Happy 60th Birthday Karen!
Today is an auspicious event: the 60th birthday
of one of my dearest friends, Karen of Basalt, Colorado. In Eastern cultures,
the 60th birthday represents a landmark event worthy of celebration.
It is believed 60 marks a complete circle in one’s life. The planets are placed
in the same configuration as when you were born. Customarily, a big event is
thrown celebrating your life where you begin your day eating long noodles, a
symbol of an even longer life.
Who is this marvelous woman? She is simply spectacular. I
have known her for more than twenty years, having met her when we were both
enduring bitter life scourges in northern Idaho. She is a party in a bottle,
the funniest woman I have ever met, and has the soul of an artist. There are
not enough adjectives to describe how much she brings to my life. We became so
bonded that we made a pack that we both had to leave our God forsaken lives in
Idaho before one or both of us died from the craziness of the place. She went
to Colorado and a week later, I went to California.
Here are just two incidents from our lives in Idaho that
glued us together.
Twenty years ago Karen was a bartender at a northern Idaho
biker bar. Even though I was married, I would meet her there when she was
working to escape my dreadful marriage. One Saturday night when she was
working, I went to visit her to drink and dance. In my younger days, I was very
becoming and attractive, delighting in dance to forget my sorrows at her bar.
One night there was a row of men panting to dance with me but obviously too
frightened to ask me. At the bar was an old logger, the father of one of the
biker boys, who was into his eighties. I
asked this elderly gentlemen to dance with me and he was fun. Karen, who was
bartending, said to me the younger men at the bar, with mouths agape, were
stunned to watch me dancing with this old fart. These guys could just not
figure out why I would do this. Karen sat there and watched these guys and said
to them, “Let’s hope that old man doesn’t get an erection, he might just fall
over.”
The second incident occurred at Karen’s Twin Lakes' cabin.
During the early nineties, meth production in northern Idaho was being
proliferated and distributed by the biker gangs who frequented Karen’s bar. For
some reason, the biker guys (and their wives) really liked me and were actually
sweet to me. Karen is a fierce Irish woman who did not go into this trafficking
of meth at the bar. When she voiced this to the owner, it somehow got back to
the biker gangs putting Karen at great personal risk. One day in April, she
invited me to her house for her son’s birthday. I was stoked to have a reason
to elude my oppressive husband, so I decided to be merry by bringing lots of
birthday accoutrements to help celebrate the occasion. When I arrived in my
white car dressed in all white I must have looked like an angel. There on her
front lawn sat Karen with another bartending friend, surrounded by several of
the biker wives from the bar. My first thought was they were all here for the
birthday party. As I drew closer to this group, I was oblivious to what was
really going on. In my zeal to be festive, I shouted out, “Snacks, I have
snacks and coke (cola) for the party! Anyone want some?” What I did not see was
Karen and her friend were blanched white with fear as these biker women were
about to lay siege to them for causing problems with their meth business. Not knowing this was going on, I happily said “hi”
to the women and asked them if they were going to stay for the party. Because I
appeared so totally foolish, it dissolved their intention to exact their vendetta and they decided to leave. Still not
getting what was going on, I said to them as they left, “Too bad you can’t
stay, it’s going to be a fun party.” When the blood returned to Karen’s face,
she and her friend knew my clueless loony entrance just saved them from having their
asses whooped. Even today, Karen laughs how I looked like an angel that day rescuing her from what could have been a dire predicament.
Here’s to my delightful friend with whom I shared many
funny times. I love you, Karen.
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