Opinion

What comes after the Fourth?

Friday, July 10, 2015

When I wrote the headline for this article, I was remembering the children's puzzle, which I heard again this past weekend. "Why is six afraid to get bigger?" Because 789. If you don't get it, ask someone who has been a child once.

But my thoughts were really with all the activities of the past week and how busy I was in spite of them telling me to go sit down. First, we had a houseguest of our 16-year-old great-granddaughter for the week. This worked out fine for her since our 16-year-old great-grandson lives over at the Wayside. They were together most of the week, swimming, either at the town pool, going to the movies when they got rained out of the pool, and then swimming in our Bronze Pond. In order to have fun with our paddleboat they had to empty it out of all the recent rainfall, so that used many towels on muddy feet. They didn't track in past the little linoleum spot near the door, and they left the dirty towels in the washing machine so that was certainly worth the fun of watching the two enjoying themselves as their parents did (and still do in a more mature way).

To add to the fun, Marilyn, Dennis and Avery came down Friday afternoon from their apartment in Butler. Since Avery is almost three she runs and plays with whatever is in the yard, including the neighbor's chickens, our outdoor cats and the cats I am boarding for our daughter, Susan. But her 16-year-old aunt was a big help on that and the two had fun together while her mother and I sat in the swing and watched. Her grandmother, Shirley joined in of course, but her mother is supposed to take it easy which is hard for her to do with all this activity going on.

A quick visit from some friends from the past who were visiting our son and daughter-in-law for the weekend brought back memories of our years at Butler, and another short visit from our great-granddaughter's father and step mother coming to pick up Michaela finished up the holiday.

Oops, I forgot the actual fireworks which our great-grandson in-law, Dennis, set off for us on the night of the fourth after we had watched the performance from Washington on the Capital lawn. That was particularly interesting to Shirley and me because we had been at that type of presentation, a generation ago with the parents of the present day sixteen year olds. We were sitting on the grass with the fireworks seemingly coming down all around us. The Vernon County version that we had this week was not as impressive but was just the right size to introduce little Avery to the world of adults liking to play with fire. She honored me by sitting in my lap through the impressive fountains we had, but refused to hold a sparkler, but loved to see what her great aunt Susan was doing with hers.

So now Jerron has gone mountain climbing with his other grandfather, our houseguests are gone and Shirley has washed the bedding and re-made the beds, the towels are washed and ready for another onslaught of swimmers, boaters or fisherpeople. No one is waiting to use my computer. No one's ringtone is making me feel like something is about to happen, and best of all, NO ONE IS HUNGRY, THIRSTY OR OVERTIRED.

In the meantime since they have left, I was able to watch a big blue heron catch one of our fish. I saw either four or five of our grass carp swimming around together in the shallow water trying to eat all the growth, which was on the edge of our pond but now is inside. I have picked up all the pop cans and Dr. Pepper bottles from the deck. And I decided that Lester and I could each fix our own lunches and I am going to finish that mystery I started reading a week ago. Maybe I'll have time to play some Scrabble on Facebook also.