Maundy Thursday
Friday, March 25, 2005
Good Friday – a day of remembering the shadows.
But Maundy Thursday had been a good time at Grandma’s church. The play was performed well – a setting in the Upper Room with Peter, Andrew, John, Mary (Jesus’ mother), Mary Magdalene, Judas, and a Roman Soldier. Collette knew Grandma was very proud of the play, as she had directed it nearly fifty years ago.
On the way home, there were many discussions.
“What would happen if we went over the bridge into the water?” Linnea was asking Collette.
“Well, you’d hold on first.”
“I’d put my hands up like this,” Linnea raised her arms to the ceiling.
“No, you wouldn’t do that,” Collette corrected her. “You might break your arms on impact. I guess once you hit the water, you’d wait for the pressure to stabilize… Oh, I can’t remember.”
“But we’d just float, wouldn’t we?” Linnea wanted to know.
“Oh, no, we’d sink like a rock… unless the current was very strong, and we were carried down-river for awhile. Then we’d sink.”
“Are you talking about what you’d do if we went into the river?” Carrie-Bri leaned forward from the peanut gallery. “I read about that before.”
“I can’t remember,” Collette asked Dad. “What would you do after you hit water?”
“Nothing,” Dad said.
“Martin,” Mom laughed at him.
Everyone was listening now.
Dad laughed and added, “Once you hit the water, you’d have to break open the glass.”
“But I would just wait until someone rescued me,” Linnea thought out loud.
“Well, someone would, Linnea. But you’d still have to unbuckle yourself.”
“I’d unbuckle myself while we were falling.”
“No, you couldn’t do that.”
“No, Linnea,” Dad went on. “You’d get yourself banged up that way. You’d unbuckle after you hit the water.”
The conversation went on a spell until they left the highway.
“You’d be toast, basically.” Collette concluded.
And then there was a stop by the gas station. A couple pennies under seventy dollars filled up the big green slug.
“Nice to have a pit crew out there, isn’t it?” Mom asked Martin as Joe and Francis raced outside to fuel the van and wash down the windows.
Dad chuckled.
Then Carrie noticed the meter on the fuel tank outside.
“Good Lord!” She exclaimed. “Do you know how many hours I’d have to work to fuel up this slug?”
“Good grief!” Collette saw it as well, as Francis splashed the window with a squeegee. “I’d already have to work, like, six hours.”
“Five for me.”
“Well, Martin,” Mom leaned over. “You’d have to be working like, what? Half an hour? Forty-five minutes for this?”
Joe and Francis continued making faces at the inside occupants while they sponged down the windows.
“There’s all those hours of money going down the drain.”
“Sixty-three…. sixty-four…. sixty-five….”
“Wow – we’re the only one’s here tonight.”
“That’s because no one else can afford to come here.”
“And of all times, we bring the biggest gas-guzzling machine we have.”
“Sixty-eight… sixty-nine.”
The pump stopped.
“Look at that, Dad, seventy dollars.”
Dad seemed unabated.
“OK, load up, boys.” He called to them outside.
They hopped in, just as they took off.
“Look at that lady watching us.”
“She’s thinking, ‘what in the heck are they doing here in that monster?’”
“And look, she’s all nice and cozied up in her Escalade.”
“Well, you can keep your Escalade, lady.” Carrie cut in with her best homy-black accent. “’Cause we run this pimp juice mobile here, on, well… pimp juice!”
The van laughed as they bounced back on to the highway.
“Collette, what animal would you be, if you could be anything?” Linnea wanted to know.
“A Cheetah.”
“I would be a bird.”
“And what’s your favorite animal?”
“Well, if they made bunnies this big,” Collette held up her two fingers to measure an air-bunny, one and a half inches high, “then that would be my favorite.”
“Oh, how sweet, Collette.” Mom smiled from up front.
But then they were nearing Dairy Queen.
“Dilly bars, Dad!” There was a shout from the back seat.
And then the chant began:
“Turn, turn, turn, turn, turn!”
They passed Dairy Queen. At the next driveway, it started again:
“Turn here, turn around, turn here, Dad, turn, turn, turn, turn, turn!”
Silence…
Next driveway:
“Turn, turn, turn here, turn!”
Silence…
And on it went until they reached Balboa Ct., home sweet home.
“Burn-out, Dad! Do a burn-out!”
Another request sprung from the back seats.
Dad hummed the van along at a normal spell. And then, there was a screech of tires, a wind and billow of dust.
“Varoom!” Went the big green slug.
“Yay!” Went the kids in the back seats, arms flung high in the air. “Whoopee!”
And that was that, for Maundy Thursday. They all agreed the play was good, and thought the best part was seeing Grandma so happy about it.