New Orleans or Bust

Sunday, July 16, 2006

The picnic came and went with the usual ease and chattings and munchkins running about, drowning down the sound of the peepers in the fields. The youth eventually opted to finish the evening in the youth building while Rose attempted to fix the color on the television and the high schoolers teased Goofy over his latest fancy.

And so the next afternoon, the following found themselves strapped inside two white 11-passenger white slugs, after the back benches were removed:

Jimmy Saint

OLeif Silverspoon

Atticus McCrae

Liepaja Coca-Cola

Aleece Bananas

Tennesse and Nacchianti Coca-Cola

Joe and Rose Snicketts

Ben-Hur Pepper

Augustus Honey

Susie and Sunrise Popples

Curly Silverspoon

Molly McCrae

Goofy Nickels

Gaston Bananas

Lilia Roosevelt

Julia Poach

And Collette departed from the church that afternoon, leaving the 19-person crew to their many hours of bonding time in the mostly segregated automobiles. She absently wondered to herself how many cat fights would break out on both sides before the week had finished. Surely the fireworks would erupt several times, but such was the nature of people.

Meanwhile, Collette and Mom picked up a very tired Diana and Eve from the airport, just having flown back from Oregon. And Collette rolled up her figurative shirtsleeves for a week of cleaning, throwing away, and I Love Lucy.

The day itself cracked in the heat. Collette thought the balmy blue roof of heaven might just have shattered with a will ‘o the wisp of a wind too strong after the sun had cracked it. But as everyone knew, St. Louis was notorious for deadly hot summers, and if one had lived there one’s entire life, there was little of which to complain – it was a way of life during June, July, August, and sometimes September.