Green for a Day
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Collette was woken from an endless reel of the Fruma Sarah dream sequence song from “Fiddler on the Roof”, by Puck handing out a couple of chubby kisses.
“I have a St. Patrick’s Day button for you to wear today,” she told him.
“I know, Mama,” he replied business-like. “You told me weeks ago.”
“You remembered that?”
“Yes. I have good remembers. Good rememberings… There’s a fog outside.”
Puck was attending the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Cottleville with Mom, Cherry, and Linnea-Irish that afternoon, while Collette and OLeif toured Busch Stadium with Groupons from Gloria.
On the way out, Puck practiced Pimsleur Spanish lessons with OLeif and Collette.
“Purr-done sen-yor-reeta, purr-done sen-yor-reeta, purr-done sen-yor-reeta…”
The day was already kicking up steam.
Downtown was crawling in green. St. Louis beefed up St. Patrick’s Day to new levels of Irish-ness. OLeif and Collette slipped into their usual parking garage and hiked out a hot mile in the high noon sun towards Busch.
After a slight kerfuffle with clocks and times, their companionable tour guide, a gentleman likely in his late 60’s, joined them at the gate with eight others on their one-hour tour of a quiet stadium. It felt more like ten minutes, really, as they popped in and out of the various clubs, radio booth, dug-out, and field of red clay-like track and Kentucky blue grass field imported from Colorado – which of course could not be touched upon pain of death. Before entering the field, however…
CRASH!
A couple of the kids jumped as Fredbird came running down the hallway towards them. He passed out some silent high fives and hugs as he careened past them towards the field.
“Was that planned?” one of the dads asked their tour guide.
“No,” he shook his head, chuckling. “He just occasionally does that.”
The red head popped his beak back in the room and hustled over to OLeif. After silently beckoning OLeif to snap his photo, the giant bird grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him out to the field.
“Well, I guess we’d better follow them,” said their tour guide.
OLeif was already out behind home plate snapping photos for a couple sandwiching Fredbird. The avian mascot knew a photographer when he saw one. (Of course it helped that OLeif was holding a Canon.)
After a fine tour, the bed of telltale darkness crept in from the southwest.
“Looks like we’ve got a storm,” the tour guide nodded as they departed.
It didn’t bode well for the private tour he was leading at three o’clock which featured one of the included gentlemen proposing to his girlfriend on the field.
Their tour guide was profusely thanked as everyone jogged in separate directions towards their vehicles. OLeif and Collette had about a half-mile to go. Lightening tracked across the sky. The parade-goers were ambling in tipsy masses down the streets. As they arrived at the parking garage, the rain began just to start.
Somehow or other, for somewhat inexplicable reasons, they managed to become ensnarled in Dog Town.
Two. Hours.
Half a mile crept past.
The poor little red car began overheating.
To avoid the surge into complete overheating, they rolled down the windows and blasted the heat. This worked at least for awhile.
Going on five o’clock, they finally found an exit under pouring rain, flicking hail, rings of drunk college students, and crashing thunder. Church lawns trashed. Piles of rubbish in all the streets. Cussing. Screaming. Dancing. High-five slapping. Jumping in front of cars. Drink slamming. Obscene gestures. Where was that fresh Irish spirit? Collette decided to blame it all on the out-of-town college students.
A tiny vanilla scone from Starbuck’s helped ease the ride home.
Until…
After Puck had been picked up, under the supervision of both uncles (Dad, Mom, and Linnea were dropping off Cherry in Hannibal and Carrie was at church), the boys chatted for awhile as Joe tooth-pasted the front headlights, Rain-Xd the windshield, etc., and Puck demonstrated his new baby frisbees caught in the parade (which had been also down-poured).
Back on the road aiming for home…
That poor chugging little red put-put just didn’t have any more life left for the day. The smoke began flying out of the hood, high over-heating… it took awhile to get home, needless to say. It was a miracle it hadn’t happened as badly while they were impossibly stuck in beer-stained horn-blaring south of 40 madness. That would have clearly been labeled disaster.
Mom and Dad dropped off a car so they could make it to church in the morning and remedy the situation from there.
Puck went to bed rehearsing his Spanish…
“Purr-done sen-yor-reeta, purr-done sen-yor-reeta, purr-done sen-yor-reeta…”