From Birthdays to Brackets… March in the Empty Nest - E129

Clancy Denton (00:06)
Hi guys, welcome back to the Loud Quiet. I was having coffee earlier this week with a friend and we were talking about how it felt like it was just the other day that we were prepping for the ice storm here in Texas. And now we're almost halfway through March. It's crazy how fast this year has already gone by and it got me to thinking, know, our March

is so crazy and and the year and March is always a crazy month for us. But the first two weeks of this year have of this year's March have just been so jam packed.

Rick Denton (00:54)
You know, can I talk about you mentioning how it just feels like the year has advanced so quickly? I think a lot of it for us. I mean, the trees are already spitting their pollen right now. that's early. We got warm.

Clancy Denton (01:05)
early.

Fast. The one week of ice was really the only winter that we had. I mean, I was saying to you the other day, said, I didn't really get to wear many of my winter clothes and it's already time for me to switch out my closets again. Now today we have on winter clothes because we have a, it's freaking cold again.

Rick Denton (01:27)
And for those listeners that are anywhere north of Texas, you're probably going, okay, I get it. But it really has warmed up. I don't want to say way too early because I like it warmed up. just, I think we're experiencing an outside that feels like April when it's still the early middle part of March for sure.

Clancy Denton (01:47)
Yeah, you know, is it it springtime where you live? What do you think about when you associate March with? What do you associate it with? mean, I know people do think of, March being windy and you're thinking about spring coming in and those kind of things.

Rick Denton (02:07)
I am not going to go on my rant. I did a rant last week that was more serious than wind, but my feelings about North Texas weather are well known.

Clancy Denton (02:16)
But you know, our March gets kicked off with our birthdays. We both have birthdays that are very close together in March. And for you and me, we're like, OK, it's our birthdays.

Rick Denton (02:33)
Yeah,

we've never, no, no, no, I'm not going to say we've never, but birthdays, once I got out of being a kid, they just don't mean that much to me. And I'm sure the signature ones, let me, let me tell you the one that meant the most to me. And it's not the one that people are probably thinking it was turning 16. I was sitting there in front of the driver's license office in Austin when it opened like the old Mervin's ad. I mean, was desperately wanting that thing.

Clancy Denton (02:58)
Yeah

Rick Denton (03:01)
to be open so I can get my driver's license. But aside from signature ones, and of course as a kid with birthday parties and all that, I just don't care that much.

Clancy Denton (03:10)
Yeah. mean, I can remember a few parties here and there, but it was never just a huge deal. Now. And that's, think just how we have treated it. And maybe that's just lazy on our part. know, this year, I this year you and I were both like, are you doing a card even? And we were both like, no. I mean, we did go and we went

got two new pairs of running shoes. So yeah, but you know, we're getting cards from other people and we didn't even give each other cards.

Rick Denton (03:48)
Well, we've got a couple friend of ours that said, it's y'all's birthdays. Let's all go out. And I got to tell you when they first said that my first reaction was it is. Oh, oh it is.

Clancy Denton (03:58)
I know. Okay.

Well, when I met my friend for a coffee, it was the day after my birthday and she's like, Oh, how was your birthday? was like, Oh my gosh. Yeah. It was my birthday. Now Teagan did fly in on my birthday. So I was very happy that, you know, I told her she was my present. anyways, but yeah, it's just now, but what's funny is, you know, I want everyone else's birthdays to be super special.

I cooked your favorite meal for you on your birthday and so I do want you know I celebrate the kids big when it's their birthdays so I

Rick Denton (04:38)
chapter in the book called cakes on a plane because you make a cake that's in the shape of their age and we flew it out

Clancy Denton (04:43)
I

only do that for Tana. But not that I don't do special things for Tanner, but that has been her thing. But you know, it's interesting that I do, I do that for them, but I don't really want that for me. And so I was listening to a podcast earlier this week, and he was talking about

Rick Denton (04:50)
No cakes on a plane.

Clancy Denton (05:09)
he had a comedian on and he said, you know, I'm on stage all the time. I really don't want to be the focus when I'm off stage. And the podcaster said, huh, that's interesting.

You know, now that we have morphed into this.

area that we are into, I don't know what you want to call it, lifestyle, entertainment, whatever you want to call it. I feel like we're on a lot. And so when I'm not on, I want to be not on.

