Visit Five

Shekels came up in Dad’s devotional reading this morning. Puck wanted to know if I had found any old shekels during my digs in Israel:

“Nothing that old. I found some Roman coins though.”

“Well, coins have been around for a few years, I guess.” Puck expounded. “Even when I was born a few years ago. Coins have existed since then, since I was born.”

True words.

It was cold.

Carrie and I walked to Busch to catch the 12:45 with one warm blanket to share, heavy coats, gloves, and hats. In late April. The sky was blanketed in gray ruffles. We sat, huddled, one row removed from the top of the stadium. In fact, when some sun did pop through a small window halfway through the game, the stadium erupted in spontaneous applause.

This time, we left pretty happy. Got to watch Tony catch a game, whittle thirteen pitches into a walk. Even saw Garcia’s first Big League hit. And of course more Allen Craig lifting tufts of green grass from the field, looking a little bored.

An hour of traffic back to the Big House, and Puck was on the swing in his flying saucer shirt, jeans, and red wellies, in the cold. He flew up to the patio door a few minutes after I returned:

“Mom! Mom! Mom! Does it count as a bad thing to say words I shouldn’t say when no one else is around?!”

“What did you say?”

“That I hated it. Just hated something.”

“I’d rather you not talk about hating things. It gets you in the habit.”

“Okay … I was just having a little chat with God out there.”

He ran back out to the swing. About five minutes later he returned with an identical report of his use of “foul language.” Then he displayed his goods from a day out with Mom: maps-of-the-world coloring book, McDonald’s toy from happy meal lunch, super bouncy ball, squishy hand globe, and an orange plastic goblet:

“This is my national cup that I will drink from all of my days,” he told me, taking a satisfying sip of water.

When we left after dinner, Puck had a question for Dad, waving us off from the porch:

“So, what do you do for work, Grandpa? Who do you work for?”

Dad got his smile lines, “I work for no one, and everyone.”

Puck laughed, and seemed satisfied with the answer.