplishments in life, I have proven myself an astute detective. I first came to the attention of the crowd when the soda pop girl, Anita Drink, admitted she had accidentally poisoned the piano player, when she in fact had been attempting to poison me. I guess I had broken her heart and when they asked for my reaction: “Well, it has happened before.”
I listened as our team assembled the clues and guessed who the killer might be. The group had pretty well settled on the character Carlos (no last name), but I then said I didn’t think so. My thinking was no one had a real motive for the killing, so there had to be someone with an offbeat motive, so I immediately focused on, as we all should, the newspaper reporter Rita Boutit.
I said if no one had motive, then maybe she just wanted something to write about. Like a jury, our group discussed and the member responsible for turning in our answer didn’t agree with me, but the majority did, so she named the group “Dennis and the rest of us.” I think it was fitting.
The joke came when we were the only group to actually name the correct killer. Although my motive was slightly off, we were right, and we were presented the major award (“A Christmas Story” reference.) Because of my sleuthing, the team agreed I should keep the certificate, which was suitable for framing, and I basked in the accolades.
With that accomplished, it was time to come home, and it is time for me to come up with another one of those crazy ideas of which I hope Leslie will again agree. She agreed with the crazy idea to marry me, which makes 2024 a very special year, and I am excited to see what the next 12 months hold in store.
Happy New Year everyone, but let me remind you, if you are thinking about killing somebody in a 1920s speakeasy, I’d better not be on the case, because I will catch you.
