Slice of Life

Clouds moved in. Rain seemed eminent. Thunder sounded as if had just tumbled across the ground.

An overhead light in the form of three separate bulbs lit up our living room. The television was on but had been paused for homework to be completed. The actors stood frozen in time on the screen with their facial expressions locked in odd contortions. Our front door stood open with our glass door keeping the outside world from us but ajar enough so we could still spy into our yard.

On the couch, Hannah did school work. Her task was to read a book for twenty minutes. As she read her book out loud, she occasionally broke into song. The words of the book, thirty pages about dogs, became lyrics. Once I thought I recognized one page about beagles being set to the tune of “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. It was still August but I hummed along anyway.

Startled by the thunder, Kayla, our cat, hopped off the stairs onto the living room floor. She had only taken one or two steps before our dog, Sadie, tauntingly pranced around her. Kayla, unamused at her nemesis, stopped to hiss a protest and take a half-hearted swat at the dog. Sadie barked, hopped on two legs then tried to engage the cat in playtime once more.

Jennifer, busy in the kitchen, stepped into the room to survey all that was going on at the moment. Fresh from assisting Hannah with math homework, her eyes briefly met mine. Her eyes and my eyes both seemed to glaze as if we were both a bit overwhelmed at the chaos of the moment.

We know each other well enough to know that the look was not one of giving up or turning away. It was a look of two people who understand how God has blessed as a family. This is what we wanted, what we prayed for, and now what we have. These are the days we once dreamed to live.

There are days when life is crazy. There are days when things seem to pile on top of each other. There are days when there is little fun to find, and, frankly, those days can be difficult to navigate.

There are days though when we listen above the noise and look over the disorder and cut past the worry. We realize there is so much more going on than noise, disorder and worry. It’s the slice of life that makes any unpleasant parts of life not seem so bad after all. It is a dream come true, and a dream that is better than we ever imagined.

Scenes From A Summer

Although the calendar and the weather may say otherwise for a few more weeks, summer, for this year, is over. The times when the sun rose early and stayed until deep in the evening are gone for now. I look back on the summers of my youth with plenty of fond remembrances. Now, as an adult, I measure summer by how many times I need to mow the lawn and how my work schedule becomes insanely busy for a few weeks. As parents, Jennifer and I also measure summer by how well Hannah’s summer goes. For this reason, this summer we tried to pay closer attention to summer so Hannah can remember some of this summer in the years ahead.

For us, summer started with a half day of school. That day ended with Hannah’s skinned knee from a fall in her friend’s yard down the street. It rained on that first summer Saturday. On Sunday, Jennifer got sick. Hannah stayed with Aunt Missy while I took Jennifer to the emergency room.

Things got better though. We celebrated Jennifer’s birthday at Mammaw and Pappaw’s house. Hannah played soccer in their backyard with cousin Sara’s friend, Rage.

Soon enough, summer camp started with Hannah making lots of new friends. She constantly needled counselors Seth and Caleb. She even made her first “boyfriend”. When I inquired about him I was told by her to not ask about him. Anyway, for the record, he was a young man whose name started with a Z and ended with a y. Hannah passed her camp swim test and generally enjoyed camp much more this year than ever before.

There was a week away in the Smoky Mountains. We stayed at a place with a pool just outside our second story balcony. The pool had a cool curved slide where Hannah became a pro quickly. We visited Dollywood where our meal at Aunt Granny’s was free when their computer system crashed. There were rides on swings and roller coasters. Then there was that one night we walked to a restaurant in the heat of the late afternoon. The walk took longer than we wanted but the food we consumed was very good. Of course, we had to walk back. By the time we left, we walked the twenty minutes back in a thunderstorm. We arrived back in our room with clothes soaked in wetness down to our skin all the while knowing how this was one trip we would always remember.

Some of our neighbors left during the summer for a multi-week extended holiday. Other neighbors added a new fluffy white puppy. Hannah spent plenty time turning cartwheels in Mrs. Barbara’s yard. There were other moments like rubberband bracelets, gymnastics, cheer camp, fake fingernails, potato chip sandwiches, and watching Independence Day fireworks from our front porch and back deck. There was Vacation Bible School under tents in the heat of June. There was the church outing where Hannah tossed cornhole with her friend Olivia. And another church outing where Hannah stood beside her grandmother and served food.

