It was probably about twenty years ago. I was in college, and home for some holiday in the winter - Thanksgiving, Christmas, something like that. For some reason, it was just me and my grandmother in the car, driving from my sister's apartment downtown to my mom's house in West Memphis.

I think we were talking relationships, and maybe about my sister and her boyfriend, and would they get married or not. I hadn't been married that long then, and my grandmother had been married to my grandfather for fifty years before he died in 1984. I thought of my grandmother as a pretty good source of relationship advice in general, and marriage advice in particular.

So we gossiped and talked and kept coming back to the fact that you have to care about someone a great deal to put up with the things they do that drive you crazy. And no matter how good the relationship is, there will be some things that drive you crazy.

Now, my grandmother was not a woman to use strong language, except for a muttered "shit!" when something didn't go quite right - burned cake, bad hand of cards, things like that.

But she looked out the car window that day, shook her head, and sighed.

"You have to love someone an awful lot," she concluded, "to put up with their shit." That sounded like wisdom gained from hard-earned experience to me. I've never forgotten it.

She would have been 95 today. Not a day goes by I don't think about her.

When I was a junior in high school, the principal (who had a couple of kids who were in high school, too) would sometimes have a sort of open house thing on Friday nights after a home football game. There would be snacks and Pictionary and things like that. All very straightforward and innocent, but fun. I suppose he thought it would keep a few kids from going out drinking and screwing, and he was probably right. I went a few times and enjoyed myself.

One Friday night after a football game I went riding around with my friends Jon and Edwin. It was a stylish ride, too, because on that night Edwin had borrowed his dad's great big van. Not a minivan, but a full sized van with captain's chairs and a booming stereo and all that. It was known as The Party Van.

Sadly, the party wasn't to be had that night. I specifically remember us parking in front of the Walgreen's in West Memphis, trying to snag someone that a) was of age, and b) would buy us something to drink. We tried. Well, Ed and Jon tried. I didn't know anyone. Eventually, though, we gave up and decided to go to the thing at the principal's house.

We got there, and everyone was hanging out in the kitchen, yapping and drinking Coke and horking down Poncho's dip. It was a good scene, and totally parent-acceptable, too. Out late on a Friday night, hanging with a bunch of friends, at the principal's house. No one could criticize that!

Now, for some reason I wasn't really feeling it that night. I kind of think I was pining over some girl, but this is going on twenty-five years ago. I can't really remember. But I know I was kind of hanging back and being quiet. Who knows why? Teenagers are moody bitches.

Also at the gathering was this other guy - whom we'll call Jim. Jim was a year older than me, like Jon and Ed. I didn 't really have an opinion about Jim. I didn't know him and didn't hang out with him. He was just another big lug. The gossip of the day said that Jim had quite a crush on one of the principal's daughters.

(Also: I've seen Jim a couple of times in last few years. He looks exactly like one of the cops Ralph Steadman drew for Hunter Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas [see illustration, right]. This delights me more than I can say. Sadly, no one else I bring it up with gets the reference.)

Anyway, Jim pulls me aside.

"Y'all have got a lot of nerve, coming in here drunk."

What to say? I hadn't had anything to drink all night. Neither had Jon nor Ed. We'd certainly wanted something, and Jon and Ed showing up at a semi-official school function after a few drinks would have been absolutely par for the course. But it didn't happen.

My first response, of course, was shut your gob and screw off, you don't know what you're talking about. But Jim was not only a big guy, he was a big guy with a crush on a girl. No doubt, he thought it might impress her to bust someone for drinking. And he might get a commendation from her dad!

I knew even then, as a teenager, that there was no chance in trying to talk sense to a teenager. I just shook my head and walked away. Let him try and prove it. Which he couldn't do.

The evening continued without incident.

To recap the holidays: Christmas was good! A big food-and-drink-and-merrymaking thing at my sister's house on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Gretchen gave me a bottle of Blanton's on Christmas Eve; I drank too much of it and got teary-eyed at the end of It's A Wonderful Life.

New Year's, John and I shot fireworks, and a few people came over that evening. Then Gretchen and I laid around in our pajamas all day Sunday, watching football. It was glorious.

And for MLK Day I cleaned house and John and I worked with Legos. Then I went over to Gretchen's for leftover pizza and Gosford Park.

Related: On Tuesday night I watched the first three episodes of Downton Abbey. Butlers! Rich people! Cattiness! Wit!