When I was in middle school, Peter Boy Caroli and I had fierce wiffleball tournaments on the drive way to the right. Our strike zone was the center bricks between the to doors and we could play for hours.
Now there was a day when, for some reason, we were throwing beanbags and hitting them with aluminum Louisville Slugger bats when one of us (I think Pete) swung so hard that it caused the beanbag to explode, where the insides flew everywhere. It looked to the two of us that inside the beanbag were actually bean seeds because they were green and read to hit the soil. My father, Butch, noticed this too, and he came yelling at us with, "Jesus Christ, boys, those damn things are going to germinate."
I remember Peter Boy ruminating over this word...g-e-r-m-i-n-a-t-e for a very long time. The word struck his fancy and cracked him up.
I was thinking of this story yesterday when my mom sent me the chalk art left by Jacob Charles and Sean Man on their driveway (something makes me think Nikki was in on this, too) (Nope! It was all KC). What I'm humored by is that these letters were left by my father and not immediately hosed off with a few curses and threats. Mom reports dad left the chalk-art out for everyone to read. It puts a smile on my face knowing that an airplane circling Cherry Heights might see this message from above before landing at Hancock Airport - a place my father and big Pete knew so well.
Those seeds almost germinated 28 or 29 years ago. Peter Boy and I grew up and so shall Jacob and Sean. It's beautiful that my father has learned more tolerance in his old age.
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