No Convy Cash Today

The weather was good, the crowd wasn’t surly, and it was easy to find parking close to Main Street last Tuesday night for the Joplin Christmas Parade. When I met my family near 8th and Main, a young woman from ShowMe The Ozarks Magazine took my picture along with my step dad and brother-in-law. The woman asked each one of us for our names, and there was a slight moment of hesitation. Bert Convy. Flip Wilson. Abe Vigoda. I’ve held on to those old TV names like uncashed checks in my brain wallet since the 1970′s, and for a brief moment I wanted to see if their currency was still recognized. I imagined her taking our photos and names back to the office, and her editor saying “Wait a minute… why do those names sound familiar? Hey! Those guys are all DEAD!” It might have been the parade’s theme of Christmas Through the Decades that made me want to go back in time. I don’t know. We ended up giving our real names to the young photographer and then we cheered and waved when the high school band marched by. Sara (my niece) was playing the flute!