A New Hat

A few weeks ago I was in Eckerd picking up some pictures my wife had gotten developed. While standing at the counter, trying to figure out what in the world could consume 7 rolls of film, my eyes wandered to a new (to me) rack standing in front of the electronics. It was filled with Tucker stuff: bumper stickers, signs, t-shirts, and baseball caps.

Now, a) I love baseball caps. I wear them whenever I can, which, since my wife does not like baseball caps (on me at least), means I wear them whenever my wife lets me. This comes out to about once every two days or so. And b) we've lived in Tucker for about 8 years now. We're in our third house here, and I thought it might be time to show a little civic pride. So I bought the hat.

It's maroon, with "Tucker, GA" in gold lettering. Not my colors, but apparently they are the colors for Tucker High School (more on that later). Nonetheless, I bought the hat and wore it home.

I was about due for a new hat. My old everyday hat was a navy blue one with a small, tasteful Walt Disney World patch on the front. Very nice, but repeated washing has begun to fray the front edge of the bill, lending a certain Abercrombie & Fitch/redneck quality to it.

My "nicer" hat was (and remains) another navy blue one with a red embroidered crawfish on the front. My wife bought it for me the last time we were in New Orleans (about two years ago and pre-Katrina).

Before each of these, my everyday hat was a navy blue American Eagle fitted cap (L/XL) that I "borrowed" from my brother-in-law a few years ago when I was stranded, hatless, up at my inlaws one weekend.

Sense a pattern here? This must be my blue period. Before this, I had several tan/khaki caps, including a tan American Eagle cap with a little American flag that I wore to all 4 boys' births.

I can remember all of these because they are all on my office floor right now, awaiting a tasteful set of hooks (except The Birth Hat, which is awaiting a shadow box). I love my hats.

Including my Tucker hat, which is actually across the house, in my bedroom, in a sort of limbo status after the second disturbing episode. You see, this hat has been to Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida in the short while since it was purchased. Thousands of miles traveled with no incident whatsoever.

But the first week I bought it I was in our local hardware store (the Handy Ace, where people actually answer your questions and help you find stuff), and a nice man was showing me around the pocket knives (Timothy is a Bear Cub this year, and whittling is one of his tasks). In the middle of a discussion about locking blade knives vs. non-locking, he looked at my head and said, out of the blue, "Them boys was lucky."

Huh? Is this some sort of hardware store code? Was there a major Cub Scouting knife accident that I had missed? Since he was no longer looking at me, I muttered something non-committal. I literally may have said, "hmlfm." I was lost.

Then he said, in what I later learned was a question, "How do you think they'll do this year?" Then it hit. He was talking about football, specifically Tucker High football. I had no idea. Had they even started playing yet? I supposed they had, and I quickly inferred that they had recently squeaked out a victory. Processing this new information, I said something along the lines of, "Oh, I don't know. I haven't gotten to a game yet." Which was a true statement, although the implication of football awareness may have been misleading. I didn't care, I wanted to browse pocket knives without looking like a total fool.

So my hat is a Tucker High School hat, and it seems to broadcast awareness of, interest in, and support for the Tucker High School football team. This can be bad. Not that I don't like the team. Or support my town. But I have no idea what's going on over there. My kids are in grade school. I'd like to take them to see a game or two (especially Stephen, who seems to like football and would probably love to watch a live game). But I don't want to be party to false advertising.

The second disquieting incident came just the other day at Home Depot. While we were on vacation, someone (maybe me, maybe one of the boys, I don't want to point fingers) left one of the doors to my car open, and the battery died. When we returned home, we discovered that we did not own a set of jumper cables. At least not a pair that we could find in either the garage, the cars, the shed, the attic, my office, the kitchen cabinets, or the boys' closets. So I went to buy some early Thursday morning.

While in Home Depot, a very nice guy actually helped me find the jumper cables. It may have been because I was the only customer in the store. Regardless, as I was leaving the guy asked, "Are you with Tucker High?" Great. Now people think I work there. Please don't ask me about sports. I said, "No, sorry. It's just a hat."

So now I have this hat, which I like, and that I can wear safely anywhere else but in my own town. At least in the hardware stores. But hardware stores are pretty much the only places I go when I leave the house (okay, I go to church, but I don't wear hats there; okay, not to Sunday morning worship).

So I may need a new hat. Preferably a non-affiliated one.

For A Moment

So I'm standing in my kitchen, reading the trial issue of Cook's Illustrated that they send me about twice a year to tempt me (I haven't given in yet, but oh man! is it difficult to resist). In the background I'm half listening to the new John Mayer CD while making hamburgers, tater tots and broccoli for dinner. And I'm so happy.

More than happy, I'm content. I've been this way for a while now, so long that I've stopped waiting for the other shoe to drop. Changes will come, some good, some bad, but I hope I can keep this attitude.

