David came into the living room where we were all chatting and catching up. He’s five and coltish and climbed up on his mom’s lap, who was sitting next to me on the sofa. He nestled into her with the whine of exhaustion and confusion and asked, “What food is in a palm tree?”
“In a palm tree?” Amber clarified.
David nodded and asked further, “Alaria says we have coconuts in the palm tree.”
“Well, yes, there are certain kinds of palm trees that have coconuts.”
Alaria is David’s older sister. She’ll be seven in a few days.
“But we don’t have any coconuts in our palm tree!” he continued.
Amber glanced at me and around the room. “We don’t have palm trees.” Amber, Mike (her husband), Alaria and David live in Gainesville, Florida. They’re out in the country which looks more like the North Carolina area where they’re from, with tall pines and maples and oaks, than the Florida most people know—coastal, with palm trees. Amber’s parents—Rick and Cynthia, who are my first cousins—have also moved in with them. Rick’s sister Pam, from Myrtle Beach, was visiting for the week and so Mama and I decided to drive up for dinner and see everybody. Yeah, it was far but sometimes that Christmas spirit moves in mysterious ways.
David squirmed and retorted emphatically. “Yes, we do! We have a palm tree!”
“Where?”
“In the house. Our palm tree. Alaria says there are coconuts in the palm tree but there aren’t any coconuts in the palm tree!”
The discussion had grown louder and whinnier. David was clearly over tired, past his bedtime; he and Alaria had expended vast amounts of energy beyond my imagination. He was clearly frustrated with his sister and growing frustrated with his mother.
Several of us added our two cents about different kinds of palm trees as David, all knees and elbows at odd angles, rotated on his mother’s lap. “You’re not listening to me!” he bellowed and ran out of the room.
We rather chuckled at what they must be arguing about and how the topic of coconuts in palm trees came up.
Soon David was back. More frustrated than ever. He said he looked, and there were no coconuts in
the palm tree.
“What palm tree, honey? We don’t have any palm trees.”
“You’re NOT LISTENING TO ME!!! LISTEN TO ME.”
We all sat wide-eyed watching this drama play on.
“I’m listening, David. You said there are coconuts in the palm tree...”
“NOOOOO. ALARIA SAID THERE ARE COCONUTS IN THE PALM TREE BUT THERE ARE NO COCONUTS IN OUR PALM TREE.”
“Calm down, David. We don’t have a palm tree---”
“We do! Inside our house we have a palm tree, our palm tree.” He stood up and began pulling her by the hand. “Come on, I’ll show you!”
She glanced at us as she got up, hand in his hand, “Excuse me, I’m off to see the palm tree we have inside our house.”
The rest of us chatted some more about the topic and soon Amber returned alone and took her place on the sofa, chuckling. “Pantry. He was talking about the pantry. He had asked Alaria what food was in the palm tree and she said coconuts so he went to the pantry and didn’t find any coconuts and went back to her and they argued about it. He was saying pantry. I just didn’t understand that’s what he was saying.”
David came back, a little bit calmer, but still confused and upset. He climbed up again on Amber’s lap. “Why does Alaria keep saying there are coconuts in the palm tree when there are no coconuts in our palm tree?”
“Honey, I don’t know, but you’re right, we don’t have any coconuts in the pantry. Alaria is just teasing you I guess.”
David stopped cold and stared up at her face. He slid off her lap and stood a little crooked like little kids do. “Pantry?” He said quietly, with furrowed brow. Humbly, thoughtfully he said, “Oh. That’s how you say it.” Off he ran and that was that.
Earlier he had wanted to open his box of M&Ms he’d gotten for Christmas because he was hungry, he said, and Amber told him if he was still hungry he needed to go to the pantry and find some real food, he’d had enough candy. It all made sense now. While he and his sister were playing in her room, he had asked her what food was in their palm tree....
