Janet and I received glowing reports of how the boys were well-behaved and actually worked whenever they were asked. They helped pile about five cords of wood that my parents will burn for heat through the winter. My father bought a load of logs; he and my brother-in-law Curt blocked them up with chain saws; and a friend, Ron Dennison, let them use a gas-powered splitting machine for a day. When I was a kid—cue nostalgic music here—we used a splitting hammer, which is a cross between an axe and a sledge hammer, sometimes using a splitting wedge for the stubborn blocks. The wedge was basically a big squat chisel that you would pound on with the blunt end of the head of the splitting hammer.
Believe it or not, I have fond memories of splitting and stacking wood. I didn't always enjoy the work at the time, but it had a nice rhythm to it. It left me with great mental pictures and sensations: hefting the block into place, setting myself to swing the hammer, bringing it down (sometimes actually in the spot I was aiming for) and feeling the grain pop as the chunks of wood flew apart. I'd toss the chunks aside for Michael (my brother) to pick up—on those rare occasions when he was actually working. Then we would switch places, and I'd pick up the chunks that Michael split, sometimes five or six heavy pieces of wood at a time to cut down on the trips back and forth, enough wood that I couldn't even see over the armload, probably twenty-five or thirty pounds of wood. And coming back and back and back for more. And finally ending up with walls of wood in the correct place that were satisfying to look at.
Anyway, Ethan and Emmett have a lot of cousins to spend time with up here. They swam a lot and played baseball a lot at a field down the road, walking past a dairy farm to get there. The farm is going organic—no chemicals used on fields or in feed—because you get a much better price for milk that way.
Okay, I'm rambling. Here's the YaGoof! part of it. When I dropped the boys off here three weeks ago, I made a note to bring something up on my return trip—a box of the collectible Mr. Potato Head figure whose production I oversaw for New Pig. It was the lastest of our semi-famous promotional items.
But did I actually remember to bring the box? No.
And when I was cleaning the basement last weekend ((I sure could have used the allegedly hard-working pair on leave in Vermont), I boxed up some old bird houses that the boys and I had made when they were in Cub Scouts but that we had never put up. My father has bird houses scattered all over his property in Vermont, so I was going to bring that box with me, too.
But did I remember it? No.
Keith, Ya Goof!
Ah, well. There's always the next trip we make up here. Maybe the next Camp Grammie.
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