Love Thursday: Thank you, boys and girls and Norma Zimmer!

So, tonight I was saying goodnight to the girls and a broke into song...

(Just so you know, I tend to do that from time to time when the right inspiration strikes.)

Good night, sleep tight and pleasant dreams to you

Here's a wish and a prayer that every dream comes true

And now 'til we meet again

Adios, au revior, auf weidersehen.....Good Night!

For anyone who doesn't recognize this, it's the closing song from "The Lawrence Welk Show". Lawrence Welk is something of a folk hero in North Dakota because he's one of the first really famous people to hale from our great state. (We deserve more famous people because this state is just that great...just want to make a note of that!)

So, I'm singing to Marissa as she's trying to say goodnight and escape to her room for her 30 minutes of Nintendo DS before sleep time, and both girls start looking at me like I've suddenly sprouted a second, then a third head. Of course, I then had to explain where the song came from and why it was forever burned into my memory.

I actually love little moments like this because I like sharing memories of my childhood with my girls. Besides, it's good for them to hear about a time when we didn't have five TVs with 3 zillion channels and 4 video game systems in the house. Ya know?

When I was a little girl, we would spend most of our weekends at my maternal grandparents' farm. The farm was about 5 miles outside of a very small town (population less than 2000. Yes, VERY small), and on Sunday evenings after my cousins and I had spent all day outside climbing trees, running through fields, getting dirty, just being kids, we would come in for dinner and then a little bit of TV.

At 6:00pm sharp, however, Papa (Papa is the name I gave my grandfather when I was 3 because I couldn't fathom the idea of two Grandpas. Two Grandmas was fine, but I couldn't have two Grandpa. So one became Papa.)...anyway, Papa would take control of the TV so that he could watch Lawrence Welk. It was his favorite show and he (just like every other self-respecting German in North Dakota) never missed it.

All of us kids found the champagne orchestra and bubble music terribly dull, but would tolerate it because we knew that at the end of that hour, we would be rewarded with "The Wonderful World of Disney". (Oh, the girls were completely fascinated to hear that we didn't have Disney Channel, so WWofD was a highly anticipated event!) Mickey, Donald and Goofy were only an hour of mind numbing cheese away. We always knew it was almost time when the trite little waltz would start to play and the singers would sing those familiar words....

Adios, au revior, auf weidersehen.....Good Night!

Yep, forever ingrained in my mind. It's never gonna go away. Hmmmm....I think that's a good thing.