Monday, August 28, 2000 - Trips & GoCarts & Shopping Sprees

         Last Monday night Larry, Teddy, Joseph, Hester, and Lydia left to go to Berthoud, Colorado, taking one of the loads of enclosed trailers we’d brought back from Elkhart, Indiana.  The little girls had requested that they go, when first Larry had planned to go to Ohio and I was going to stay home; one was going to go one week, the other the next.  But we all wound up going.  So, since school for them is only two weeks away, they both went, this time.  (That made sense; I know it did.  You just can’t tell it.)

         Larry got a new cell phone program that was supposed to be one of the Seven Wonders of the World.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t work in Colorado.  So he had to use a pay phone to call me.  By 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, they had unloaded the three trailers at Berthoud and driven to Lincoln Auto in Denver, and Larry was checking to see if there were any vehicles anybody wanted him to haul back to Nebraska, one of those pieces of business that is better conducted sooner, rather than later, as he discovered.  

Hester Go-carting

         While they waited for somebody to call them, they went to a nearby go-cart track and made excellent usage of the go-carts, to the delight of all five kids, if you know what I mean.  Larry finally learned that someone he knew might have cars at Klode’s Auction, so he went there to retrieve them.  The servicemen hunted high and low for the cars that were on the list.  Having no luck finding any of them, they finally looked in their computer and discovered--those vehicles had already gone out. 

Evidently, somebody beat Larry to the punch.  In the end, it turned out, he had waited around all day for nothing.  And then they were too tired to drive on home, so they got a motel in Fort Morgan.  

        They arrived home about 4:00 p.m. Wednesday.

Larry Go-carting

        Victoria likes to skate with her little Fisher Price skates.  Hester and Lydia are doing well with their roller blades; one of the neighbor girls who was staying with her father over the summer, a couple of houses down the block, gave the girls a pair she had outgrown.  They have a few quolly-fobbles (speaking of the skates, rather than the girls), but they still work okay.  

        Once again, my sister-in-law, Janice, brought us a box of produce from a roadside farm stand:  corn on the cob, tomatoes, a seedless watermelon—and a pound of butter.  The littles husked the corn, and we took it and the watermelon with us to Pawnee Park for supper.  Bobby and Hannah pulled into our drive as we were leaving, bringing us a carrot/pineapple cake.  Mmmmm…just right!  ;-)  We played tennis after supper.  

        I’ve been reading the story of Abraham to the children.  Recently we read about Lot choosing the best land—he thought it looked like the Garden of Eden.  Rather rude of him, wasn’t it?  In the first place, he should’ve deferred to his uncle, and let him have the better land.  But he should never have thought he would actually find himself a Garden of Eden, anyway, for that had been forfeited by Adam and Eve long before, when they had sinned.  He wound up paying more than he could afford for his greed.

        Friday evening, the strangest thing happened:  it rained.  We haven’t had rain—particularly not a soft, gentle rain—around these parts for so long, we almost forgot what it felt like.  Right in the middle of the shower, we went to Wal-Mart to get training wheels for the littlest bike we have.  We will have to get a couple of new tires for it, too.  It’s Victoria’s size, but she’s been trying to ride the next bigger bike, since it has training wheels.  However, she tipped over enough times when she turned corners that she went back to riding her tricycle.  

        “This is lots safer for me,” she said as she pedaled away.  “And for my knees,” she called back over her shoulder.  “Because we’re almost out of Band-Aids,” she added in an even louder voice, as she rode farther down the block.  And she rang her little silver bell for emphasis.

         Saturday we went to Lincoln to shop for school clothes.  We first stopped at the Thrift Store to which my mother used to take me when my father went to the Renault garage in Lincoln.  The garage was right next door to the Thrift Store.  Back then, most of the merchandise was garbage and junk, but nowadays people toss out much nicer things.  Now the store comprises both areas; the Renault garage is no more.  Funny that a Thrift Store would survive while a big car dealership would not.  

         Next, we went to the Salvation Army in the Old Market, then a big Goodwill in the newer part of the city.  We came home with the back of the Suburban stuffed as full as we could get it with clothes, books, toys, coats, shoes, and various gift sets we’d found that were still in the original boxes.  When we got home, I added up what we had spent, then estimated the cost should we have purchased it elsewhere.  As near as I can calculate, we spent about fifteen percent of the typical worth of the items we bought.  Furthermore, a good many of the things we got were new, and still sported their original tags.

