Is the Last Man Left

My body was not interested in complete recovery just yet.

I dawdled.

Plain, boring, gooey oatmeal.

I sound like a kid in a kid’s book.

We had been invited to dinner.

This was actually, I believe, a “first” for us. Maybe mostly given the lack of intentional social… “mingling” on my part. Can’t help it if I prefer the hermit-under-a-rock life. [Fortunately, Puck has enough friends to fill this alarming gap that he did not inherit from his mother. I act accordingly.]

So I viewed this upcoming experience as an… “opportunity” to test Puck’s incredible sense of finely tuned etiquette skills.

Oh bother…

We picked up a pie on the way over.

This is how I do things, apparently.

The quiet Lewis family from church also has one son a few months younger than Puck, who enjoys Legos. Mrs. Lewis is a small dark-haired pixie art teacher. And the Bear and Mr. Lewis have participated in a scarce couple of joy rides together since last spring.

We enjoyed two hours in the yard backed up to cow pasture, some T-ball for the boys. Puck took a few good switch hits and tossed the ball in the air to get some whacks with the bat. After a little X-Box though, which was a first for our big boy, you could see his eyes at the table. He looked over the spread of stuffed shells, salad, bowls of pineapple, grapes, and blueberries… He didn’t feel well. A swipe of the digital head thermometer indicated a possible temperature of 100.9, and climbing.

Poor chap.

We were obliged to leave before the distribution of our contributed Tippin’s chocolate and crème pie.

Puck’s young friend waved him off, tearfully.

There would be other times to play.

Thought of the Day

Sometimes I still surprise myself remembering the weekend of October 16th, 1999.

Downtown STL, TWA Dome, the Billy Graham Crusade.

I was 14 years old.

Fourteen years old, and they sent me out there four times onto that massive floor sponged over with the reef of potentially emotional and/or confused humanity.

High school freshman, meet potential terror.

They called me a counselor. Of course the title didn’t really apply. I may have somehow inexplicably charismatically filled out three salvation cards for a girl in her mid-twenties accompanied by her sister, a blonde high school student twice my height at the encouragement of her boyfriend, and a shy eleven year-old standing with her grandmother.

But counsel?

I don’t think so… [Although I did write each of them cards later. I think one of them wrote back.]

I guess what surprised me even more was that, for maybe the first time in my life, I didn’t catch the butterflies.

Those bungling beasts of deceptive delight.

Collette Maritime Snicketts – the shiest person in the world.

And I marched right down there every single night – Bible, cards, materials, pens, and Joan-of-Arc-bold soul in hand.

Not even a flutter.

I guess that wasn’t me.