The Third of July was a busy day.\u00a0 We had to get the pool vacuumed before guests arrived and then there were chores around the yard.\u00a0 And then we had a good summer cookout with burgers and potato salad, corn on the cob, sausage and peppers and watermelon.\u00a0 No wonder losing weight is such a slog!<\/p>\n
And it was a good visit with reminiscences about summers up in Maine when my kids were young and other trips.\u00a0 And I had an interesting conversation with Princess Sack of Potatoes.\u00a0 She said something about how useful mothers were.\u00a0 So, I mentioned to her what fathers were useful for.\u00a0 I asked her if she ever got tired while out somewhere and her father carried her around like a sack of potatoes?\u00a0 Or what exactly would happen if the car got a flat tire far away from a tow truck?\u00a0 Or if suddenly traffic stopped on a crowded highway in the middle of summer and after an hour someone would have to get out and walk up the road to see how long the stoppage would be.\u00a0 And this caused a yelp from Princess Sack of Potatoes\u2019 mother.\u00a0 She remembered that day very well after all these years.\u00a0 And she was still upset by it, remembering how certain she had been that I would never come back alive.\u00a0 We all got a big laugh out of that.<\/p>\n
This was shortly after I had moved out of New York City but I was driving into Manhattan to attend a wedding in SoHo.\u00a0 It was a science fiction themed wedding with a blow-up Godzilla in attendance.\u00a0 We were on the FDR Drive when the traffic screeched to a halt and nothing happened for about forty minutes.\u00a0 So, since it was very hot that day and my car\u2019s air conditioning was non-existent, I shut off the engine and started walking between lanes of traffic to see what was going on.\u00a0 And about a half mile up the road there were police, fire and emergency vehicles blocking the road in both directions.\u00a0 And along with several crashed cars there was a very fancy sports car that was upside down and wrapped around a light pole and some other parts of the highway infrastructure.\u00a0 The firemen were cutting away what was left of the frame to get at what was left of the driver.\u00a0 It looked pretty grim.<\/p>\n
The good news for us was that our direction on the highway would be released as soon as the ambulances got their patients stowed away and headed to the hospital.\u00a0\u00a0 The other side looked like it would be stuck for hours.\u00a0 So, after satisfying my morbid curiosity for a few minutes I headed back to my car with the news that we would be moving in less than another half hour.\u00a0 And my youngest daughter looked so relieved when I managed to return before the traffic had started to move.\u00a0 She was convinced that if I hadn\u2019t gotten back before it started to move then of necessity I would be squashed like a bug in a cartoon.<\/p>\n
It’s funny, up until today I hadn\u2019t thought of that day in thirty-some-odd years.\u00a0 Funny what stuff just pops into your head.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Third of July was a busy day.\u00a0 We had to get the pool vacuumed before guests arrived and then there were chores around the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3366,1263,2860],"tags":[3341,4754,1267],"class_list":["post-37345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-in-dunwich","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","category-reclaiming-the-family","tag-dunwich","tag-life","tag-photogs-corner"],"yoast_head":"\n