Good times!

We've had quite a week here in Collegeville.

First Ken and Gail M visited last Wednesday after dropping Scott off at University of Pennsylvania for his Sophomore year. We had a great dinner at Francescos down in Phoenixville just across from the Colonial Theater. Good Italian food and great conversation. Ken and Gail stayed over and left for Cleveland on Thursday morning.

Then Alex and Christina arrived from Boston late Friday night (3:00 AM Saturday morning actually). How hard it is to remember when I had such energy. Work a long week including Friday, move furniture from one apartment to another over the course of a couple of hours, and then decide to drive six hours through the night. Oh to be 25 years old again.

Then a raucous Saturday morning coffee clatch with Sam and Jas, and a relatively rare appearance by Dave C. Great stories. Joey C, doing well in California now, a man now. An old man now, but not as old as me and Dave. Remembering and laughing about how he used to go to sleep crouched up on his forearms and chest and knees with his butt up in the air, making a little tent under the covers. Wondering now why none of us ever took a rubber band and shot a bobby pin hard at the spot on the covers where his butt was. I'd be willing to bet Dave C did that, at least once. Remembering now that Alex and Dave A, I'm sure it was them, broke the little crystal penguin, probably by shooting things at it with rubber bands. And then they propped the pieces together so it appeared whole.

Remembering how we used to play ball tag, ball tag with a hard rubber ball!, in their parents' basement, which was panelled and furnished, unlike our basement. And remembering how we used to shoot bent bobby pins and tightly folded paper projectiles at one another with rubber bands til somebody was crying. It's amazing we all still have use of both our eyes.

Remembering how quiet we used to be for a little while after an eruption from our parents upstairs when the general noise level, or a particularly sharp crash or scream or something, would remind them that we were down there. "What the hell are you little indians doing down there?" Sometimes, many times, the phrase contained a more outrageous characterization than "indians." What can one say about an era when a too tightly wound Mom or Dad might be pushed to the point of screaming at their kids, referring to them as "little bastards" or "little sons of bitches". What can one say about an era where it wasn't at all unusual to hear "Don't make me come down there. If I come down there I'm gonna beat the shit out of you." It shouldn't surprise that we would often be quiet and "good" for at least a few minutes after that. And then me or Dave would grab Joey or Jas or Sam and give them a good noogie and we would be off again.

Anyway, Jas and Kathy had the whole family, plus Mark and Linda L and Chris and Kit from the dances at the Ballroom on High Street, over to their house for a picnic yesterday, Labor Day, not that we have ever especially honored Labor Day except as an excuse for a picnic. A beautiful day, a great feed, great company. A little bittersweet because that may be the last picnic up on Canci Court since John and Kathy are retiring next July and may sell the house and move to a smaller one. We'll miss Fort Trappe if that happens.

Remembering that Pop always said "Well, that's another summer shot to hell" at the end of each Labor Day picnic in the old days. And that he always said "It's downhill from here," about the winter each New Years day.

Marianne complained about me calling her little stuffed lion "Lion-Lion" in my post the other day. She said his name was "Line-Line," but I still think "Lion-Lion" is the more correct. Why should I be limited in my writing by the echoes down the years of her childish inability to properly pronounce his name at the time? Marianne doesn't know where Lion-Lion is either. She says he disappeared when Mom and Pop moved out of the Trooper house. Maybe Sam or Jas buried Lion-Lion with Jippon. Or maybe Sam or Jas got too careless and let Jippon actually get his jaws on Lion-Lion one time after all the sleight of hand incidents. If so they aren't talking.

A funny story about language. In 1991 or so, when I was reporting on township meetings for The Collegeville Independent, a politician complained about the way I quoted him when I translated his casual spoken words to normal english. So the next week I took special pains to quote him exactly and at great length. I quoted every word he said at the meeting, starting with his complaint. I know I quoted him very exactly after his complaint because I checked the borough secretary's recording of the meeting after transcribing his remarks - as in "Wha yall think was gonna happn? Yall cut the grage money! Ain't no surprise, truck diden get no repairs, diden get fixt, so it broke down, at's what happen you cut the grage money. An idjit coulda tol ya at was gonna happn, any idjit. I tol ya, tol ya at the time, any idjit coulda tol ya."

And what did I get for my trouble? Why that ungrateful fellow had the nerve to complain again, maybe even a bit more vociferously. But he didn't complain the next week when I went back to translating him into English.