That's all.

Whew

Update:
Ha. My wife got a 4.

Jonah On The Road

This past weekend we took a trip to Mississippi. My wife’s grandparents live in Picayune, which is a few miles from the Louisiana border, and we went to visit them. Also, one of my wife’s best friends recently moved to Memphis, but her parents live in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, about an hour north of Picayune, and so we got to see them over the weekend as well.

Lots of fun, lots of driving. We logged about a thousand miles on this trip.

It’s good to see family, it’s fun to see friends, it’s interesting to drive through hurricane-ravaged southern states, etc. But my favorite part of the trip was listening to Jonah. Timothy and Stephen had their GameBoys and books. Sam slept or just stared. But Jonah talked, and played, and sang, and chatted . . .

As we listened to music, he would inform us loudly which songs were his favorites and which ones he did not like so much. At one point he provided a one-hour running commentary on the farmlands of east-central Mississippi (“Hello cows, hello trees, hello dead trees . . .”). He would enthusiastically try to engage his brothers to take part in the games he was inventing inside his head, even though they would have none of it.

And he would participate in our conversations. Like ice cubes in a hot drink, his comments were pleasantly surprising. And so here, in chronological order, are my three favorite Jonah quotes of the trip.

1. Jonah on crime and punishment
Before we had even left Atlanta, as we were passing the jail on Cynthia McKinney Parkway (I refer to it at the Cynthia McKinney Jail in a vain attempt at wish-fulfillment). In an effort to steer the boys onto the right path, I pointed out the jail to them, “Look boys, there’s the jail. If you don’t obey the law you’ll go there.” Yes, I’m a blunt instrument.

Stephen asked, “Which building is the jail? The one without any windows?”

I replied, “Yes, it has no windows and is filled with lots of mean people. You don’t want to go there.” Subtlety, that’s the ticket to good parenting.

Jonah wanted to know what would cause him to end up in jail, and I listed the kid-friendly description of offences that they would know were jail-worthy: killing someone, taking money, stealing cars. This was a semi-familiar discussion, and so conversation ended at that point.

Five minutes of silence. Then Jonah piped up, “What if I just borrow the car?”


2. Jonah on pain and happiness
On crossing the state line into Alabama, we stopped at the Rest Area for, you know, some rest. I parked the car as far from the restroom building as I could while still being on the same side of the parking lot. This was, in my mind, a good way to get the boys walk a little. Jonah ran.

Having done our duties, both biological, nerdly (got a map), and sacrilegious (climbing on the granite carving with the Alabama state motto, something along the lines of “Never give up, never surrender” or some such), we were on our way back when Jonah fell and skinned his knee pretty badly. There was flowing blood, albeit briefly, and we cleaned him up, held him, and then put him back in the car with the other boys, who were by that time deep into their personal distractions (book, gameboy, and sullen staring).

Once we got back on the road, Jonah continued to cry, mostly because it was the only thing for him to do (we’re taking lots of LEGO’s on the next trip). His mother and I tried to calm him down, and I finally told him to think about things that make him happy. He sniffled a bit more and then stopped.

Two minutes of silence. Then Jonah: “You mean raccoons?”


3. Jonah on death
At some point, while driving through the wilds of Mississippi (so much fun to type), we hit a stride in our conversations. The big boys would ask a question about a phenomenon, I would explain said phenomenon, and Jonah would comment in his own special way. A few examples might help.

Timothy began, “What happens when a car drives into the water.”

I responded, “It stops running.”

Stephen continued, “Why?”

“Well, because a car’s engine burns gasoline and air, and if it drives into the water there’s no air left to burn. So the engine turns off.” Yes, this is a normal conversation.

Jonah pipes up, “I don’t want to drive the car into the water. I’ll die.”

Later, Timothy continued the questioning, “Dad, how does a black hole kill you?”

I replied, aiming way over their heads, “Well, it can either rip you apart or crush you, depending on how big it is and how you fly into it.”

Stephen: “Cool.”

Jonah: “I don’t want to go into a black hole and die.”

And so on. The swamps on the side of the road? “I don’t want to get eaten by an alligator.” The hurricane? “I don’t want to get killed by a hurricane.”

Now, lest you believe that I’m raising a little goth kid here, except for the 10 seconds in which he’s telling us that he doesn’t want to die, he is as happy and chipper (if not moreso) than any one else I’ve ever met.

He is a child of extremes, my singing, death-obsessed, cheerful, raccoon-loving, Jonah.

Creativity

Timothy's homework last night was to write out full sentences using his spelling words, which, for this week, are the words twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen. Maybe all the way to nineteen, who knows?

Regardless, he started last night after my parents left from our family birthday party for Stephen, and so it was late and he was in a hurry.

His first sentence? "Look, twelve cakes!"

I live in a house full of evil geniuses.