A Good Day

After a long night, a seemingly normal day started, but more on that in a second.


Connie and I took our two grandchildren, ages four and almost one, to Old McDonald's Fish Camp for supper last night.  I like to get supper out of the way by six, under normal circumstances, but last night we didn't even leave the house until after seven.  Haydin and I had to look up Old McDonald's on Google Maps to get the directions.   Connie and I had never even heard of the place before until yesterday when I heard Austin Rhodes talking about it on his radio show.  It seemed the perfect place to take a couple of youngsters for supper.  Connie and I were sort of in over our heads, venturing out like that at night with two little ones.  They were a handful, but Rory enjoyed her grits (and throwing things on the floor) and the little man his french-fries (and watching the ducks and geese out the window).

The meal was great (I recommend the catfish and the fried shrimp).  But it was dark--a little past nine--when we finished eating.  On the way out we bought a nickel's worth of animal food and let Haydin toss pellet after pellet to the ducks and geese in the little pond out front.  There were catfish in the pond, too.  It was hard to see them in the dark, but there a few instances where they would snatch a food pellet from underneath before the lazy ducks could get at it from the surface.  And, boy, was it a hot, humid night in North Augusta, (just over the state line from us).  We had a great time, but we were sure tired.

On the drive back home the kids fell asleep.  Those were the first quiet moments Connie and I had had together all day.  I looked over and she was dozing off, too.  Too bad we couldn't just put the young ones straight to bed when we got home. Probably, if we were a little more experienced grandparents, we could have.  As it was, Sarah came home and sort of relieved us.  We all played together a bit, then I conked out around eleven.  The sleep monster got the little man soon after that.  But Rory had gotten her second wind and was up til past one in the morning, or so I heard.  If it hadn't been for Sarah, I think we would've died.

After coffee this morning (and I'm reading Cornelius Ryan's A Bridge Too Far), I came back home and took the little man with me to the car wash while Connie gave Rory a stroller ride down to Mrs. Minerva's.  At the car wash, we pulled up alongside those big pickle-buckets full of soapy water.  In each bucket there was a long-handled soft-bristled brush.  Customers usually begin here by scrubbing off their grilles, windshields, and tires.  Haydin and I practically washed the whole car, each of us going at it with our brushes.  He said once or twice that "this (brush) is too big for me."  Indeed, the brush handle was longer than Haydin is tall, but the little man did an admiral job.  He could only reach the sides, but that was OK, we used teamwork.  He was wearing shorts and sandals; and once, when he was standing close to one of the wheels, I  turned the brush over and started washing his legs.  That got a big squeal from him ... and immediate retaliation!

We then drove through the wash facility--sixty seconds worth of being assaulted by giant, whirling scrub brushes, slapped by huge strips of sponges, sprayed by blue, green, and yellow soap chemicals and water from the pipes, and finally being blown dry by half a dozen gigantic blow driers.  I let the little man ride in front with me.  After that experience, which brought forth more squeals and exclamations, we took to the giant vacuum cleaner.  What a noise it made!  I vacuumed the floor board on one side, while Haydin watched.  A time or two I "slipped" and got his trousers, or his fingers, or his shirt (more squeals).  Then, when I switched sides, he said to me, "I'll do this part."  And he didn't do too bad.

When we finished and Haydin was back in his proper seat, I asked him what we should do now.  His answer was to go back home, but it was spoken without much enthusiasm, I think because he knew I had something else up my sleeve.  I said, "How about we get some ice-cream?"

"Yeah!" was the shouted answer.  It was eleven o'clock-ish.  So I figured that ice-cream would be our lunch, and off to Bruster's we went.  (Haydin kept calling it "Roosters," so that will probably become our new family name for the place).

Bruster's

At the window, I ordered two vanilla waffle cones.  They were huge!  There's a sign there, a picture of a little guy named "Scoops," a teddy bear peeking out from a waffle cone.  Also in the picture is a yard-stick that goes up to 40 inches if I remember right.  By virtue of his height the little man qualified for a free baby cone.  But he was having none of that.  He wanted to have the very same thing I was having.  So we sat down on the bench under a shade tree to eat our ice-cream, both of us with our caps on.  After a few licks, both our cones were starting to drip (it was another warm day in Georgia).  The boy had ice-cream from nose to chin and almost from ear to ear.  He kind of looked around, then looked at me with a bright expression and said, "This is a good day, right?"

And it was.