Double Baskets
Puck’s day began with a ride in his hovercraft (aka walker), which OLeif floated through the house in slow dips and dives.
“Ready? Ready?” he said. “Ram Mommy! Aaaaaah!”
Puck giggled delightedly as they charged for Collette. After enough surprise attacks had been made, as Collette cleaned up the kitchen, OLeif brought Puck back down to earth.
“Street mode now!” he commanded the hovercraft, as he slowly rocked the Puck back onto the linoleum.
When OLeif brought out the vacuum cleaner and turned it on, Puck waved wildly at it with a huge grin on his face. He then chased it around the rug crawling with his chubby paws, in his “Chick Magnet” t-shirt and khakis.
By the time Theodore had arrived at twenty till noon, to begin moving shelves into the basement, Collette was off for basketball games at the house. The sleepy Puck (who had already been begging pear wedges and potato chips throughout the morning), would feast on his lunch and enter dreamy slumbers for the bulk of the afternoon.
Grandma Combs was already over at the house. She had brought plants for Collette and donut holes from Old Town Donut Shop. She also brought news of how Uncle Mo had nearly been in a fatal accident.
“While he was driving to work the yesterday, out of nowhere came this wheel out of the sky and, I guess it was still attached to the axle or something,” said Mom, as she related it to Collette later. “It missed his windshield by about four feet. If it had gone through the glass, ‘I would have been a dead man’, he said. He called Mom right away and said, ‘Were you just praying for me or something, Mom?’”
Close encounters.
Linnea’s game was a close loss. 15-22. And Linnea made her first official basket of the season, which Frances got on tape. It was a good game.
Later in the afternoon, Frances watched “Twister” over a giant bag of green popcorn for St. Patrick’s Day, from Grandma. Carrie and Dad worked on polishing up the basement, which mostly meant throwing things away, as Carrie had predicted. Then it was up to the roof for Carrie and Linnea to enjoy the cool sun of a later afternoon in almost-spring.
Interesting news of the day – when Truman had been president – his parents lived down the street from Collette’s Great Grandpa and Great Grandma Snicketts. They would occasionally talk with Mrs. Truman. The connections people had.
Then came Frances’ game. For the first time of the season, he played against a one-time friend, Chester Hobcoggin. Even Joe showed up to watch after work. And although they lost the first half, they won the second – another good game to watch – Frances’ last. He scored their last basket of the game. (During the last game the following weekend, he would be on a camp-out with Dad and the other Boy Scouts in preparation for Philmont that summer.)
Next was baseball. Though not as exciting.
Collette returned to make lasagna. OLeif finished photographing Collette’s artifacts from Israel and departed for the coffee house where Curly was playing solo for the night.
Another satisfying Saturday.