“What’s up, Chicken Butt?”

I don’t know the origin of this greeting – probably from some childhood game.  But for me, it was how I began every phone conversation with my Mom.  We spoke nearly every day. Sometimes I’d call on my morning hike and sometimes when I was making dinner.  The conversations weren’t necessarily long or deep, but I loved the ritual — knowing what she ate, what she was watching on tv, how many card games of 500 she had won, what the weather was like.  

There are also specific phone conversations I recall — whenever I