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TAKE A GANDER AT MY GOOSE |
Every time I shower I see it and don’t believe it. It’s not that large, but you can’t miss it.And I’ll show it to you if you ask to see it.I got a tattoo! Yes, I, Greg Budell, sworn enemy of body vandalism, now sport a tattoo.
I sat there, while a young man, whose eyes bore the concentration level of a heart surgeon, inked the silhouette of a flying goose into my upper right arm.
I was not drunk. I did not have a relapse on mood altering drugs. I was not trying to be cool (gave that battle up long ago).
It was a sweet surrender, if you will, to a realization.
I have loved many women in my life, a good number of those relationships christened in the head-spinning euphoria that induces gross over-spending and marriage planning on the first date.
How many times had I said it, or thought it -“She’s the one!”? By the time my drool dried, I was contemplating ways to immortalize my feelings- to offer her a symbol of commitment above and beyond “I love you more than any woman I have known longer than 2 weeks!”
More than once, I considered having a name tattooed on my body.
Had I actually gotten a tattoo bearing the name of every “Great Love Of My Life”, my torso would resemble a somewhat hairy white pages minus the phone numbers.
Let me tell you something. I don’t care for tattoos, and especially on women. I know guys who are addicted to the dang things, with arms that look like the Sunday funnies. Guys are supposed to do dumb things like that. Hey pal, if you want arms bearing the history of the world, more power to you. Archeological arms on men are no big deal. Men are hairy and disgusting, so a full color cobra coiled on your back won’t stand out much.
Women, on the other hand, are beautifully upholstered creatures.. If a chick insists on wearing a halter over a pair of jeans, I do not want to have that visual ruined (from the front or behind) by something resembling the Presidential Seal stamped into the skin visible between top and bottom. As I understand it, those lower back violations are actually known as “tramp stamps”.
That said, a few months back, I received an e-mail from my daughter Janelle announcing her intention to get a tattoo on her 18th birthday.
My years of subtle ant-tattoo brain washing had failed.
It was an announcement, not an ultimatum. At 18, she gets to make that choice and deal with whatever consequences come with it, right? Janelle e-mailed a picture of a Lotus Flower, a reasonably sized full color design she wanted placed on the side of her rib cage.
While digesting this news, I thought back to my 18th birthday which
came along 3 weeks into my freshman year at the University of Illinois. I attended a Chicago Public High school with a seriously enforced dress code. No jeans. No shorts or tee shirts. Guys could not have hair growing beyond the tops of their ears.
Sideburns were a raging fashion at the time, and those of us who could grow them, did. You will note from my high school graduation picture on this page, they were allowed to grow no lower than the bottom of the ear- period. As dopey as they look all these years later, I asserted my commitment to 70s fashion.
Following graduation, I wanted rock star hair and let mine grow. And grow. The sideburns, no longer under the jurisdiction of Mr. Kittridge at Bogan High School, went down to the jaw. I was already working in radio and had to look hip! I was also still living with my folks and Dad was not on board with these trends. Hell, he barely countenanced the burns during high school. Pops reacted as if I had become a card carrying Commie, just like those hippies on TV. We were not on the best terms in those dark days of the Generation Gap.
The only difference between Janelle’s Lotus Flower and my Mutton Chop sideburns is that the latter are easily removed when they go out of fashion. So I gently reminded Janelle of that, and shared the breaking news that the current #1 cosmetic surgery procedure is tattoo removal.
Then I dropped a bomb of my own.
“I want to go with you and get my own tattoo”, I told her. “Go on line and find me a picture of a goose in flight”.
You see, there is only one Great Love of My Life whose name belongs permanently etched into my skin.
That name is Janelle Budell, AKA, “The Goose”. G-G-G-Goose was a tag I hung on her when during a moment of great silliness (one of many) in her childhood. It stuck. As she grew up and older, I never addressed her by that term in a publicly embarrassing venue but it has remained a term of endearment between father and daughter.
So, to symbolically “set her free” on her 18th birthday, to acknowledge
her adulthood and that no matter what happens- my little Goose will forever have the only permanent space in a heart that has otherwise been a cheesy time-share.
I sat in that tattoo parlor on University Drive and let art imitate life. Now, it’s always possible I will meet that “other” GLOMYL, and want to immortalize that relationship too. There’s space available on my upper left arm if she comes along.
I’m just not sure- at this point in my life- if there’s room for one more in my heart.
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