Silent Saturday

[The whole clown family...]

It's a quiet kind of Saturday, that feels like Sunday. Or something. Maybe because yesterday was so busy. Or maybe I have crossed that line in my head between reality and fantasy. Who knows?

I spent a delightful hour online with my youngest grandson today, IM'ing nd playing checkers and pool and sharing photos. He's 12. He's a little angel of a boy and I adore him. He IM'd me saying, Nana-I'm bored! Some things never change. I told him if he was bored he should go clean his room. lol He laughed and said dad said you would say that. It was always my standard answer when my son was young...

That of course, sent me off into a reverie about life 35 years ago. This is a common playground for old people, isn't it? Reliving the past, remembering things from 3 decades ago, when an hour ago, I couldn't remember where I put my glasses 3 minutes before. Anyway, it got me thinking about how different the world was, and yet how much things haven't really changed. Boys are still boys, and the dogs still track mud into the living room. Basic human traits, good and bad, are still prevalent.

When my son was young, he had acres and acres to roam around and play on, and he wasn't ever considered missing in action, as long as he showed up to eat. lol He had a grand imagination and was an only child, but he grew up with a plethora of pets, everything from dogs and cats to raccoons and flying squirrels. He made pets of wild bunnies he would find whose mothers had been killed. He brought home baby birds that had fallen out of nests and more than once on laundry day, I would turn out the pockets of his overalls to find dead and dried up lizards and frogs and salamanders.

He would spend hours drawing and writing stories and playing all the parts himself. He started learning to play the guitar when he was about 12, and played the trumpet in school band. By 16, he was writing music and singing his heart out. In high school, at a parent teachers night, his art teacher told me he "wished he had a whole class full of kids" with Tom's talents. It was a very proud moment for me, albeit confusing. I had no idea where he had garnered all this inborn talent. lol

Here's a classic example of the kind of kid he was:
He learned how to tie his shoes at 3 years old. That Thanksgiving, we had all the family at our house, and I was working myself into a frenzy in the kitchen, when I hear all this laughter and oooh's and awwww's coming out of the living room. I stick my head in, to se every pair of shoes in our house, all lined up across the living room floor. He is methodically untying and retying every single one of them. Each time he finishes a shoe, he holds it up proudly and beams. And all the grandparents and aunts and uncles and greats and cousins, all give him a round of applause. It was a moment of glory and an introduction to idolatry that would haunt him as he unerringly looked for his audience for the rest of his life.

To this day (he will be 38 years old this July) he is the class clown, the center of attention, and one of the funniest people I know. I adore him as well. lol

He came to visit us in North Carolina. There is a river there that's called the French Broad River. He saw the sign, his eyes lit up, and he said: " Huh. That river? It used to be called the Mademoiselle River, but none of these southerners could pronounce it, so they changed it to the French Broad." Ba da bing.
That's my boy.


Okay--got to get to bed. Tomorrow is the Area Assembly, about 2 and a half hours south of here. We'll do our duties, and then on the way home stop by my brother that lives about 30 minutes from the Assembly. I'll get to see my niece and sister-in-law and their new baby Cockapoo. Have to get up at 5 so we can leave by 6:30. WooHoo!!
ROAD TRIP !!!!!!!!!!!

Namaste.