POSTSCRIPT: If you have not seen “Christopher Robin” with Ewan McGregor, you MUST! Mama and I watched it this morning and it’s soooo good. PLUS, Pooh Bear does the same thing David was doing! Translating unfamiliar words Christopher said, into words and phrases that sounded similar. “Efficiency,” for example, became “a fish in the sea.” OF COURSE, the language aspect was my favorite bit!
Saturday, December 29, 2018
Saturday, October 13, 2018
When everything tries to warn you
Tuesday...
It all started last night.
Meat pie heating up in the toaster oven launched the little pans I keep on top and the rattle rose me off the sofa. Those pans have been on top of that oven forever. Why now? But of course that’s rhetorical so I stacked them back inside each other on top, finished dinner and went back into the den. Forgot all about it.
Woke up this morning at 2:13. Now I like to get up early, I like 3:53 best, actually...can be on the porch by 4 for a couple hours of good writing or a movie or whatever I want to do and it’s LOVELY. But 2:13 is too early the day before PSATs... Got up because sleep was avoiding me, made tea, got comfy on the sofa and watched stuff from the DVR. The plan is always to kinda relax back into some napping. Usually no writing occurs. Finally decided to sorta chip away at getting ready for the day so I was in the bathroom gathering the pieces of clothing when a little plastic container on the half wall by the walk-down shower decided to jump off and hit a wee cleaning bucket beside it and thuddy thumped like crazy. What the heck made that happen? Put the stuff back in its place and went on getting ready.
Back on the sofa with oatmeal for breakfast, watching something delightful on tv. Few minutes later I hear something like glass fall over—not break, just kinda fall over so I got up with my empty oatmeal bowl and there in the kitchen on the counter was my little juice glass on its side. No liquid. No reason. Just toppled over. This is getting creepy now, right? I was like it’s too early in the morning for this stuff.
Finished getting ready, left the house, pushed the garage door button like every single time I go anywhere and I get in the car, shut the door, put the key in the ignition, look up to see a broom, that sits in the corner of the front of the garage with a rod, a shovel, and has been there FOR*EV*ER, and I watch as it, in slow motion, of course, decide to tip it’s handle and slide the arch all the way down the wall to the floor.
Clearly my entire house was trying to tell me something. I get it—something potentially catastrophic is going to fall today and I need to be fully aware and alert so I can keep out of harm’s way.
Hurricane Michael was on its destructive path up the gulf and I was a little freaked that I’d not heard about it before yesterday morning! Now, on the way to school, my sister texted me to confirm that the storm was not going anywhere near our mother in Fort Myers. I glanced at the text, but waited the rest of the 10 minutes to get to school before replying. Pulled up onto my favorite parking space, turned off the car, put on the required lanyard with security ID (photo’s nearly 20 years old and I look like Bozo, but I digress) and texted Keri back to reassure her it might have rained and been windy but the monster was headed up to the panhandle. Put the phone in my back pocket, gathered my running shoes (it might rain), lunch in a bag, and some papers, punched the lock button on the car door, got out, shut the door, turned to head toward the portable, trying to maneuver everything so I could get my school keys out of my pocket—they weren’t there. Dangit. Turned around to get them out of the car...and realized...yep...you guessed it. Car keys had FALLEN OUT of my hand onto the car seat inside the locked car. And there it is. The moral of the story.
Triple A card was also still in the car... Yes I have AAA in my phone but turns out it was too old and wrong now. Tried to google the number but just couldn’t quite get to the right one—fortunately a friend came by who had his AAA card so I could call the 800 number. Within the hour, wiry little bearded guy drove up in his little truck and broke into my car after about 15 minutes working on it. So all is well.
At some point during the day something came up in class that brought all this to mind so I told the story. Before I got to the finish line—at about when the broom was falling over—my sweet junior girl with blue hair blurted with glee, “Ms Ballard! Your house is haunted!! Wanna borrow my ouija board to find out who it is?”
