Mom and Dad's 50th Anniversary

My mom and dad celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary last weekend. I'm not sure how it all started, but any decently sized event our family holds and invites guests to includes a "program" where my sisters and I, and sometimes others, put together a few stories and sing some songs.

Typically, my older sister and I will bring our guitars for accompaniment, but because we knew we'd have minimal time to rehearse, we used a karaoke machine for back-up. It was cheesy, but easy.

I sang "Playground in My Mind," a one-hit wonder from the '70s sung by Clint Holmes, and my kids sang along to the choruses, except my oldest, who at 16 is too cool for that kind of thing. If you don't know the song, you're either too young, or you simply know the song as the "My name is Michael, I've got a nickel" song.

I sang that one because we told stories about growing up, and this was the perfect song to bring in a new generation of singers at these gatherings. My grandmother loved the song, largely because of the "We're gonna let them visit their grandma" line, and I thought it would be nice for my mom to hear her grandchildren sing it.

I also backed up my sister on "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head," and I sang the Statler Brothers' "The Class of '57," because my mom graduated high school in 1957.

If you're unfamiliar with the Statler Brothers song, the cool thing about it is that despite sounding at first take like a typical '70s country-pop tune, the lyrics are deeper than they may come across at face value. It basically tells one-line stories of various schoolmates, some more successful in their post-high school endeavors than others, with a few words of wisdom in the choruses. Even though it was presumably about people who have been out of high school for about 15 years (based on the copyright date of the song), it is pretty timeless.

I'm sure a lot of people scoff at anything the Statler Brothers did. And while I'm not generally a fan of country music, I don't automatically dismiss every song from the genre. Besides, they really were more eclectic than that.

My favorite line from the song, which wraps it up near the end: "Things get complicated when you get past eighteen." I hope as a father I can prepare my kids well enough to fully understand and appreciate how true that is. Especially my "cool" 16 year-old.

Happy 50th, Mom and Dad. I don't know which event we'll sing at next - perhaps I can get my kids to sing at my 50th birthday party less than six years from now.