And it went 'Pop'
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Grandma Combs’ 70th birthday – and she was as hearty and traveling as she ever was.
It was the boys’ last day at home for a full week, and they spent the morning of it playing at a car show at Home Depot. They would be gone for six full days of bonfires, canoes, Indians, hammocks, and dump cake. The rest of the family would join them on Thursday after the boys frantically hurried to make their tents and themselves look half-presentable for the visitors.
Meanwhile, OLeif and Collette had brunch at the old Bob Evans for omelettes. There, Collette saw the friendly old white-haired lady who always served her family years ago when they frequented the restaurant. The lady had loved Frances when he was a baby; she thought he was the cutest baby in the world. It was the same restaurant where a tornado had nearly hit as they left one evening, where OLeif had first spoken with their parents when Collette was 17 (and also present at the time), and where Frances had long ago nearly choked to death and the whole restaurant and staff watched in horror as Dad managed to un-choke him.
Later, OLeif read more of his book on mah-jongg (of which rumors said that Noah himself played in the days of the great flood).
A trip to Klondike Park followed for OLeif, Collette, Joe, Ben-Hur, Wallace, Curly, Rose, and Starr as the rain began to fall, lightly. Ben-Hur had brought his dog, Samuel, and Rose took pictures while Joe and Wallace biked the paths. Upon preparing to leave an hour and a half later, the four cars followed each other to another parking lot to discuss the next stop for the afternoon. Somehow during that transition, OLeif and Collette heard what sounded like a gunshot.
It was the tire of the great green slug. Joe had sliced the back right tire on a rock. After he crawled the tank off the road, it took the five guys the next forty-five minutes or so to put on the ten year-old spare tire and pump it up. Meanwhile, Starr walked the dog and the girls watered him, and picked bamboo-like reeds and blackberries from the bushes, eating several.
Once the poor old tire had been fixed, they split ways and OLeif and Collette ended up at home for an early Father’s Day celebration (minus Carrie-Bri who was at work) over barbecue. And Mom showed Collette old pictures of Collette’s Great Grandpa, Great-Great Grandma, and Great-Great-Great Grandma in Connecticut sitting at the desk in Mom’s room and by the bookshelf in Dad’s office, back in 1916. Great-Great Grandpa, she said, had been the most distinguished gentleman Mom could remember – wintry-white hair and spectacles, tall, and refined. When Mom had been born (and she being the first female born into the family in the past one hundred years), Great-Great Grandpa had walked right through the maternity ward (back in a day when men were not allowed in such places) to see Mom. And no one questioned him; they thought he was a doctor. He had studied law and had written a ground-breaking book back in his day – Rochester & the Mayo Clinic.