Reunion
Sunday, June 17, 2007
A first Father’s Day for OLeif. He was presented a picture of a teddy bear, reading “#1 Dad”, from Puck (with a little help from his Grandma). And Dad and Francis left for summer camp that morning.
It was also Grandma Combs’ 71st birthday. She was still, as was to be expected, hearty and traveling.
The night before, Mrs. English, Diana, and Adam had dropped by to see the house in all its brightly painted walls and the sleepy Puck. Diana was happy to be visiting home again.
“My roommate doesn’t make good food anymore,” she said, “So now, whenever I get home, I play around with the little kids for awhile. And then I go look through the cabinets for food. Free food! And Adam made me caramel popcorn.”
Diana rubbed her tummy at the thought.
After church on Sunday, Carrie was over at the house dyeing another piece of clothing in Mom’s kitchen sink.
“Coming through, coming through!” Carrie announced, carrying a wadded, dripping pair of black pants across the kitchen floor. “Open the door, open the door,” she called to Linnea who threw it open just in time, but not before Carrie had left a trail of black dye on the floor and on Trooper’s head.
Downstairs, they viewed a recording of the Snicketts’ family vacation to Colorado fourteen years ago. This included a quiet eight-year-old Collette (who, upon return to Saint Louis, was seen sorting the mail as soon as she entered the house), a mischievous-eyed six-year-old Carrie, a four-year-old Joe who threw both hands up in the air whenever he knew he was on camera (as he still often did for no reason in particular), and a very chubby three-year-old Rose with a “wow-wow” (pacifier) in her mouth.
Meanwhile, there was news from Uncle Clarence. He was moving the family to South Carolina after retiring from his position as county administrator of St. Louis. He had also been offered the second in command at Spirit of St. Louis Airport and had applied for the position of President at Mizzou. But in the end, he had chosen South Carolina. Suddenly the entire Snicketts and Black family would no longer all be living in Missouri.
Also, Aunt Day was back visiting from Australia. According to more rumors, she believed that a proposal from a Greek friend back in Sydney was inevitable upon her return. But stories were always tweaked a bit passing through the grapevine.
Youth that night was almost a little surreal. It was like the old days of youth from a year ago. Judah and Evangeline weren’t able to come, and Joe, Wallace, and Bob B. were all absent (as they had been for a long time). But everyone else was there: Ben-Hur and his friend, Magnus, Susie, Augustus, Rose, Mollie, Sunrise, Samantha, and Nacchianti.
The evening involved a lesson from Proverbs after Augustus had (for no apparent reason) downed a half-gallon of orange drink (claiming to have an urge to lose his groceries a short while afterward). Jimmy then picked up Magnus around the middle, but not before Magnus had loosened his leg from the folding chair on which he had been sitting backwards.
“Owwwwww!” Magnus cried.
And Jimmy tossed a watermelon onto the pavement which split into a great watermelon mess.
“Oh, they have Bible study here tonight,” Jimmy remembered as soon as it had splattered.
He began scooping up the pieces while Magnus threw other pieces at Augustus, who smashed them further by stomping on them.
And Mollie ran around the parking lot in crazy circles at OLeif’s command.