Up Up and Away

I redeemed myself Saturday morning and slipped a single dollar under Puck’s pillow, just about two hours after he woke up way too early to play Minecraft. Then Dad and Joe picked up the truck for the move, early before the air show. Joe had a head cold and seemed a little sentimental. After 25 years living at home – the past ten years in the basement – he was pulling up roots.

The morning passed in a shot. We were joining a large crowd at the Big House for a caravan to the Spirit of St. Louis air show in the valley. Dad plus six kids, one grandkid, spouse, a cousin, girlfriend, “special friend,” friend-friend. We carted all thirteen of us in four vehicles the couple of miles through forty minutes of traffic, wishing we had left earlier. To pass the time, Ricky suggested we take turns reading “Who Moved my Cheese?” as we inched across the pavement. Even Puck took his turn.

Nearly an hour after entering the gates, we found ourselves sitting on a slightly damp patch of grass inside the fairgrounds, waiting for the thunder of the Blue Angels. It was one of those times where I sort of expected Puck to find something else more interesting that jets hurtling through the sky eighteen inches apart at 400 mph, just because he’s Puck. I was correct. He decided that borrowing the cardboard water bottle box to collect expired dandelion puff “for a pillow” was way more involved and fulfilling. Occasionally Carrie-Bri tried to distract him back to the main show:

“Honey, look! Look up in the sky! Why are you picking dandelions right now?”

See, this doesn’t really surprise me. As much as I hear about parents wanting their own kids to follow their footsteps, it seems inevitable that the exact opposite must happen. I love super loud jet sounds. So of course, Puck does not. El Oso loves playing music. Puck could care less. No, he’s interested “in Science.”

Everyone else enjoyed it. Nothing like the sound of a jet tearing hundreds of feet above your head. Beautiful. Even Puck came around a little from time to time.

I was looking a little crispy as we exited the fairgrounds. I only knew this because everyone told me I looked very, very red. It took a solid hour to exit the parking lot. Swapped work stories, Puck read comics. Dad ordered Cecil Whittaker’s from another car.

At the Big House, everyone chowed down. Something was said about auctioning off Joe’s room. Childhood stories and hearty laughing about bumblebees and thumbtacks, etc. We left as Ricky and the girls were in the middle of discussing dark matter and multiverse theory.