There was Hannah catching a tiny frog with her hands in the front yard. There were back-to-back visits from Mike the UPS guy who helped return a heavy, damaged delivery. There was unreal humidity and occasional thunderstorms. There was counting foggy mornings in August because Pappaw Dills's dad once said the number of foggy mornings in August will equal the number of snows in the upcoming winter. There was Kayla the cat napping on Hannah’s bed and Sadie the dog barking at deer in our backyard.

There was a visit to see grandparents and uncle Donny in Georgia. There was the annual July 4 trip to the lake with family with lots of food and swimming. Hannah even had the chance to see and hold one of her youngest cousins-one also with the name Hannah.

There was a countdown until Hannah’s birthday as she left nine behind for ten. Hannah’s birthday party was held at a rock-climbing place. She and her friends spent a few hours connected to ropes trying to pull themselves up the side of walls. Afterward, cake and presents were served.

Soon enough, it was school registration day where we found out details about the upcoming school year. While summer had been fun for her, Hannah indicated she was ready to get back to the classroom. I knew this when I took her to a cheerleading practice one afternoon late in the summer. She had not seen some of her school friends in months. When I walked her into the gym where they would all spend the next few hours together, I heard a gaggle of girls scream “Hannah!” They then all rushed together embracing her with hug after hug.

As I pulled this post together, I realized what a great summer we have had. For some, we may sound boring. For some, it may sound as if we are easily amused. No matter, this is a picture of us, and this one summer in time. Now, it will be tucked away safe in our memories for a cold, winter afternoon years from now when we will need to be warmed from the cold winds of time.

Scenes From A Summer soundtrack
Ella Fitzgerald "Summertime"
Keala Settle from "The Greatest Showman" "This Is Me" 
Francesca Battistelli featuring Staffany Gretzinger "Defender"
Bridgit Mendler "Hang In There, Baby"
Katrina & The Waves "Walking On Sunshine"
The Petersens "Take Me Home, Country Roads"
Mercy Me "Even If"
Louis Armstrong and Dave Brubeck "Summer Song"
David & The Giants "Just Started Living"
Rowan Blanchard and Sabrina Carpenter "Take On The World"

Road Trip: The Middle of Minnesota

This story involves work colleagues, airplanes, a white Cadillac, 1980s music, and a wide-open Minnesota highway. You know, another typical road story. Most names have been withheld out of courtesy.

I do not travel much for my work. There are and have been times though when I have had to travel. Most often this is by car to some central location for a meeting, or on occasion, for some extended event. A few times the traveling took me out of state to other places.

One such trip was to Duluth, Minnesota. A colleague and I left Chattanooga on a Sunday morning. We flew to Memphis. From Memphis, we flew to Minneapolis. In Minneapolis, we were slated to fly to Duluth. This is where the road trip came into play.

Our journey had been uneventful enough by the time we landed in Minneapolis. We had a layover, so we had to wait for a time. While we were waiting we noticed we knew some other people who would be boarding the plane to Duluth with us. These were folks who worked in other locations across Tennessee but performed work duties similar to what me and my colleague did where they lived. We knew them from meetings and phone calls over the previous couple of years. This was a good thing as we understood while we were all staying a few days in Minnesota we already knew some people who would also be there.

Then the first delay came. A thunderstorm blew through. I remember looking out a large plate glass window into the horizon while dark clouds descended, and lightning shot to the ground. Flights were grounded. We began to grow antsy wanting to get to our destination. Finally, the storm relented and we knew then it was only a matter of time before we would soon be on our way. After all, they let us board the plane. Except, we then waited and waited…and waited. We were then told that after the storm passed, the plane was inspected again before it could be cleared for takeoff. In this inspection, the plane was discovered to have a flat tire. Then it became worse.

We were then told our flight would not be taking off at all. It was late Sunday afternoon. The Duluth airport, although an international airport, had closed for the day. We missed our window to land there. The company who was hosting our meetings scrambled before agreeing to charter busses from Minneapolis to Duluth.

And this is the point where a plan for a road trip through Minnesota began to come together. One of our colleagues from Memphis located me and my Chattanooga colleague then spotted two others from Nashville. Our Memphis friend asked us if we would be willing to ride to Duluth if she rented a car big enough for all of us. The thoughts of a multi-hour ride on a bus were suddenly dashed with the hopes of us getting to our destination on our own terms. We all agreed. Our Memphis friend told us to grab our luggage then to meet her at a certain spot. She would rent a car then meet us there. Fearing others might have the same idea, our Memphis colleague, who only brought a carry-on bag, took off to where the rental car companies were located while we waited for our luggage to appear.

