The Rock Wall

Are you tired of hearing about Covid 19 yet? I am. I’ve kinda tuned it out.
I think that if researchers don’t come up with a vaccine soon, we will all get it at some point. I figure it will sneak up and bite me when I’m not looking.
I could tell at the school board meeting that Heath Oates and his staff are taking it very seriously. Every staff member was ready to talk about preparations in their department. I mean it was seamless. They were so in tune one would almost finish another’s sentence. They sound like they are ready for almost anything the virus throws their way. Fourteen teachers volunteered to develop the plan and their hard work and thought was obvious.
– Saturday Davis and our grandson, Ben, came out to fish in a pond. Davis brought his kayak and caught the most fish, bass and bluegill, but nothing really worth keeping. Ben caught several small ones from the bank on a Beetle Spin. When it was time to go home, Davis turned loose the six or eight fish he had put on his stringer.
I thought they needed some fresh liver to entice the large channel cats we know are in the pond. Davis went squirrel hunting in the heat of the day with predictable results: zero success.
Ben and I sat in my pickup in the shade for quite a while and watched Davis fish. We talked about going down by the pond in the hot sun and opted to stay in the shade.
Meanwhile, Kimmie (that’s Kimball’s self picked grandma name) had our year old granddaughter, Reese, for the afternoon. Reese is highly mobile and walking better and faster every day. I asked Kimball if Reese followed her around. No, Kimball did the following to make sure Reese didn’t get in trouble.
– I’ve got a situation that I never expected: Reese is afraid of me. Other than the day she was born, I’ve never held her. Kimball tried to put her on my lap the other day and Reese started crying. Kimball or Davis can be giving her a ride in a shopping cart and when they come through my office, I’ll say, “Hi, Sweetie.” Reese will put her hands behind her head and tear up.
I learned from Kimball that is not unheard of. Van, our oldest grandson, was afraid of his Grandma Gilfoil, Cain’s mother, for awhile and got over it. Snider, at almost a year old, is afraid of his uncle Wynn, Cain’s sister’s husband, who they call the Baby Whisperer because the little kids love him. Well, all except one of the 10 Gilfoil grandkids. Some of them, are his and don’t have much of a choice, I guess.
We’ve started conditioning Reese. Kimball will take her by the door of my office in the grocery cart, stop and speak but not come in.
– Remember how Caddeaux thought every visitor in the house came just to pet him? Not Jack, our new kitten who is maybe pushing two years old. Stranger in the house, Jack disappears sometimes for hours. I finally figured out that he was hiding under the tub in our bathroom. There’s some loose insulation where I exposed water pipes when a plumber was changing us from Quest over to something a lot more reliable.
– Well, Jack is afraid of Reese. Hours after Davis, Ben and Reese left, Kimball was calling around the house for Jack and heard some faint meowing. Jack had hid under the tub and I had stuffed some insulation back in place in early afternoon trapping him.
OK, it’s officially time for me to replace those four tiles after I stuff all the insulation back into place.
Have you seen the pizza delivery commercial where the guy sails the pizza against a rolled up car window? We might have a cat doing that until he finds a new hidy hole. That’s what Jack Martin, who installed our A/C about 1989, called our storm cellar which we were using the first and only time the night we heard on the radio that Princess Diana was killed.
I’ve seen the devastation left by several tornadoes. If a big one is coming our way, I’d be glad to hide my family and me in an 8’ X 8’ X 8’ room with four 8” concrete walls and an 8” concrete ceiling. The one we hardly ever think about but the first one built when they poured the basement. KL