Rick Denton (05:45)
Okay, so that's actually an interesting thought because I don't mind staying now. We've talked about that. I'm an introverted heart, but I'm a social introvert, but the batteries get wound down when it's in a social environment. But I don't mind being on stage. And I mean that metaphorically, whatever that means. I just, I don't like attention being pointed at me directly for something like a birthday. I know there's just something that's different about that. I want to...

I don't want to say challenge you, but I really want you to ask you, go back in your mind five, let's go 15 years ago, kind of in the early marriage, that era. Would you say the same thing about how you feel about birthdays then as you do now?

Clancy Denton (06:31)
I

don't really...

I don't know so much about birthdays, maybe anniversaries. Okay. But I don't...

Rick Denton (06:41)
Yeah, but we killed those with soccer matches.

Clancy Denton (06:43)
That wasn't until later, but I do remember like one year for anniversary, know, you gave me like pictures that you had taken of Tanner and I was like Well, that's sweet. But this is what I get for our anniversary, you know hey, mean

Rick Denton (07:01)
Thank you for sharing that well

It is secret that I suck at gift-giving and the I it is a love language that I fail to express

Clancy Denton (07:13)
Now, I will say sometimes you do a very good job. Like, I got a Christmas gift this year that I was not expecting and you did a very good job. I got a birthday gift of five years ago that I totally was not expecting. That... yes, it was a very huge birthday gift. So, no, there are times that you...

Rick Denton (07:37)
you

do very I it up for specific moments once every five years apparently.

Clancy Denton (07:41)
So I can't even like recall even thinking about birthdays back then. in like...

probably high school and college, my birthday always fell on spring break. And so if I wasn't with my friends on spring break, then I was home and everyone else was gone. And so that always made it not so great.

Rick Denton (08:12)
Like

when we as a family were on ski trips that we would do, we'd try to find a nice place to go to dinner and wherever it was that we were skiing to celebrate your birthday. But it was under this overarching umbrella of being inside of the spring break envelope. know you and I, before we were recording, we were talking about how there can be a view that March birthdays are sort of overlooked. And I don't actually agree with that feel. I think March is one of the best months. Spring break aside, I get what you're saying there, but spring break aside,

I like the fact that there aren't really any significant major holidays. We have some celebratory fun holidays like St. Patrick's Day and others, but it is not overshadowed by any other month. Really the only thing that as a kid that I didn't like about it was that I was late in the school year. I was the last one to get my driver's license. I was late turning 21 in college.

Clancy Denton (09:03)
Yeah, that was just a TikTok I had seen and this guy was funny. He just said, you know, we're kind of in between Valentine's Day and Easter. And then there's this green guy that comes in the middle of the month and then it's all about basketball the entire month. So it was kind of funny.

Rick Denton (09:23)
⁓

It's funny, just, certainly from a birthday perspective, I had never thought of it as being overshadowed.

Clancy Denton (09:28)
You

know, talking about being on spring break, which usually fell on my birthday, we were in New York for one of those birthdays. this week there is Friday the 13th in March.

Rick Denton (09:39)
That was a good

which is

tomorrow for us recording, will have happened after, we'll be after it. So either you're going to hear this recording or you're not, depending on.

Clancy Denton (09:56)
So Friday the 13th is happening in March tomorrow. There has not been a Friday the 13th in March since 2020. And that is when everything shut down. was the, that was when we were getting, trying to get back from New York and Teagan was talking last night. She's like, Ooh, that's when we got the email that said, Hey, we're not going to have school.

Rick Denton (10:10)
I thought you were going say a different SH word.

Clancy Denton (10:24)
You know, but just for a couple of weeks, yeah, no.

Rick Denton (10:27)
That was when we were flying back from New York. Y'all were on Southwest, I was on America.

Clancy Denton (10:30)
⁓

and Tanner was coming in from London. We were trying to get him home from London.

Rick Denton (10:35)
Yeah, quite a scene, quite a story that we've shared.

Clancy Denton (10:38)
That's been in. I've seen it all over social media this week that, you know, this is the first Friday the 13th that has been since.

Rick Denton (10:49)
Like I said, either, because we're recording this the day before that Friday the 13th. So if you're hearing this episode, then everything went okay. We're all good.

Clancy Denton (10:59)
Is this like, you know, Y2K? We're all just trying to make it through tomorrow.