No, thanks, Emily, I’m Scots-Irish; if they want me to know who they are, they’ll just smack me in the back of the head and tell me when they’re ready.
Halloween is on its way, y’all!!!
It all started last night.
Meat pie heating up in the toaster oven launched the little pans I keep on top and the rattle rose me off the sofa. Those pans have been on top of that oven forever. Why now? But of course that’s rhetorical so I stacked them back inside each other on top, finished dinner and went back into the den. Forgot all about it.
Woke up this morning at 2:13. Now I like to get up early, I like 3:53 best, actually...can be on the porch by 4 for a couple hours of good writing or a movie or whatever I want to do and it’s LOVELY. But 2:13 is too early the day before PSATs... Got up because sleep was avoiding me, made tea, got comfy on the sofa and watched stuff from the DVR. The plan is always to kinda relax back into some napping. Usually no writing occurs. Finally decided to sorta chip away at getting ready for the day so I was in the bathroom gathering the pieces of clothing when a little plastic container on the half wall by the walk-down shower decided to jump off and hit a wee cleaning bucket beside it and thuddy thumped like crazy. What the heck made that happen? Put the stuff back in its place and went on getting ready.
Back on the sofa with oatmeal for breakfast, watching something delightful on tv. Few minutes later I hear something like glass fall over—not break, just kinda fall over so I got up with my empty oatmeal bowl and there in the kitchen on the counter was my little juice glass on its side. No liquid. No reason. Just toppled over. This is getting creepy now, right? I was like it’s too early in the morning for this stuff.
Finished getting ready, left the house, pushed the garage door button like every single time I go anywhere and I get in the car, shut the door, put the key in the ignition, look up to see a broom, that sits in the corner of the front of the garage with a rod, a shovel, and has been there FOR*EV*ER, and I watch as it, in slow motion, of course, decide to tip it’s handle and slide the arch all the way down the wall to the floor.
Clearly my entire house was trying to tell me something. I get it—something potentially catastrophic is going to fall today and I need to be fully aware and alert so I can keep out of harm’s way.
Hurricane Michael was on its destructive path up the gulf and I was a little freaked that I’d not heard about it before yesterday morning! Now, on the way to school, my sister texted me to confirm that the storm was not going anywhere near our mother in Fort Myers. I glanced at the text, but waited the rest of the 10 minutes to get to school before replying. Pulled up onto my favorite parking space, turned off the car, put on the required lanyard with security ID (photo’s nearly 20 years old and I look like Bozo, but I digress) and texted Keri back to reassure her it might have rained and been windy but the monster was headed up to the panhandle. Put the phone in my back pocket, gathered my running shoes (it might rain), lunch in a bag, and some papers, punched the lock button on the car door, got out, shut the door, turned to head toward the portable, trying to maneuver everything so I could get my school keys out of my pocket—they weren’t there. Dangit. Turned around to get them out of the car...and realized...yep...you guessed it. Car keys had FALLEN OUT of my hand onto the car seat inside the locked car. And there it is. The moral of the story.
Triple A card was also still in the car... Yes I have AAA in my phone but turns out it was too old and wrong now. Tried to google the number but just couldn’t quite get to the right one—fortunately a friend came by who had his AAA card so I could call the 800 number. Within the hour, wiry little bearded guy drove up in his little truck and broke into my car after about 15 minutes working on it. So all is well.
At some point during the day something came up in class that brought all this to mind so I told the story. Before I got to the finish line—at about when the broom was falling over—my sweet junior girl with blue hair blurted with glee, “Ms Ballard! Your house is haunted!! Wanna borrow my ouija board to find out who it is?”
No, thanks, Emily, I’m Scots-Irish; if they want me to know who they are, they’ll just smack me in the back of the head and tell me when they’re ready.
Halloween is on its way, y’all!!!
Thursday, September 27, 2018
Hard Day?