         What we needed most were dresses for Hester and Lydia, jeans for Joseph and Caleb, and shoes for Caleb and Victoria.  We managed to get half a dozen nice dresses for each of the girls, four pairs of new jeans for Joseph (but only one pair for Caleb), and new shoes for all the girls (but none for Caleb, except for a pair of boots that won’t fit him for a couple of years).  Caleb came up on the short end of the stick.  Other than the jeans and boots, all he got was a cap with an embroidered fire truck on the front.

          I found two warm, shiny purple coats; those will be Christmas presents for Hester and Lydia.  Joseph got a grey and red down-filled coat, and Teddy came across a heavy suede coat with fur lining.  We bought a brand-new navy and white trench coat for Hester in a sailor style (one of my two favorite things we got), and a dark green wool coat for Victoria with a cape effect and pleats and velvet collar (my other favorite).  I think I shall buy some dark green wool and make her a bonnet to go with the coat, which is a Rothchild, an expensive little coat.  It does not appear to have been worn.  I paid only $5.00 for it.

         The Salvation Army in the Old Market is a rather strange place.  The building must surely be at least one hundred years old, and there are all sorts of nooks and crannies (and I shouldn’t be surprised if there were also a good number of crooks and nannies), and the floor rises suddenly when you least expect it to, making you go tripping rapidly into the next sector with one loud preliminary stomp and a surprised face to announce your arrival.  On the floor sits a young woman with an earring, a small steel ball impaled upon her lip, and she is sketching a bizarre face (her inspiration drawn, perhaps, from the expressions of those folk who have plunged in terror-stricken unbalance into the room through the doorway directly before her) with not as much skill as Victoria can do, and filling in the hair with a fat red permanent marker.  

       I was pleased to find ten make-up and coin purse sets still in their boxes, piled together on a dusty dry sink from ages past.  They cost only $2.50 each, so I promptly bought them, thinking they would make very nice gifts—once I dusted the jackets—for the girls to give their friends.  Upon our arrival home, I noticed tags from Wal-Mart on the back of the packages.  The original price was $3.00.  There were dozens of sales tags, one atop the other, and the very last one said… 

       $.50. 

       Aarrgghh!  Now, that was cruel and unusual punishment, for them to leave that sales tag on, when they planned to charge five times as much.  Bah.

       It was at the Salvation Army that we bought Victoria a pair of Barbie tennis shoes, still with their tags on.  They were her favorite of our purchases, by far; but she may revise her opinion when she sees what we got her for Christmas, purchased at the Goodwill Store on Vine Street:  a miniature china tea set, still in its box, all the pieces intact. 

       While we were shopping, Larry took a couple of the children next door to Albertson’s Food Store to go to the restroom.  They like to never came back; but finally they returned and we paid for our things and went back out to the Suburban.  We stood waiting while Larry unlocked the doors…and then, as soon as the doors came open, we understood what he’d been up to, all that while he’d been gone, for the raison d'être assailed our noses in pleasant clarification:  he’d gotten chicken, potato salad, coleslaw, and applesauce for our supper.  We drove to the park we’ve seen many times beside the Interstate on the west side of Lincoln.  There are big wooden toys, and a large expanse of lawn and woods, and rarely had we seen anyone there.  

        Sure enough, we had the park to ourselves as we tucked into our supper.  Afterward, the littles played on the toys, then we all played Frisbee, and too soon it was time to go.  We drove around Branched Oak Lake, northwest of Lincoln, and got ourselves a wee bit lost; but luckily the sun was setting in a huge, red, flaming ball, so we couldn’t very well mistake which way west was.   

        We finally found Seward, and then we knew which way to go to get home again, although it took longer than usual, since we had to stop beside the road periodically because Caleb kept getting sick, poor child.  

        Sunday morning Joseph was sick, probably with whatever Caleb had had the night before.

That night after church, Larry left for Elkhart, Indiana, to retrieve three enclosed trailers.  He fixed up a bed for himself in the back seat of the pickup, using Joseph’s air mattress and our biggest sleeping bag.  He slid the seat forward as far as it would go, “so that,” as he said, “I don’t fall between the seats and get stuck, and cause everyone in the entire rest area to wonder what on earth is causing that pickup to bounce and jounce and have such tantrums and conniptions.”

He wished me farewell and was gone, just as I shall do now, to you.