Day 6 - a story

It should be noted that school starts again today.  Since this is the reason why my kids are in California, it seems important to bring it up.  I have hours and hours and hours of Practicum scheduled every week.  The more I can knock out while they're gone, the less I'll need to do when they're back.

Today Rob and I started the day with a bike ride.  It's amazing how much more motivated I am to exercise in the summer when I'm already hot, no matter what I do.  Then I took a nap because I don't have many more napping days left.

Then something happened that took me way back.  I walked outside barefoot to bring in our trash can and was stung by a bee, right in the middle of my foot.  It's been a long time since I've been stung, and an even longer time since it's been on the bottom of my foot.  Not pleasant, I tell you.  (Though not awful, let's be honest.)

This reminded me of a good little story from my childhood.  It's a story of a pesky little brother and a loving father.

One day me (10), Collin (12), Keith (8), Justin (6), Chad (4), and a neighbor (6) were walking through the woods behind our house.  I guessed on the ages, but it's accurate enough for the purposes of this story.  It wasn't often that us bigger kids (me and Collin) hung out with the younger ones.  Probably pure boredom motivated us to do so on that particular day.

Anyways, we were walking through a small section of the woods that we normally didn't bother walking through.  It was tiny and not very exciting and about 5 feet away from the lawn.  I suppose that day we were "exploring" and hence didn't want to leave the great wild of the woods.

On our first pass through the section, we saw a hole in the ground.  We were trying to figure out what the hole was, but we didn't think much of it.  On the way back, though, we figured it out.  Bees.  Or whatever bee-like thing it is that burrows into the ground.  Collin and I walked tenderly around the hole.  The danger was past (is it past or passed?) and we were happily walking on when Justin and the neighbor started running past us and telling us to run, too.

Too late, though.  We were surrounded by swarming bees.  Chad was still there, and I was trying to focus through the bee storm enough to get him out, but was completely overcome and ran out myself.  I ran to the top of the hill (maybe 50 feet?  75?  Not far), where our house was, to get help.  Miraculously, my father was just home from work and was standing in the front yard looking at our garden.  I was relieved to see him and started quickly telling him what was going on.

Except I was apparently babbling incoherently, because he couldn't understand anything I was saying between the fast talking and the crying.  He was listening intently, but I wasn't making sense.  I was frustrated because there was real danger down there and I couldn't get it out.  Suddenly Collin ran up the hill and declared simply, "Chad's down there."

My dad BOLTED.  I've never seen him run faster than he did that day.  I remember it clearly, because I hadn't known that my father was that fast.  He ran into the bee storm, pulled out a helpless Chad, and pulled about 50 bees off his little body.  All of us had been stung a bunch of times, I had 6 stings, but it's harrowing to think that if my father had not been standing there, RIGHT there, there might not have been time.  At the very least, him running down there averted a medical emergency.

I remember when he came back up the hill holding Chad, there were bees on him, too.  And in that moment, my dad was Super Man.

My Pop isn't a super sentimental being.  Back in the day "I love you" was rare to hear.  A lot of the love stuff that most of us do easily isn't easy for him.  On top of that, he isn't a big reactor.  I could come home super excited about something and he'd casually say, "Great," maybe, or just nod.  So I'd have to go find Mom so she could be excited for me.  Dad was just a cool cat.

But that day, when he bolted down the hill without wondering what might happen to him, ...  I knew what that was.  That was love.


(Years later Justin admitted that he and the neighbor kid were throwing rocks into the hole, just to see what would happen, and that's why the bees swarmed.  Hence this is also the story of a pesky little brother.)