Mayday...Mayday....

Millyrose reminded me t’day that I was supposed to have written a blog on May 1st that celebrated Mayday by remembering Cuzzin Richard...Every year for durn near as long as I c’n remember, when it was the first day of May, Richard would recite (more than once but gen’elly less’n a hundred) “HooRay, HooRay, the first of May, outdoor screwing starts t’day.”
Anyways, I forgot t’do it but last nite when I was walking the dogs around the block, I saw a grey-bearded guy in a motorized wheelchair truckin’ down the street. If I hadn’t known that Cuz was dead, I would’a tho’t it was him ‘n when I told Millyrose about him, she reminded me about the 1st of May thing....
Cuzz was named Charles Richard Dameron but the whole fam-damily called him Richard....He tried (unsuccessfully mostly) over the years t’get people to call him Chuck or Rick or even just plain Charles but somehow the only nickname that ever stuck was when I introduced him to the people at Stewart Sandwiches as ‘Cuzz’....He worked for Stewart a number of years ‘n everyone including most of his customers called him ‘Cuzz’ but after his Mother (my Aunt Billie) died, he announced to the world that hereinafter he was to be called Charles...then he pretty much took himself out of our family life...He worked as a bartender at a local watering hole called ‘The Stockman’ and made a lot of friends there...one of them went to check on him on a Thanksgiving holiday ‘n found him dead in his rooms.
I always figured that one day there’d be a knock at the door ‘n Cuzz’d be standing there sucking on his pipe but that never happened.....