His wife says it's okay if her ol' geezer husband invites two rather mature women to lunch. So, that's what he's gone and done. Yup, Bootsie's gonna do some three-timing today. He's taking me to lunch at Hope's Holiday Shores Restaurant----and he's invited my mother along. When I talked to Beckie the other day, she told me he said he'd better invite my mother cuz she likes him so much.

My mother just lights up whenever the name "Boots" is mentioned. This idolatry began one February Sunday when I took her for a drive. It happened to be her first Sunday drive since our dad Harold had died a few months before. My folks thrived off from those drives throughout their marriage where their Batch One kids learned the fine art of roadside deer spotting (of the live kind) and not killing each other in the back seat.

After Harold retired, their Sunday drives turned into Monday, Thursday drives or whenever it seemed like a good idea to just get in the car and go. So, on this Sunday in February, 2004, I picked up my mother and before we left the house, a tear or two rolled down her face as she thought about Harold. We headed toward Clark Fork with no goal in mind. Long about the Lower Pack River bridge, an idea came to mind, as I could tell this experience was mighty raw so soon after Harold's death.

I turned up a road off the highway, refusing to tell her where we were going. As we climbed a hillside drive, with carefully designed gutter speed bumps, she wondered what kind of fix I was going to get her in on this day. After all, Harold had driven her down a power line pathway on the top of some Montana mountain when she was nine months pregnant with Laurie.

"I just want to see something," I said as we rounded a corner and came on to a plateau. Soon, we drove into Boots' driveway, which is lined on one side with Becky's box garden and on the other with a mini-Western town and a whole lot of stuff I won't even try to describe. Boots happened to be standing at the door, along with his dogs. I told him we were just stopping by to say a quick hi and would be on our way.

He insisted that we come inside where he and Becky had been watching TV. We ended up staying an hour, drinking lots of their coffee and laughing until more tears rolled down Mother's cheeks as we visited with Boots, Becky, the dogs and the house pig, which slept in the closet at the time.

That special Bootsie-Becky fix turned out to be exactly the right medicine for my mother on that February afternoon. She smiled all the way home, thinking about all the funny stuff we'd discussed in that house at the end of speed bump row.

Since then, we've also gotten together for lunch at the Hoot Owl Cafe at Ponderay, where I arranged for Boots and my fishin' and huntin' brother Kevin to meet each other for the first time over a birthday luncheon. The two of them have birthdays at the end of March, but Boots is a LOT older than Kevin.

Boots has been talking about going to lunch again for a long time, but somehow the recent release of Pat McManus' new book, which includes mention of no fewer than 35 zillion calories associated with numerous helpings of plate-sized chicken-fried steaks at Dave's House of Fry, has gotten Boots' tastebuds yearning for some good grease.

So, we're going to pig out at the Holiday Shores today where the cook knows how to load up the cholesterol with fries, huge hamburgers and delicious chocolate shakes, colored-up with cake decorating sprinkles. I also think Boots is also a bit nostalgic, hearing about our San Antone trip cuz he and Becky got married in a little town south of there a while back. He'll be nice and let Mother tell her own San Antonio stories, and then he'll throw out a few zingers for us.

I doubt the calorie count is gonna affect our "svelte" figures today because I know we'll be getting a lot of exercise during our Bootsie Tryst at the gas-station cafe. Mother'll be falling on the floor from laughing too hard, and I'll be picking her up and putting her back on her chair while Boots revs up for another crazy story that only Boots can tell.

I know this scenario to be true because readers may recall my posting a few days ago where I told about my prior experience of rolling around like a crazy woman on my own kitchen floor when the Boots and Pat McManus team went into full story-telling throttle at my house a couple of years ago.

I know from long experience with a book that has yet to materialize that my lovable buddy and Western cartoonist, Boots Reynolds (http://bootsreynolds.com/), is of chalk full of BEANS and even more B.S., but I can tell you that's a good thing for anyone who's suffering from a bad mood. He lets loose with a lot during any visit, and you always go home knowing that you've had an experience that's good for whatever's ailing you.