Rick Denton (11:04)
That is so weird that I was thinking about Y2K today. One of the podcasts I was listening to this morning, there was a woman in Australia that was being interviewed by a woman in the UK. And she said something kind of silly. Like she said, oh, how's my tomorrow? Because it was tomorrow. And it brought me back to when you and I were sitting in the Hampton Inn in Houston, because you were on an overnight as a flight attendant. So I flew down with you to spend New Year's Eve 2020, going into 2020. And I remember.

Clancy Denton (11:30)
Not

2020. Oh, No, going into 2000. I'm going to do that.

Rick Denton (11:34)
Yes, okay, so going into 2000 and I still remember when we saw the fireworks going off in Australia was like, ⁓

So yes, as long as Australia is fine.

Clancy Denton (11:47)
Yeah. So where were you on that Friday the 13th and 2020?

Rick Denton (11:52)
it'll be interesting to remember where, in here where everybody was for sure. Something that you did mention earlier, the little green guy, that I do think about, you know, actual St. Patrick is probably like, really? That's my day? A bunch of debauchery and the like. But St. Patrick's Day is coming up, another big thing in March.

It's been fun to think about what St. Patrick's Day was like for you and me in our dating days as compared to what it is now.

Clancy Denton (12:21)
And which we would never really even probably be talking about except for the fact that it has now entered into our son's world because of where he lives, which is right where we spent our early twenties.

Rick Denton (12:39)
And it's the epicenter of St. Patrick's Day celebrations. And we, you and I, and the thing is, I never really thought of it as that big of a holiday, but some of my Duke friends at the time lived close to the parade route there in Dallas. And so they had a big thing in the morning and we would go to their apartment beforehand and then head over to the parade. The whole block party thing, unless I don't remember it, was never...

Clancy Denton (12:42)
in the Dallas area.

No, because like we talked about really, it was in a different section of if you're in Dallas Greenville Avenue than it is now. Now it's, you know, it spans almost the entire Greenville Avenue.

Rick Denton (13:20)
almost as if they've sort of separated, they being Dallas, separated St. Patrick's Day celebration into the parade, which is family, and then the block party, which is not family. and yeah, that was, we would go to the parade and that would be kind of it. There wasn't much to it. Now with...

Clancy Denton (13:37)
Yeah, you

were done by, you we were back home and asleep by 10 a.m. because you had to get up early.

Rick Denton (13:47)
I

like that back asleep. not going to comment on the reasons for sleep. was just an early wake up. You're right. Absolutely right. But it has been fun to see it through the eyes of our kid now, our young adult kid, pretty much at the same age that we were at that time.

Clancy Denton (14:04)
Yeah, yes, probably exactly the same age. So yeah, that has been fun. And I've always loved St. Patrick's Day. That's always been one of my favorite holidays. And I think because I was born in March, and I think actually, I'd have to ask my mom, but I think actually I was supposed to be born on St. Patrick's Day. I was just early, yeah. And so, you know, and I'm Irish. Right. So, you know, that's just always been...

a fun holiday for me. I went to Chicago one time for spring break and... What was that like? Oh, it was fun. I may not remember all of it, but it was fun. And there's some stories out of that trip that you've been told, but not a lot of other people have been told. So we won't share those. River. Yes. No, that was a fun trip.

Rick Denton (14:41)
Cause I haven't been up there for Chicago.

So there's stories beyond just the agreement.

Clancy Denton (15:04)
Well, you've seen the hotel that I stayed at. can't believe it's still there.

Rick Denton (15:06)
my god, would we

I

believe it's not, well, I mean, every city's gotta have its place for prostitution and drugs to run through, it is, it's... ⁓

Clancy Denton (15:17)
I was not doing either of those things.

Rick Denton (15:21)
I guarantee the rooms on the left and the right of you were.

Clancy Denton (15:24)
I don't know it's still there and it I mean, I don't know

Rick Denton (15:28)
The

oldest profession and one of the most lucrative ones, probably stupid in business.

Clancy Denton (15:33)
It was in the AAA book, but if my, well, yeah. How else did you find things back then? That's how you had to do it. I mean, that was in college. If my parents would have seen it, they probably would have been like, ⁓ hell to the no, but you know, I don't know. So yes, I survived. I'm fine. All is good.

Rick Denton (15:35)
Boy, there's dating.

Does

that explain why you won't let us stay at ⁓ the more moderate places that you need the upscale hotels that we stay at now?

