Days of Robbin Hood, Gus' Pretzels, and Calls from Australia
Days of Robbin Hood, Gus’ Pretzels, and Calls from Australia
Saturday, January 28, 2006
While OLeif went to Whittaker’s and the movies with Shepherd Friday night, Collette spent some time over at the house with the kids, watching old plays till she cried from laughter with everyone else. And Dad had left for Los Angeles, his next flight heading to Australia at two o’clock in the morning St. Louis time.
Dad’s Schedule:
7:45pm (Leave St. Louis) 01.27
9:55pm (Arrive Los Angeles) 01.27
11:55pm (Leave Los Angeles) 01.27
7:45am (Arrive Brisbane) 01.29
9:35am (Leave Brisbane) 01.29
12:05pm (Arrive Sydney) 01.29
3:20pm (Leave Sydney) 02.04
9:45am (Arrive Los Angeles) 02.04
12:22pm (Leave Los Angeles) 02.04
5:57pm (Arrive St. Louis) 02.04
And Carrie and Joe had just come back from work later that evening. Joe headed over to spend some time with Wally and Curly. And there was a viewing of the old Robbin Hood cartoon over peppermint hot chocolate. Frances and Linnea were talking about a clip on television which had changed several well-known children’s book titles to the following:
The Very Angry Callepitar (as Linnea said it)
The Brat in the Hat
And Collette’s personal favorite:
Get Lost, Moon
Later, when Rose was talking with Frances about his upcoming communicant’s class:
“Frances, didn’t you already go to communicant’s class?”
“No.”
“Then how did you get baptized?”
“It’s OK. I got baptized without a license.”
Saturday was a good day. However, before she and OLeif left the apartment that morning, Collette was sitting in the car and she saw the Canadians drive off with a fellow in a sleek silver car with a Starbucks in the front cup holder; the guy was in a sports jacket, young, dark hair, five o’clock shadow, realtor-type, even used the entrance as the exit when they drove off. Nhung carried a manilla envelope out to the car. Collette had a suspicion that they were off to buy a house, and it made her a little sad.
After Joe and Rose spent the morning at the youth work day at the church, Joe headed off to work while Collette helped Carrie with her papers. And OLeif picked up Rose and Molly and swung by for Collette. In the next three hours they fueled up the car while getting drinks from QT, picked up a bag of pretzels from Gus’ Pretzel Parlor, and spent some time in the cold misting rain at the nearly deserted zoo. Fun times. The rest of the afternoon they returned to wrack their stomachs with laughter over old plays and such. Frances was later dropped off by the Coca-Colas, where he had spent most of the day after his and Linnea’s swimming lessons. And they ordered a great batch of Chinese for dinner over a “Twilight Zone” marathon. Carrie and Rose ran to Walgreen’s during that time to pick up extra blonde hair dye for Carrie even though she had dyed her hair dark, then got professional highlights, then dyed it blonde again all in the space of several weeks… And Mrs. McCrae came over to join their party as she was all alone, (Mr. McCrae being in Louisiana with Stan-o and the others for a clean-up, Ashley-Sue was back in school in Texas, and Jo-Jo was out with her boyfriend). Dad called from Australia, safe, seventeen hours ahead of them, and at 1:28 Sunday afternoon his time, he talked with them all over the speaker phone. And then Mom and Mrs. McCrae chatted a good long time. Collette heard them talking about the jewelry store Mrs. McCrae’s brother owned and where she worked, as Collette passed through the kitchen. And Collette thought of many things and thought about the good old times of days past.
“And he burned the chariots of the sun with fire.” – II Kings 23:11b