Today was a hard day. Sophties are so green right now...I just keep reminding myself it’s job security. Didn’t have things ready, second chances, still not ready. L4Ls are broken, or left at home, or they forgot to charge it. Chaos. Then got caught behind a bus that stopped, I kid you not, every hundred yards for about six miles. Errands and so forth just tedious....
Then I met Jim King. But I didn’t meet him until after I’d passed him standing on the right corner of the driveway from Publix as I turned right onto Martin Downs to go to the post office. After I got stuck in school zone flashing lights for three miles stretch on 714. After I had time to consider what his sign said: “My family needs a little help” and after I realized he was missing a leg, standing there in the 4:00 Palm City sun, not a cloud in the sky. Instead of turning into my neighborhood, I circled back up to Publix. He was still there, standing tall and straight in his pale cargo shorts, white tee-shirt, faded ball cap down to his glasses. I parked in the shade by the CVS because of the eggs.
I greeted him as I approached and asked how he was doing, he needed a chair and an umbrella. He agreed. He had a nice face and warm smile. I asked about what kind of help his family needed. We talked about his service in the Marines, how his wife could no longer work, he has only a small 40% pension, the two of them travel to Tallahassee for medical visits so really, he said, it’s mostly just needing gas money. I gave him what I could.
We chatted about how teachers and veterans seem to be so very necessary in our communities and yet we are disregarded on so many levels. Told him I wanted to encourage him that many of my students will be able to vote this year and they know what’s going on and they are not having it. He said he hoped they could bring about the change we all need just to be able to make ends meet and plan for the future. His service predates 911 so he’s not eligible for the Wounded Warrior. They’ve tried all the avenues they can find, said his wife has been real good about sending off for everything that comes up offering services or financial help.
Told him twice in the course of our ten minutes in that blazing sun that I appreciated his service. Stretched out my hand and introduced myself and that’s when he told me his name is Jim King, but people call him “Gunny.” He said he’d be back in a couple of weeks maybe at that location, maybe at another. Generally people in this area, he said, seem to be kind and generous for which he is grateful. Such a calm, warm, centered person.
If you see a veteran standing at attention in the blazing hot sun for hours on end, you know they’re for real. Be kind. If I see him again I plan to hit him up for some stories. First introductions seemed a little unthoughtful to ask too many questions.
On the way home I realized my day wasn’t all that bad. I work with pretty good people and kids who are maybe a little green but every day they’re exposed to stories that hopefully open their eyes to the world around them, learn to take more and more responsibility for their own lives and cultivate attention to being helpful to those who could use some kindness and appreciation.
While we’re here, we may as well look out for each other.
Then I met Jim King. But I didn’t meet him until after I’d passed him standing on the right corner of the driveway from Publix as I turned right onto Martin Downs to go to the post office. After I got stuck in school zone flashing lights for three miles stretch on 714. After I had time to consider what his sign said: “My family needs a little help” and after I realized he was missing a leg, standing there in the 4:00 Palm City sun, not a cloud in the sky. Instead of turning into my neighborhood, I circled back up to Publix. He was still there, standing tall and straight in his pale cargo shorts, white tee-shirt, faded ball cap down to his glasses. I parked in the shade by the CVS because of the eggs.
I greeted him as I approached and asked how he was doing, he needed a chair and an umbrella. He agreed. He had a nice face and warm smile. I asked about what kind of help his family needed. We talked about his service in the Marines, how his wife could no longer work, he has only a small 40% pension, the two of them travel to Tallahassee for medical visits so really, he said, it’s mostly just needing gas money. I gave him what I could.
We chatted about how teachers and veterans seem to be so very necessary in our communities and yet we are disregarded on so many levels. Told him I wanted to encourage him that many of my students will be able to vote this year and they know what’s going on and they are not having it. He said he hoped they could bring about the change we all need just to be able to make ends meet and plan for the future. His service predates 911 so he’s not eligible for the Wounded Warrior. They’ve tried all the avenues they can find, said his wife has been real good about sending off for everything that comes up offering services or financial help.