Clancy Denton (16:05)
No, that has nothing to do with it. I was a broke college student back then. I'm not that anymore.

Rick Denton (16:12)
There's

a lot of folks listening going, amen. We stayed in some places. I know that when I was doing the backpacking trip, there are places that, whew.

Clancy Denton (16:21)
Yeah. No, when Tanner was showing me the Airbnb that they're staying at when they go on this next trip in the fall, was like, my good gosh. I mean, yeah, it's very nice. Yeah.

Rick Denton (16:35)
I'm sorry, you're gonna need to be a young adult and stay at some of the sketch. boy here's a-

Clancy Denton (16:40)
No,

not where he's going. No, they need to stay somewhere nice

Rick Denton (16:43)
I still remember a hostel that Phil Davison and stayed at in Russia when I was visiting him. We went into Moscow on an overnight trip. He was teaching English in St. Petersburg. And I swear to you, the room that we're in had about eight people in this room. And the guy clearly had tuberculosis the way he was hacking up along in the other side of the room.

Clancy Denton (17:01)
Now see, okay, here's the thing.

Rick Denton (17:06)
It is a new segment.

Clancy Denton (17:07)
But

look, we're sitting here talking about these things that we did and we're telling our children, I guess now because we can see the places. we know it. That's the difference. And because we can see the places that they're looking at and see which...

Is that a good thing or is that a bad thing?

Rick Denton (17:30)
Well, I had a knee-jerk reaction, it's a bad thing because they can go live that life, you never know about it, if a cockroach runs across their foot, no-

Clancy Denton (17:37)
Except

I don't know the world is a little different now than it was 30 years ago. I

Rick Denton (17:41)
man

There was danger in all parts of life.

Clancy Denton (17:48)
If Teagan tried to stay at that hotel, because Teagan is the age that I was, yeah, this would have been the spring break that I would have been in Chicago. If she tried to stay at that hotel, there is no, I mean, absolutely no way that I would let her do that. I know.

Rick Denton (18:08)
And I agree with you.

If I didn't know about it, and it was in a culture and a world where parents didn't know about that, we would know about it. And she would then be on whatever consists of a podcast 40 years from now telling her spouse that's...

Clancy Denton (18:23)
That's so interesting to think about the things that we did and the dangerous situations that we put ourselves in that I would not let my kids do.

Rick Denton (18:37)
Ew.

My tuberculosis story, there's a sentence, my tuberculosis story. There was nothing particularly dangerous. Certainly from a health perspective, this was just a sketch hostel that was really cheap for us to spend the night in when we took an overnight train into Moscow, spent the night there that night, and then took the train the next day.

Clancy Denton (19:00)
way

more cautious than I was though. You, I mean you were.

Rick Denton (19:04)
Well, this was, this wasn't even college. was out of college.

Clancy Denton (19:07)
I know, but you were way more...

I have to be careful because my parents listen to this and they don't know all the stories.

Rick Denton (19:13)
I'm see this.

I guarantee they're going to be asking to a lot of these stories. Is that going to be the same?

Clancy Denton (19:27)
But you know, I mean...

There are times that I think I should not be here. so, yeah, you were way more cautious than, and maybe that's why I am the way I am now.

this weekend we took a trip to Austin with Tanner and his girlfriend, we wanted to introduce her to the family. They're amazing trip. had so much fun. That was our first trip together, all together. And that, that would be an interesting part, but it was so much fun. There's really nothing to tell. It was just a lot of fun. Have you all done that traveled with your, you know, I know like when they're married,

or when kids are married. Would you travel with your... But, you know, we had an incident with a homeless person and it freaked me out and I didn't like it. you know, you were like, it's fine, don't worry about it, you know, but...

Rick Denton (20:23)
You know. ⁓

Well, don't hang on. I was going to protect the hell out of you. But my job was to everyone calm and move to.

Clancy Denton (20:47)
I that. wasn't, I was freaked out after the fact. wasn't acting freaked out then, but I was very freaked out after the fact just because I know that our child may be moving there. And both of our kids lived in places where in the cities that

They are, there are a lot of homeless people around, but they have never been aggressive, never. We walk by them all the time and some of them are friendly. mean,

Rick Denton (21:23)
They're just people that aren't inside a house.

Clancy Denton (21:25)
This was the first time that I've seen the aggressive person ⁓ act out. so yeah, just, and so maybe that stems from the situations that I put myself in at an earlier age that, you know, I don't know. There you go. Deep thoughts.

