How about the Tuba?

“We need to figure out what sport you’re going to play, Puck,” I told him. “It’s about time you learned at least one team sport.”

“I don’t want to play a sport.”

Puck meandered around the driveway with his brother on their little bike-cars together.

“Well, you need to either try one sport at least one time, or an instrument,” Oxbear added.

“Okay, I’ll play an instrument.”

“You’ll have to practice half an hour a day,” I warned him.

“WHAT?!”

“He’d have to do the same thing if he played a sport,” Oxbear reminded him.

“Okay, I’ll play an instrument.”

“Which one?”

“What’s the easiest?” Puck grinned. “Harmonica?”

“Dad says you have to be challenged,” I said.

He grinned again. “How about the tuba?”

“You’re going to take tuba over basketball?”

He giggled. “What about yodeling?”

Unfortunately, Oxbear started to get behind that idea. I left them to figure it out together until Puck and I discussed genealogies in Genesis later in the afternoon on the porch.

Meanwhile, some of Mom’s adventures were trickling back from across the old pond. I heard something about having lunch with the governor of some obscure German town, because apparently she was an American celebrity over there during her visit.

Since it was Elmer’s birthday, he and Jaya invited the siblings over to their little house in St. Charles for taco dip, brownies, and a little Nimrod. Nimrod the kitten, who might as well have been Snuggles 2.0.

It was my first visit, so Elmer gave me the tour, which included an old-fashioned hand-propelled lawn mower in the garage, and the original trap-door staircase leading up to the attic. He also proudly displayed the perfectly trimmed front yard and sidewalks before Thunderbird and Annamaria arrived with a tower of board games to join a growing circle of their young friends in the living room.

Still, we left at 8:45. Because it was a Saturday night and we had to go grocery shopping.