Shhhh... Don't Tell Them Yet – Maybe We'll Find it and They'll Never Know!
Sunday, June 4, 2006
And with the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Rye, there was the arrival of Diana back in Saint Louis. She would head up to Chicago the following morning for an interview and then return once again for the rest of the summer, or until she would be hired.
Before the worship service began that morning, Sinai took the pulpit and embarrassingly admitted that Judah and Evangeline were not “legally” married. Sinai had not yet signed the wedding certificate, and, he had lost it. For all he knew, it was taken out to the dumpster, and no one was the wiser. And as far as anyone knew, Judah and Evangeline were blissfully unaware of the situation.
Back briefly at the house, after church, Dad showed them all his professional sound-recording equipment and Collette and Rose recorded a silly round of Have You Seen the Ghost of Tom? between laughing. And they heard Dad’s duet with Michael Buble, which was so good that Collette couldn’t tell that Dad was singing along with him at first.
An hour followed that at the Englishs, where a number of guys played basketball, and cake, fruit, lemon pound cake cupcakes, and pasta salad were served inside. The Wests had brought a cooler of sodas. And OLeif and Collette were able to catch up with Diana and Eve. Carrie, once again, had to work. Velvet Law also came by for a short while with the other numerous TFC people: the Reds, Friendlys, Mathers, etc.
Youth was minus Jimmy (who was ill), Judah and Evangeline (naturally), Augustus, and Wallace (who was likely just returned from Oklahoma). After a good discussion on worship confession of sins had eroded into unmentionables and cuddle-fests (between girls and girls and guys and guys), Boy woke himself up from sleeping on the couch next to OLeif, and Collette managed to kick over a container of sugar (which had been used for strawberries), Bob B. wielded boffer sticks constructed of taped-up mops (his shadow looking like the grim reaper from the light from the window), Magnus talked about how Joseph the-blue-eyed slapped him upside the head on a consistent basis, and Molly commanded Bob B. to behave from time to time. Joe and Rose later left for Travis Tecumseh’s graduation party, and that was all that…
Collette wondered what the infamous Boy Scout summer camp would be like that year – with two visits, June and July. The first for Joe, Wallace, Curly, and Izzy, and the second for Frances and Chester. There was something near-magical about Boy Scout camp, something perhaps only Collette and Carrie-Bri truly appreciated. And Dad would always say to the girls in advance:
“You should spray your letters with perfume before you send them to Joe. It’ll make all the boys jealous.”
One year, early on, when Collette and Carrie had done so, the boys chased Joe around to smell the letters. Collette and Carrie always got a good kick out of that. It was perhaps the most funny and most looked-forward-to time of the year. Just something one had to experience.
Have you seen the ghost of Tom?
Round white bones with the rest all
Gooooooo-oooone.
Wouldn’t it be chilly with
No skin on, no skin on?