Old song but fresh video, neither of which has anything to do with the other except that each coincidentally features an important local institution.  Some random notes:

Street Lakehouse.  The video is all from this weekend at the Streets’ lakehouse on the west side of Possum Kingdom Lake.  The lakehouse is a community institution, a special place to me and to countless others who have been the beneficiaries of its owners’ friendship and generosity over the years.  Like the Street family, it has been a valued part of my life since I was eleven or twelve years old.  I doubt that, for anybody who grew up close with the Street kids, there is any other single setting that rivals the lakehouse as a source of memories and stories across a comparable span of time.  It’s been the site of huge, Cajun-infested parties that lasted for a week as well as desultory ping-pong matches on listless Sunday afternoons and quiet, late-night carp-fishing sessions.  If there’s nothing going on, you can always drive down to the cabin and see what’s going on there.  The new generation of Street progeny ranges in age from 17 years down to 3 months, and the infinitely expansive “cabin” has made room for their memories and stories as well, I’m sure, just as it continues making room for ours.

Old Friends.  Many of the people in this video are people I’ve known either their whole lives or my whole life.  The main exception is the Cajuns, who I’ve known about 17 years.  Several of my friends have kids as old as I tend to think I am and forget I am not.  Several of them also have been married or with their spouses for so long that I forget there was a time when I knew one without knowing the other, which is kind of like a two-fer.  I’ve had a few, very few, friends who married people who just weren’t . . . .  Well, they’re not who I’d have picked.  That’s not the case with anybody in this video or anybody at the lake this weekend.  My friends’ spouses are my friends, which is another way I’m lucky. 

Regrets.  I didn’t take enough video.  Most of this is just a few minutes taken right after we got there Friday afternoon (plus the tube ride with the Hays brothers and a miscellany of our respective kids.)  So you didn’t get to see the horseshoes, volleyball, fireworks or the several dozens of other people who showed up later.  You didn’t get to see little girls and boys with sparklers, or Thomas raising holy hell when McKenzie’s sparkler sparked on his bare foot.  You do get to see Kennedy and Jack escorting Thomas on his first day of inner-tube riding.

Song.  The song was recorded back around Christmas, so you get the hum.  And that beep you hear at 2:56 is an email coming in.  I don’t maintain very professional standards in my studio.  Sometimes I forget to turn the air conditioner off.  There’s something goofy about the time signature on this one, I think, at least on the beginning.  And it needs bass and drums, among other things.

Marguerite’s Café.  Marguerite’s Café was another institution, though on a smaller scale and for a shorter length of time.  For two or three years in high school, that was pretty much the only place a few of us ate lunch.  Spencer, Brad, Scott and Clay, sometimes Rick, all featured in this video, were Marguerite’s regulars.  Clay, two years ahead of us, recruited me and my classmates.

More Regrets.  Marguerite didn’t stay in business much longer after we graduated from high school.  Unlike Clay’s class, we didn’t do a good job of recruiting new regulars.  I feel bad about that. They tore her narrow little building down several years ago and expanded the Chevrolet dealership into that space.  I still look for her building when I drive down Elm Street, and always it’s still not there.

Fried Chicken.  The menu schedule in the song is accurate.  The Friday fried chicken is the best fried chicken I’ve ever had. 

Julio.  Marguerite didn’t really cook my goat, but I really did have a goat named Julio.  I got up one morning before school and saw that Julio had swelled up and was dragging his hind legs.  On the way into town I took the goat to Doc Hays, the local vet and grandfather of Brad and Scott, who said, “Well, let’s cut him open and see what happens.”  Well, what happened was he died.  Doc Hays stuffed the innards back into the cavity and gave me my beloved little goat, and I put him in the back of my pickup and went on to school.  At lunch everyone listened sympathetically to the story of my dead goat, and outside in Marguerite’s parking lot, a sufficient mourning period having been deemed to have passed, it was suggested by somebody, maybe even Brad and Scott, that if I weren’t going to use the goat, maybe it would be best if his body were donated for use as bait for a bobcat trap.  (This was at a time when trapping-fever ran high among some of my classmates.)  Choking back tears, I agreed.  Julio would have wanted it that way. 

Doc Hays died a few years ago.  Scott and Heidi and their kids—Ben, Kennedy, Jack and Will—live in that house now.  I’m pleased about that.  I’m pleased that the old houses are still in use as the generations come and go. 

This week’s entry is dedicated to Cajuns bearing oceans of food.  And to storebought shortcake.  And to old country vets specializing in large animals, albeit not necessarily goats.  We may not see your like again.  RIP Doc Hays.  RIP Virginia.  RIP Julio.