Told him twice in the course of our ten minutes in that blazing sun that I appreciated his service. Stretched out my hand and introduced myself and that’s when he told me his name is Jim King, but people call him “Gunny.” He said he’d be back in a couple of weeks maybe at that location, maybe at another. Generally people in this area, he said, seem to be kind and generous for which he is grateful. Such a calm, warm, centered person.
If you see a veteran standing at attention in the blazing hot sun for hours on end, you know they’re for real. Be kind. If I see him again I plan to hit him up for some stories. First introductions seemed a little unthoughtful to ask too many questions.
On the way home I realized my day wasn’t all that bad. I work with pretty good people and kids who are maybe a little green but every day they’re exposed to stories that hopefully open their eyes to the world around them, learn to take more and more responsibility for their own lives and cultivate attention to being helpful to those who could use some kindness and appreciation.
While we’re here, we may as well look out for each other.
Wednesday, September 26, 2018
Protect and Serve
Last night as I pulled onto my driveway and opened the garage door, my mother texted me an update of some medical tests she had that morning. Nothing serious, but troubling, choices to make, life. I read the text as I slowly floated into the garage...misjudging the space only slightly, making it wholly inconvenient to get out of the car and into the house. The text further distracted me from emptying my pocket of the little case that holds credit cards. I don’t normally take it inside the house because I’m liable to forget it...
Hate it when I oversleep like I did this morning. Throws off the whole routine. Complicated by the new Fall line-up on tv I DVR’d. On top of that I was distracted by a number of things—wanting to be sure I packed the car with yoga stuff for after school, having to make lunch which should be part of the routine but not quite yet... Barely going to be able to leave on time... I remembered the case of credit cards, put it on top of the car and scootched through the narrow space between car and crap by the wall of the garage to get to the trunk to put in change of clothes, yoga stuff, birks—had to put on tennis shoes. Lunch—normally take it in the cab with me but, hell, I just threw it in the back, too.
Oh wait, it was also garbage day but really, look at the time. Dammit. I decided to wait to take it out next garbage day. Oh my story! I can listen to the book club novel on the way to school. Perfect. I squeezed into the car, slid precariously behind the wheel, opened the garage door, opened the library AXIS 360 ap on the phone, set up the book to play/stream through the digital wi-fi system (whatever) in the car—clicked on the phone icon on the car monitor, then blue tooth—still a novice so it took concentrated effort but I got it to work, backed down the drive in the pitch black, pre-dawn morning, headlights beaming, and went on my way.
To back out of the driveway and proceed takes that three-quarter turn you learn first thing in driver’s ed, because I have to negotiate a strange added turn in the street at the end of the driveway. My street has a hairpin turn a block away, then I have to turn left onto a busy-ish street with the bumpiest connection, drainage curb to the road, then the road eventually and slowly bears to the left. I then got into the right-hand turn lane and something popped LOUDLY onto my dashboard—I thought the garage door opener had fallen from the visor. Nope, the thing was OUTSIDE! On my windshield!
OH SH***—it was my credit card case!!! I punched in the emergency blinkers—I mean, this was the start of morning rush hour! Even though it was rather pitch dark, even though the moon was full but low on the horizon. OMG. I jumped out of the car, waving people around me and grabbed the case—it was partially open and all the cards WERE GONE!!! Nowhere on the windshield! Did you know there’s a little space at the bottom of the windshield big enough for credit cards to fall through???? That’s where they had to be, I thought. But, this is a new enough car that I had no idea how to open the hood!!! Had to be a latch down left of the steering wheel near the floor, right? So I crouched down to look for a lever or something. The story was playing loudly inside the car and I was a bit freaked knowing I was at that corner to turn right with people coming around...I couldn’t think straight—somewhere subliminally my brain was trying to tell me the phone had a flashlight on it but before I could think that, as I’m touching every lever and squinting for clarity in the dim street light, a police officer’s blue light began to spin around me and suddenly the cop says out his passenger side window “Mornin’—you okay?”
