Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 15, 1993 TAG: 9308260229
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: kathleen wilson
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
``I tied a towel around his waist and made him help me serve,'' she declared.
Mary was just one of more than 100 who turned out Saturday to wish Elmer a happy 80th birthday.
``I didn't know so much had happened in my life until I looked around this room,'' he said Saturday at the Disabled Veterans Center in Salem.
I loved Elmer. But then, so do all the girls. He was wearing white slacks and a bright blue Hawaiian shirt, with a lei of purple orchids around his neck.
Elmer's been to Hawaii 31 times. On the way he usually stops off in Las Vegas to visit Wayne.
(Newton, that is. Elmer taught him how to play the guitar.)
There was a notebook filled with letters from those who couldn't make the party.
His 33-year-old grandson, Jerry, wrote about how Elmer would float on his back when they took his boat out on the lake. ``No effort. No struggling. Just floating. Like a log going down a river. To this day, I can't do that.''
When I started to leave, Elmer told me he was going to take me to Fiji.
``The ISLAND?'' I asked. I mean, with Elmer, you just never know.
``No,'' he laughed. ``The restaurant. The one on Franklin Road.''
As she sat cross-legged on her front steps inspecting the riches she'd collected in her hat, 5-year-old Maggie Cannon said - to no one in particular - ``This is such a happy day.''
Her ivory moire taffeta frock flaunted that universal emblem of childhood cheer: a great big ol' green grass stain.
It wasn't Maggie's birthday. It wasn't Joyce's or Lauren's or Kiara's or Beth's or Laura's or Kacie's or Annie's or Lindsay's or Bonnie's, either.
This was an unbirthday party right out of ``Alice in Wonderland.'' The Penn Forest Elementary School kindergarteners were invited to Maggie's for tea last Friday afternoon.
They arrived a little soggy. There'd been a water fight on the school bus.
It was the first year the Cannon family tea has been held in Roanoke. Tina and Jeff Cannon only moved here last December. It didn't take long for the neighbors to figure out the Cannons were, well, a little unusual.
``The first time I met Colin, he knocked on my door and was wearing a fedora and carrying a pipe,'' recalled Kathy Metzler, Joyce's mom.
Colin Cannon is 4 years old.
Under baskets of pink flowers at a picnic table on the deck, the girls sipped pink lemonade and Hawaiian Punch and nibbled on petit fours. I'd forgotten how great peanut butter and jelly sandwiches taste when the crusts are cut off and you're wearing a hat.
These girls were so adorable. Kacie Miner in her feminine pink and her no-nonsense Nike sneakers. The lavender eye shadow - deemed an acceptable in lieu of a proper hat - that framed Beth Snyder's big brown eyes. Lindsay Scruggs reminded me so much of Ramona from the Beverly Cleary books.
And when I asked Joyce Metzler how old she was, she said, ``I'm 6. But I look like I'm 8, don't I?''
\ THE PARTY LINE: If you'd like to invite Mingling columnist Kathleen Wilson to a party or social gathering, call her at 981-3434 or write to her in care of the Features Department, Roanoke Times & World-News, P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke, Va. 24010-2491.
by CNB