Country Bumpkins in a New Fangled Door

If there's a revolving door in Athens, I've not seen it.  Remember it's extraordinarily cumbersome to take a dozen or so kids anywhere, especially those with some behavior issues, as we've experienced over the years.  And it's been decades since I only had this few kids still living at home.

We go to school everyday, attend church services twice a week, we spend an inordinate amount of time for half of each year down on the soccer fields for the last ten years, the kids go to their school's football games and other school activities, and that leaves little free time to gad about anywhere.

I've calculated that I've watched close to 1,000 soccer games so far.

We don't go to the mall, nor do we go to restaurants, the dollar movies are a very rare treat, and somehow we stay incredibly busy.

I mean heck we aren't deprived, they've been to numerous beaches on the Southeastern coast, Six Flags, Disney World, Epcot, Busch Gardens, and countless other places.

Dr. C's tele-psychiatry event has now moved 55 miles from our home.  We could change, find a closer doctor, but my children do not like changes, nor do I feel like explaining us all over again.  If anything we're on the downhill slope, not too far off from not needing a psychiatrist anymore, we could do just fine with Dr. Mandy, a psychologist.

One of my sons had expressed some very severe anxiety during our most dangerous years, had been prescribed anti-anxiety meds, and has since been tapering off, soon it'll be totally unnecessary.  Thank you Lord, for the safety we're now enjoying, for the lack of drama, no outbursts, no assaults, and no more unrelenting danger.  It is wonderful.

All this to lay down a foundation for my next statement.  My four sons who'd gone with me had a cow over the fact that we went through a revolving door, all of them exclaiming loudly that they'd never done so before.

Oh my.  Could we look even more country out in public?  I didn't fare any better, reaching for my phone to snap their picture as they were clearing enjoying themselves.

When I'd picked them up from the high school, I run into a deputy I've known since he was barely school age.  JoJo, of course, unable to contain himself when he walked up to us, clowning around while the other boys were a bit more wide-eyed and wondering what the heck was going on.

I was just extremely happy that he wasn't there to arrest any of my kinfolk.

"Why was he at our school?" my hyper-vigilant son asked.

"I dunno," I responded.  "It's none of our business anyway."

I have some ideas in my head for fixing up our home, after all these years of folks kicking holes in the Sheetrock and breaking windows in their unmitigated, yet fairly understandable fury.  I could go to a mall and buy what we need, but that thought bores the peaturkey outta me.

What fun would that be?

None.  Plus truthfully I have zero disposable income for such fluff.

I'd rather be on the hunt via yard sales or junk stores, flying under the consumer radar, no bar codes involved, pennies on the dollar at best.  Clearly I couldn't afford to do otherwise, but even if I could, this is still who I'd be.

Taking JoJo to the orthodontist this morning swings me by a great neighborhood in Athens where the kind folks bag their leaves for me.  I wanna stop and explain to them all how much better their yards would look if they'd compost this valuable soil amendment that they're tossing aside, or how delicious is the food I grow via their cast-offs.

Instead, since all neighborhoods seem so shuttered, windows and drapes always slammed shut, little signs of life available, I'll just stop my pretty gold 1998 truck and aerobically hurl the sacks into the back, knowing exactly where the next load will go, and I'll remain seriously grateful that I am so easily amused and satisfied.

My once very scared four year old, Allen, is turning 17 today.  I am taking him shopping, anywhere he wants to go, the birthday kid's choice, and get this, he chose Plato's Closet again, happily remembering eh time Jesse'd gone with him to birthday shop, putting in his big brother's opinion, reminding me how much he could get there for less money.  True that.

His girlfriend had come over after school and gone to church with us last night, a minor event that could not have occurred years ago when The One Who Must Control Everything was here, hellbent on making everyone miserable, just because it was apparently an option.

My sweet Scotty, barely 14 years old, has grown huge.  190 pounds and still growing. He, CW, and JoJo, all non birth sibs, are each just inches from six feet tall, quite rare in Mexican men.  Must be all the beans, right?

Yep, still wearing shorts, we're having very warm afternoons, hovering at or above 80, which feels wonderful to me, allowing me a head start on next spring's planting as I keep hauling in leaves, manure and pine needles, this year's plantings still producing as well.