Breakfast 35 -- Becka and Scott Hauser

           What brings us together?  How do we become friends, good friend with some people and not others?  What good friends could I have made that I did not?

           My mom asked me today who I went to breakfast with.  I told her Scott and Becca and also their son Holden.  Scott and Becka have never been over to my parents' house and have never had an occasion to meet my parents.  Darn,  another reason I should have got married.  So I explained to my mom that I had worked with Scott at Priory and Becka was his wife.  I then went on to say that Scott was the older brother of Jessie who I went to breakfast with a while back.  She nodded,  I think she cared, but she is also the one person that reads these words every day,  so maybe she just thought I will find out more tonight.

            I have been told by some of my younger female friends that Scott is really good looking.  I don't see it  (just cracked myself up).  I remember when Scott and I were starting to be friends that we made a vow to see every single one of Michael Vick's game on TV.  We were somewhere in Brentwood,  trying to remember, and we were watching Vick play his first game of the year on a Thursday.  In the middle of the 3rd quarter,  I think the game was called due to excessive lightening.  We did not see that game or any other Vick games that year,  I think it kind of killed our momentum.

             Part of this breakfast thing is just to be deliberate and intentional in getting together with good people and good friends.  Scott and Becka since I knew them have always been a team and they relish each other's unique talents while understanding they are sometimes quite different personalities.  Their love triumphs and they are definitely a team always working together and playing off each other.  Kind of like Frank and Teresa Corley.  The Corleys often finish each other's thoughts mid-sentence.  Scott and Becka are different, they relish in the duo--lity of their existence.  Not sure that is a word,  and their might be a simpler one, but they are a duo.  And love each other for who their partner is, while often laughing about the differences.

              Back in the day after a Cardinal playoff game, Scott and Becka and Mary Jo and I took on other fans after the game.  It was my one and only couple's fight and we were united against our common foe.  I remember some guy pushing Mary Jo and she looked at me with a "Hey big guy, you going to let this happen?"  smile that was intoxicating.  Soon there was a wrestle royale on the old walkway of the stadium to the south parking lot.  I remember Scott ripping bodies off of Becka like some kind of gladiator or super hero.  Later with all of that adrenalin,  we were recapping what happened at Paddy O's (of course) and it turns out the 2 girls might have stirred it all up.  As Becka famously quote there, "You can take the girl out of Arnold, but you cannot take the Arnold out of the girl."  The Cards lost and it was lousy game,  but I remember how triumphant we all felt afterwards.  Too bad,  Mary Jo was not to be.  Her smile would probably still inspire me.

            Scott and Becka and I have so many memories that just make the 3 of us laugh.  Some we still remember and others are lost forever.  I wish technology would have been around so someone could have taped my "fake sonnet" at their rehearsal dinner.  Scott once wrote a Sonnet for Becka.  A Sonnet--- that is why I would put their love for each other in the hall of fame.  Watching Scott trying to walk his son, Holden, through my complicated multi-part Dad joke,  it demonstrated to me that besides being a good husband,  he is probably also a great father.

           Then soon after,  Becka looked at Holden and said,  "What you have ever done with a normal mom?"  Jane Magee always tells me I need to have a sense of whimsy,  and is always ready to join in at the height of my strangeness:  duct tape suit,  bandanas with nicknames,  or various halloween costumes.  I will take that kind of mom any day.

          Holden you are a lucky kid.