New Suit

Today I went to the mall and for the first time in 30 years I bought a new suit by myself. Doesn't sound like much, I was expecting to be really easy. Which it was. However, it brought up a lot of feelings and memories that I hadn't anticipated. And why in the world would buying the jacket, pair pants, couple shirts, and couple ties become an emotional experience? The lady where I did not buy anything and the man where I did buy the suit from were both very nice and very helpful. About the only way it could've been more pleasant would be if they were giving the suits away, or were including a steak dinner, or giving away huge pieces of chocolate cake and ice cream (of course if they did that they'd have to sell everything one size larger).

Bette has always been there to look at the suit, the fit, the color and so forth. Actually most of the time she had wandered off picking out a shirt or tie that would go with it. Occasionally she'd be all the way over to the women's section looking for something for herself. Should always be right back with her opinion and a smile. So this quite literally was the first time that I have bought a suit by myself. The hardest part was coming out of changing room and not having Bette's smiling face there to greet me… I think the salesman could see tears welling up in my eyes from time to time. He had recently lost his mother. He was very understanding.

I was watching the start of the movie the bucket list. I thought it was interesting that one of the first things on Morgan Freeman's list was to drive Shelby Mustang. I guess I can now check that one off my list. One of the things I loved about Bette she lived her bucket list. She had her Mustang convertible. She wants to teach. She got a taste of that teaching karate. Later she decided she wanted to teach children, specifically junior high age. For that she started going back to school for her Masters in education. We would watch races on both TV and in person. She wanted know what it would be like to drive a NASCAR car are superspeedway. The Christmas before she died we gave each other the Richard Petty experience where you drive a NASCAR car around the track. She just didn't want on any track, she wanted superspeedway. So we drove the RV down to Florida and drove on the Daytona Speedway tri – oval. Home of the Daytona 500 in the Rolex 24 hours at Daytona. We drove my Mustang GT on the Drag strip (I think I have mentioned that in earlier postings).

Betty lived her life with few regrets and high standards. Helping others was always high on Betty's list as well as having fun. These for Bette were rarely mutually exclusive. I will try to live my Life the way, Bette would've wanted me to. I think this would be a better world if we all would emulate Betty's love and zest for life.