Who's on What

Last night I woke up to a peculiar sound but as the grogginess dissipated I realized that the fireworks were in full swing.  I crept out to watch them and nearly dropped dead when Mom said from her lookout at the living room window “I can see them here”.  I hadn’t realized she had also gotten up so I couldn’t hear the popping of the fireworks because of the pounding of my heart in my ears!  Then we enjoyed the spectacular colours and shapes of them for the next 10 minutes and then crawled back to bed.

       My small town doubles in size during the August long weekend as it is our Roundup Days.  This is the weekend where I stay close to home, I don’t even dare go in to town to fill up with gas because there are so many vehicles and people around.  So after lunch today I asked Mom to come with me to the gas station as I was a bit low and need to get to work tomorrow.  As we rounded the bend in the road we discovered a whole pack of people lined up along the bridge, starring hard into the creek below.  What on earth, we wondered.  Turns out this is where they have a duck race for the campers.  I believe they are big yellow rubber ducks floating down the creek as I haven’t seen any training grounds for the live ones around.

       On the drive home Mom wondered out loud why people get out of town, why they have rubber ducks, and so forth.  I looked at her and said “Mom, it’s not all about you.  There are people around who are under 100.”  It’s hard to accept that we are growing into old fuddy duddies who can’t understand the fun that kids enjoy.  Then we chatted about how unfortunate it is that it is expensive for people even to go to their community pool or ice rink and also that they aren’t open to the public except at designated times.  Otherwise these facilities are closed for private lessons, games or practices which doesn’t seem fair as they are funded by taxpayers.  It seems to me that the poorer people never seem to catch many breaks in life. 

       And meantime, Mom is having a siesta and I am enjoying the cool of the house as it is one heck of a scorcher today.  Welcome summertime.