One Monument in an Ordinary Day
Puck was in the living room already, hooking up computer apparatus to my computer. “This inspires the whole computer to shut off, and it goes through the wire out into all directions and it goes to the VMI and even powers the mouse. It inspirations the whole computer. Valla!” (Voilà.)
Puck had found Grandma Snicketts’ Fisher Price tape player, somehow surviving fifteen grandchildren and thirty years of heavy use, handheld blasting voice microphone intact. His day was made. My ears, less so.
We ended up driving out to Beaumont after Irish’s algebra class, we four girls and Puck, Yogi tea box packed with gummy radio-recordings cassette tapes for the ride, and a jumbo container of fat cashews.
The young ranger with a southern Missouri accent (distinctly different from the St. Louis variety), led us around the stretch-cafeteria and white-blocked basement, exhibiting stacks of heavy green chairs, boxes of unbreakable plates and glasses.
Carrie-Bri, yes, Carrie, convinced Mom to hit Krispy Kreme on the way back, only if Mom could get her White Castle fix next door. Two dozen glazed came with a sheet of serrate-able valentines. Puck immediately claimed one for Anneliese. “I will give her a dollar also, and tell her to spend it wisely.”
While Puck was beat boxing to harp music in the living room, later recording his own voice in egotistical fascination on the basement steps so as not to interrupt Mom’s nap, I got my baseball fix. Whenever possible.
Heavy lentil soup for dinner; my kind of meal.
I landed myself a volunteer position that night up at Old Church with snack allocation. In the circus that is this one hour and fifteen minutes every Wednesday night, the side acts are occasionally entertaining. The seven year-old boy who speaks fluent Russian screaming as well as any seven year-old girl I’ve ever heard. The second grade Armed Forces family boy enamored with his karate chop reflections in the window. The three year-old kid who found it just as interesting to say “Banana, banana, banana, banana,” over and over and over again …
When I got home, I read the news. After fifteen years of service, Lance Berkman, the great Puma, my second baseball hero, had retired.