What Is The Point?

Joy
Joy

My wife, Donna, and I were sitting on a bench at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, watching our son Mark’s children roll down a grassy slope and listening to their peals of laughter.

But I guess Mark sensed my unease. 

Our older son, Bo, and his wife, Vicki, were organized.  They made a plan.  They went here, they went there, they saw this or that on the way. They got tickets when it was too crowded, which allowed them to go to the head of the line. They didn’t waste a minute. They and their children, Joy and Eli, were seeing and doing pretty much everything worth seeing and doing.

Eli
Eli

Mark is, how shall I say? Not that way. He is so laid back sometimes he could pass for limp.

Mark: He's laid back
Mark, Curtis, L, and Christian

Donna and I would go around Disney World with one family for a while, then the other, then by ourselves. This particular afternoon we were with Mark, his wife, and their four children. The kids had been resting, and playing, on that grassy bank for quite a while.

[Note: You can roll down a grassy bank back in Raleigh. For free.  We were wasting time.]

I was busy biting my tongue when Mark asked me, “Do you think they’re having fun?”

Cole and Chelsea
Cole and Chelsea

Well, that was obvious from their laughter. They were having a wonderful time.

“Isn’t that the whole point,” he said.

 

Coming Friday: The Good Fairy, Part 1

Ring THAT Up!

Jack, our mentally handicapped son, had been down at the community pool watching television on a small, portable TV when my wife, Donna, scooped him up and headed for Sears, to return some paint.

Jack Stith
Jack Stith

She allowed Jack to carry his TV into the store, sort of like a Mom who lets a kid hang on to a special blanket.

At Sears she found someone who could tell her where to return the paint. It was just a few steps away and, for a second or two or three she turned her back on Jack.

When she turned back to get him she saw a commotion, a knot of people gathered around the spot where she had left him.

They looked confused — dumfounded, actually.

Jack had unplugged a cash register, plugged in his TV, and was watching “The Price is Right.”

Coming Friday: Can You Spell Kat?