Lambeau Field, where the memories of Vince Lombardi and Curly Lambeau live on.

February 18, 2020 - Tuesday morning

23 degrees/cloudy/windy

Pentoga Road

I've been careful this winter to dodge the local cold and flu germs that seem to be gripping the UP as well as the rest of the nation. Sargie and I, both, have taken Air Borne every day. I swallow the Areds vitamins for my eyes as well as including an extra dose of vitamins C and D. We certainly don't go around hugging and kissing anyone who appears to be gasping their last dying breath and bleeding from their eyes.

It's been to no avail. The dreaded germ found me.

We had a visitor a few days ago who was sick. Part of the germ obviously vacated her body and decided to call mine home. 

I'm not going to blame our visitor entirely. It's also the lion's fault... as in The Lion Sleeps Tonight. 

The visitor shared her germs, the lion the symptoms.

Darn lion. More about that later.

Monday was a lot of fun. Sargie had given me an Alexa Auto for Christmas and we weren't too many miles down the road before Sargie had it installed. 

Let the fun begin.

We enjoyed requesting songs, those from the 50's through the 80's, and with Alexa in such high demand, we took turns asking for our favorites. I was trending towards Alan Jackson crooning the old time gospel tunes while Sargie's tastes tended to be a bit more modern, Meat Loaf, Fleetwood Mac, etc. 

If a song was newer than thirty years old, we probably didn't request it. Sargie and I were in search of quality, not noise.

I became teary-eyed more than once yesterday as I listened to some of the gospel songs that Dad I played every evening after supper. We seldom missed a night of playing and singing from the time I was in the lower grades until I graduated from high school and went off to the university.

I've been told I'm musical, but Dad was a musician. Thankfully, he shared almost everything I now appreciate about the art.

Dad played either baritone ukulele or sometimes laptop steel. I picked the banjo. When Aunt Doogie and/or Uncle Bugsy was around, Dad's sister and baby brother, they'd join us and we'd sing three and four part harmony. Aunt Doogie was a piano/auto harp player, Uncle Bugs played the bass.

Listening to yesterday's songs evoked a litany of wonderful family memories, all of them good.

Precious memories,

How they linger,

How they linger in my soul...

Amen. 

We arrived in Green Bay a few minutes early and were soon driving a rental car, paid for by Hyundai, while the recall work was being done on the Sonata.

I showed the girl at Hertz my driver's license. She quickly informed me that my license was expired and was no good.

What? Oh Lord! 

When I renewed the license last summer, I must have thrown away the new one and kept the old. 

Consequently, Sargie was the designated driver.

Our auto du' jour was a Kia Soul. For being so ugly, it sure was nice on the inside.

 Shopping and Sonata completed, we were on our way home by mid afternoon.

Now's when the lion comes into play...

I requested the age old favorite, The Lion Sleeps Tonight.

Now I don't consider myself a music snob and prefer the old country music genre to that of more modern or classical, but I do have a couple of degrees in music. 

Assuming the all consuming role of Director of Music while Driving Down the Highway, a self appointed title, I decided to let Sargie garner all the credit and sing the lead, the person who crooned, "In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight."

Having such a deep and intimate knowledge of musicology, I took it upon myself to do double duty. I'd sing the accompaniment "a whim a wat a whim a wat," then occasionally switch off and do the ultra high soprano voice that interacts with the lead.

So down the road we drove, singing at the top of our voices. At one point, I got so carried away "a whim a wat' ing" that I began driving into the wrong lane. 

The long arm of Sargie quickly rectified the situation and we continued crooning on the right side of the road.

If singing the song once was so much fun, why not twice, or how about three times?

"Alexa, play In the Jungle," and we'd once again begin to sing, the last time with hand gestures and coordinated dancing from the waist up.

We were midway through, the umpteenth time around, when it happened. I was singing the high soprano at the top of my voice, being quite operatic really, when it happened. My falsetto voice cracked and my throat began to hurt. 

I remember thinking that as long as I was going to be sick, I might as well enjoy the moment. We sang different songs all the way home, but my "a wim a wat" and soprano singing day was over.

I continued to feel worse last night and finally, at bedtime, I decided to call a tele medicine doctor to get a prescription. The annual Mighty Milligan Big People Get-Away is this coming weekend in Escanaba and we leave in two weeks to see Mississippi Brother Garry and Miss Jody.

My appointment was uneventful and I'll be picking up my prescription in Crystal Falls as soon as the pharmacy opens.

Oh, my current driver's license, the one I threw away?

I was tearing through one drawer after another last night when Sargie walked up and plopped the current license in front of me?

"Where you'd find that?" I asked?

She smiled. "You were going to throw it away last summer and since it had your picture, I decided to save it. It's been in my dresser since."

When God made my Sargie, he broke the sweetheart mold.

I was up at 1:30 this morning having a coughing fit, but soon went back to bed and slept the remainder of the early morning hours. 

What's today bring? I'll drive to the pharmacy after while and Sargie has one or two things she wants me to get at the grocery store while I'm in town. I could warm up the shop and play the day away out there or I may simply lay on the couch under a blanket and read, letting my body fight off the dreaded germ.

For certain, I won't be singing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." 

After all, a man's work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...