In time, the four of us retrieved our bags. We then made our way to meet our Memphis friend hoping and praying she was able to locate a large enough car for the five of us. As we walked to our meeting place, three of us noticed that one of our Nashville colleagues was busy talking to a college age woman who was following each step we all made. These two had apparently talked on the plane then continued their conversation through all the chaos that followed. Then, just as if it were planned for a movie, as soon as we arrived at our meeting place, our Memphis colleague came barreling around a corner in a big, white Cadillac. She popped open the trunk while we began shoving our luggage into the trunk of the car.

Our Nashville colleague noted that the young lady she was talking to was from Duluth. Her name was Jenny. She had attended a political rally in Washington, DC that weekend and was now trying to get home. She had made no plans how to get there if something happened to the plane or if the airport you need to get to has to close so everybody can go home. You know, like any of that would ever happen.

The five of us, not a one of us under forty years of age, looked at each other. We then asked Jenny if she needed a ride to Duluth. Of course, she did. We then somehow crammed her luggage into the Cadillac. I think one of us may have even jumped into the air to do a butt bounce on the trunk lid to make it close before we roared off into the evening.

We ripped out of Minneapolis headed north. I always like to know the route we are going but on this trip I did not care. Our Memphis friend, one Nashville friend and Jenny took the front seat while my Chattanooga colleague and the other Nashville colleague took the backseat. I was just glad to be moving in any direction and could only hope it was the right one.

The rainy weather cleared soon enough. I do remember the skies clearing enough so that we all enjoyed a nice sunset on the ride. We stopped to grab a sandwich and take a bathroom break along the way. Soon enough, we were back on the road again.

This trip consisted of a good deal of shop talk among the five of us who shared similar career paths. We talked about the upcoming week and plans we had when we returned to our home offices. No doubt Jenny was bewildered by our conversation lost in the language of work-speak.

Our front seat Nashville friend made an effort to find a radio station that played 1980s music. After all, five of us had lived through that decade and appreciated the music from then. As we listened to tune after tune of old familiar songs, we laughed along, sang along and shared memories of some of the songs we heard. I am not sure poor Jenny had heard any of the songs we knew so well.

We soon were in Duluth. We discovered some of us were in one hotel and the rest of us were in another hotel. And then there was Jenny. While our Memphis colleague left some of us at our hotel, she had to ask Jenny where she needed to go. It almost seemed like she did not want to go to her home. It was almost like she wanted to keep hanging out with us, you know the cool older people who knew every 1980s song ever heard and spoke in technical terms about the work they did. Maybe this one road trip had altered her life course. Those of us who were fortunate enough to find where we were staying learned soon enough that our new friend Jenny made it safely home despite her seeming reluctance to leave a group of strangers she shared two hours with in a long, white Cadillac.

This road trip was over. I though had one last trick up my sleeve. The next day, I took a small piece of paper, wrote on it then put it in my pocket. I then located our Nashville colleague who first befriended Jenny. We talked about the craziness of the trip. We talked about the randomness of meeting a total stranger who had no qualms about getting into a car with folks she did not know. We laughed about how we probably tortured Jenny with our insistence on listening to 1980s music during the entire trip.

Then I mentioned as I was walking into the room, someone handed me a message and asked me to deliver that message to her. I then added I was told it was from our friend, Jenny. It seems Jenny needed our Nashville colleague to call her. This brought a smile to her face. I then handed the paper over to her. She unfolded it then read it aloud, “Jenny, 867-5309.” We then both burst into laughter. The laughs the five of us shared over this road trip through the years still make me smile today.

“You can have Bemidji, and the rusty, dusty range, and Babbit and Aurora all the way to Coleraine, and you can have those cities: Minneapolis and St. Paul, ‘cause to tell you the truth, I like it in Duluth.”
-The Moose Wallow Ramblers

Road Trip: The Middle of Minnesota playlist:
Lenny Kravitz "Fly Away"
Husker Du "Private Plane"
Plain White T's "Airplane"
The Kinks "(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman"
Prince "Rock n Roll Is Alive (And It's Living in Minneapolis)"
Sonny Curtis "Love Is All Around"
Dwight Yoakam "Long White Cadillac"
Moors & Macumber "Welcome To Duluth"
Trampled By Turtles "Duluth"
The Moose Wallow Ramblers "I Like It In Duluth"
Bob Dylan "Jokerman"
Tommy Tutone "Jenny/867-5309"