Palaver from Persimmon Crossing
with Warren Faulk
GRAND NOTES
There are some people in my life that are simply wonderful. Seven of them are my grandchildren.It's funny. You laugh and take lightly the things other people say about their grandchildren. The bumper stickers. The seemingly endless stories. Boring!! And after yours start to arrive everything changes, right? (Well not necessarily. In my case I am still impatient with the other grandparents and for very good reason. My grandchildren actually are superior and I see no reason to surrender the soap box so that others may talk while I must wait to say the many things I have to say...things that, surely, really need saying.)
When I see, hear or even think of my grandchildren I get a very special and pleasant feeling. It's a phase I guess and a fine one. I plan on just circling around in it for the rest of my life. Among other things it gives me an excuse to do lots of things that no older person has any earthly business doing. I do have a Texas longhorn steer that I ride and occasionally fall off of, and goats, rabbits, ducks, chickens and acrobatic pigeons. Plenty of room here for a kid to dig a hole, pick flowers or even pet a turkey.
I guess the things they say are the most endearing. "You shouldn't have come. I'm not finished yet"-- spoken to parents retrieving kids -- is more common than "Hi Mom!"
One of the kids has been a John Deere tractor nut since age two. He has a John Deere fishing pole (a cane with green and yellow tape around it), pulls John Deere (green) weeds from the garden and given a hobby horse cut to look like a deer, promptly dubbed it a John Deere.
One at three was heavy into professional wrestling. He was tossing around the word incapacitated and I was sure he didn't know what it meant so I asked him. His response....."stuck!"
One four year old not accustomed to watching television observed snow falling in a commercial. She said, "what's that?" I said "snow." Her two year old brother said "I have seen snow." She said "I'm four and you are two. How can you have seen snow?" He said " I don't know. I think it might have been in North America."
One two and a half year old (they are all big on halves) while shampooing her grandmother's hair was heard to say "now be brave Honey." And still another two and a half year old down for a visit, marched into the kitchen and announced " I want to ride on that big old Texas longhorn moo cow" in a clear strong voice. This child lives on a secluded hilltop in Kentucky with about 20 adults and no other children. He has no clue that he is even a child, much less that he should be talking baby talk.
A childhood pal and lifelong friend recently laughed at me when I told him I was planting apple trees. Why apple trees at 60? Well...I like them. Fruit trees need a lot of help getting started. How they are treated in their formative years bears directly on their quality in later years. Sounds something like raising children or grandchildren. And maybe I will enjoy their fruits. Surely these little ones that I so enjoy ... will.
-- Warren Faulk
Smarr, Georgia
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