“Yes but I left my little card case on top of my car and somehow got this far before it fell down into the windshield and I think all the cards fell into the engine area and it’s a new car and I don’t know how to open the hood and this is crazy, right? I mean, I live like a mile from here, how did that thing stay on top of the car this long?” I said all that with the requisite hand motions, of course.
Meanwhile he had gotten out of his vehicle and had come around to where I was standing. THAT’s about when I remembered the cell flashlight because he had a flashlight. He was calm and I was calmish, explained again that I just wasn’t sure where the latch was on this car. He aimed at the area I had been probing. There it was, plain as day, that hood lever thing. He pulled it and started around the door to the hood and THEN I SAW THEM under the light of his flashlight and car lights! They were all strewn underneath our feet! We were STANDING ON THEM. It was hilarious but I wasn’t yet feeling the funny. I was feeling the stupid. He had just started flashing the light looking in the engine and my phone light was on the street. “LOOK!” I exclaimed. “There they are!! There they all are!!!” I picked them up and put them into the case and he brought the flash light back around as I put each card back in it’s little accordion file and he asked me if I was sure I had them all and I recited, “Yep, two credit cards, school ID, library card, AAA, Barnes & Noble, gotta have that, and I think really that’s it. I only care that I got the credit cards and ID.” He asked again if I was sure and he bent way down, hand on the pavement, and looked all down under the car and then shined his light back up through the street. That was a fabulous flashlight.
“Yes, sir, that’s really it, I’m sure. Thank you so so so much for coming by when you did and for stopping to help. I appreciate you so much.”
“Glad I could help,” he said. We got into our cars and went merrily on our way. I remember he was the police officer who helped me several years ago when the Mazda flat out died one morning right around the same time of day. I had called AAA and was waiting and he stopped and chatted with me awhile. It might have been a flat tire or the battery, I don’t really remember, I just remember he was very nice. SRO for the elementary school nearby.
I like to think this is why men and women enter the police force—to be able to help folks out of trouble this mild, all the way up to protecting people from mortal dangers as well.
Oh, yeah, there’s actually an epilogue—about three hours later, visiting the small group discussions going on in first block, a wonderful sophomore said, “Ms Ballard...” I turned to her, thinking she had a question but suddenly she looked kind of sheepish. “Um, I think maybe your cell phone flash light is on.” I keep the cell phone in my back pocket. Visions of lightning bugs from my youth toyed with my imagination.
And so it goes—another school day in paradise. Grateful for friendly, helpful police officers and brave, kind sophomores.
Hate it when I oversleep like I did this morning. Throws off the whole routine. Complicated by the new Fall line-up on tv I DVR’d. On top of that I was distracted by a number of things—wanting to be sure I packed the car with yoga stuff for after school, having to make lunch which should be part of the routine but not quite yet... Barely going to be able to leave on time... I remembered the case of credit cards, put it on top of the car and scootched through the narrow space between car and crap by the wall of the garage to get to the trunk to put in change of clothes, yoga stuff, birks—had to put on tennis shoes. Lunch—normally take it in the cab with me but, hell, I just threw it in the back, too.
Oh wait, it was also garbage day but really, look at the time. Dammit. I decided to wait to take it out next garbage day. Oh my story! I can listen to the book club novel on the way to school. Perfect. I squeezed into the car, slid precariously behind the wheel, opened the garage door, opened the library AXIS 360 ap on the phone, set up the book to play/stream through the digital wi-fi system (whatever) in the car—clicked on the phone icon on the car monitor, then blue tooth—still a novice so it took concentrated effort but I got it to work, backed down the drive in the pitch black, pre-dawn morning, headlights beaming, and went on my way.