Rick Denton (21:48)
could be good.

Or it could just be that you really like nice things. You know, either of us do, so I think it probably is a lot.

Clancy Denton (21:56)
There, can I use that like as excuse now?

Rick Denton (22:02)
Nope,

nope, You just gave me. Hey, so we've got one more thing in March that we wanted to talk about, which is getting started here, and that's another part of it. Heck, it's even built into the name, March Madness, right? Yes. Which shouldn't consume, you would think, that doesn't consume all that much of the schedule.

Clancy Denton (22:17)
my lord, when you're married to a basketball person, yes it does. Let me just say this. From Thursday at 10 Let me just say this.

Rick Denton (22:24)
10 AM Sunday.

Was that another segment?

Clancy Denton (22:29)
Last night, I'm making plans with our couple friend and I said, hey, we're going out on this date and this date. Well, ⁓ if Duke is playing on either one of those nights, we either need to find a place that I can watch it or I'm like, my, mean, and I knew it. I knew that that was going to be.

Rick Denton (22:57)
I know why you got the finger wagging here. I embrace it. I acknowledge it. And I say, yeah, that's my time. That is the season. We talk about it. We didn't get married anymore. I didn't block that. I still joke that Teagan came early and interfered with Final Four. So it's always been a kind of fun little warm spot in there.

Clancy Denton (23:09)
March was off limits.

I know you didn't think about that this year when we are traveling for like we are traveling back on the day of the

Rick Denton (23:29)
We'll be back early enough. No, I did think about it. Absolutely. I'd already figured that out. We'll be back. No. Absolutely. We'll see the Final Four in its entirety.

Clancy Denton (23:38)
This is the time of year that, and again, there's a chapter in the book about punching a hole or not punching, but- That's making sense. You did throw a shoe at the TV one time. Oh yeah, you should remember it when the TV wasn't, I don't know that it was during March Madness.

Rick Denton (23:50)
angry

Wait, I don't remember that.

wasn't throwing a shoe at the TV. That's how we had to have the TV start working. Yeah, let's tell the story where it's not like unhinged.

Clancy Denton (24:06)
I know.

No, no, no, no, I didn't mean that I just meant that you had to throw a shoe at or throw something at it, but it wasn't

Rick Denton (24:17)
TV

was so bad that she had to actually literally knock it around to get it to work and we didn't have the money to buy a new TV.

Clancy Denton (24:25)
Anyways, in the book, it talks about, know, before you had all of the picture in picture and everything, know, Rick cut a hole in my wall to run a cable through one room to the other so he could the computer next to, yeah.

Rick Denton (24:43)
because the interviewer

There's plenty of people that are going, well, of course. There are many people that have a certain song that goes, you know, it's the most wonderful time of year in a different month. I sing it in this month and I cannot wait for it to start.

Clancy Denton (25:04)
I am fully aware. It's already been on the TV this week.

Rick Denton (25:10)
It's sort of pre-March Madness, it's the conference tournament.

Clancy Denton (25:14)
huh. And you were watching ones that never even heard.

Rick Denton (25:16)
where the

trust me, you get into it just as much when it's that Cinderella team and that's where they come from. So it's all about the fun. It's about the madness. So I'm actually curious for y'all.

What's your household like for March Madness? Any season element of it? Is it St. Patrick's? Is it the basketball tournament? Do you got some birthdays? What does that look like? Because I know in our house, the season matters a lot and it is incredibly busy and fun.

Clancy Denton (25:46)
Maybe that's why our birthdays just get, we just get forgotten.

Rick Denton (25:51)
No,

no, no, no. The birthdays happen incomplete well before before those

Clancy Denton (25:56)
get

going. don't know. You and Tanner were already talking about where everyone was going to fall and how everyone was going to do and are they going to make it into the tournament. That's been the talk since the middle of getting up February.

Rick Denton (26:01)
talking about ⁓

a little persecuted this episode.

gonna put you on the hot...

Let's talk more about the dangerous places that you play.

Clancy Denton (26:18)
Hey, I gave up a lot of info in this episode.

Rick Denton (26:21)
Let's dive deeper there.

right. y'all, is a fun season for us. There's a lot of laughing. There's a lot of fun and a lot of intensity for it. I hope that y'all have a lot of fun in the season of March as well, and hope that you enjoyed another episode of The Loud Quiet.