To back out of the driveway and proceed takes that three-quarter turn you learn first thing in driver’s ed, because I have to negotiate a strange added turn in the street at the end of the driveway. My street has a hairpin turn a block away, then I have to turn left onto a busy-ish street with the bumpiest connection, drainage curb to the road, then the road eventually and slowly bears to the left. I then got into the right-hand turn lane and something popped LOUDLY onto my dashboard—I thought the garage door opener had fallen from the visor. Nope, the thing was OUTSIDE! On my windshield!
OH SH***—it was my credit card case!!! I punched in the emergency blinkers—I mean, this was the start of morning rush hour! Even though it was rather pitch dark, even though the moon was full but low on the horizon. OMG. I jumped out of the car, waving people around me and grabbed the case—it was partially open and all the cards WERE GONE!!! Nowhere on the windshield! Did you know there’s a little space at the bottom of the windshield big enough for credit cards to fall through???? That’s where they had to be, I thought. But, this is a new enough car that I had no idea how to open the hood!!! Had to be a latch down left of the steering wheel near the floor, right? So I crouched down to look for a lever or something. The story was playing loudly inside the car and I was a bit freaked knowing I was at that corner to turn right with people coming around...I couldn’t think straight—somewhere subliminally my brain was trying to tell me the phone had a flashlight on it but before I could think that, as I’m touching every lever and squinting for clarity in the dim street light, a police officer’s blue light began to spin around me and suddenly the cop says out his passenger side window “Mornin’—you okay?”
“Yes but I left my little card case on top of my car and somehow got this far before it fell down into the windshield and I think all the cards fell into the engine area and it’s a new car and I don’t know how to open the hood and this is crazy, right? I mean, I live like a mile from here, how did that thing stay on top of the car this long?” I said all that with the requisite hand motions, of course.
Meanwhile he had gotten out of his vehicle and had come around to where I was standing. THAT’s about when I remembered the cell flashlight because he had a flashlight. He was calm and I was calmish, explained again that I just wasn’t sure where the latch was on this car. He aimed at the area I had been probing. There it was, plain as day, that hood lever thing. He pulled it and started around the door to the hood and THEN I SAW THEM under the light of his flashlight and car lights! They were all strewn underneath our feet! We were STANDING ON THEM. It was hilarious but I wasn’t yet feeling the funny. I was feeling the stupid. He had just started flashing the light looking in the engine and my phone light was on the street. “LOOK!” I exclaimed. “There they are!! There they all are!!!” I picked them up and put them into the case and he brought the flash light back around as I put each card back in it’s little accordion file and he asked me if I was sure I had them all and I recited, “Yep, two credit cards, school ID, library card, AAA, Barnes & Noble, gotta have that, and I think really that’s it. I only care that I got the credit cards and ID.” He asked again if I was sure and he bent way down, hand on the pavement, and looked all down under the car and then shined his light back up through the street. That was a fabulous flashlight.
“Yes, sir, that’s really it, I’m sure. Thank you so so so much for coming by when you did and for stopping to help. I appreciate you so much.”
“Glad I could help,” he said. We got into our cars and went merrily on our way. I remember he was the police officer who helped me several years ago when the Mazda flat out died one morning right around the same time of day. I had called AAA and was waiting and he stopped and chatted with me awhile. It might have been a flat tire or the battery, I don’t really remember, I just remember he was very nice. SRO for the elementary school nearby.
I like to think this is why men and women enter the police force—to be able to help folks out of trouble this mild, all the way up to protecting people from mortal dangers as well.
Oh, yeah, there’s actually an epilogue—about three hours later, visiting the small group discussions going on in first block, a wonderful sophomore said, “Ms Ballard...” I turned to her, thinking she had a question but suddenly she looked kind of sheepish. “Um, I think maybe your cell phone flash light is on.” I keep the cell phone in my back pocket. Visions of lightning bugs from my youth toyed with my imagination.
And so it goes—another school day in paradise. Grateful for friendly, helpful police officers and brave, kind sophomores.
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