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The Bright Side of Aging
Vol.XX, Issue XI
The Bright Side of Aging
Vol. XX, Issue XI
The Bright Side of Aging
Vol.XX, Issue XI
If we’ve played our
parent cards right, then one
day we get rewarded with genuine treasure. We call ‘em “grandkids,” and that “grand” is there for a good reason.
from the Editor’s Desk by John Dzwonkowski, M.A.
Chillin’ with
the Grandkids!
I just returned from Arizona where my daughter Julie has made her nest, and where I get to dust off my over-used tools to concoct whatever my two munchkin grandkids, 7 and 5, come up with for us to do together. Love it, ...even though they’re apparently makin’ wood a whole lot heavier these days than when I was 30. Go figure, right?
Last time down there our project was a 12’ high swing set made outa old, but sturdy telephone poles, with four swings on it that has me pumpin’ their excited butts nearly up to the moon. It’s a memory that’ll last ‘em forever, I think, ...er, uh, as long as they can continue to survive it, of course.
This time they were pushin’ for a tree fort, but one that also had a crow’s nest. Luckily, my daughter’s the marketing, finance, and project- planning guru for a local building company, so there’s usually a lotta scrap wood available that isn’t going to see the light of day without my and the kids’ able-bodied assist. It’s a little twisted, knotted, and sometimes riddled with a fair variety of nails and screws, but that just makes the whole project a little more challenging.
And they’re on 5 acres of hardened, near- desert land, but thank God it does still have a bunch of them rickety, but sturdy old mesquite trees. Hard as steel, they are, but that means they can take the weight. And, sure, it does take three- to-four times as long when the kids chip in, but ...
isn’t that the point? It’s the journey, right? The destination’s okay too, but ...it’s definitely the journey.
We had to take coolade and ice cream breaks over the week of work about every 7 minutes. It was awesome. I put on 4 pounds, I think. And the breaks, between swappin’ stories and dumb jokes, many of the “knock-knock” variety, made the days fly by with laughter and hugs and, well, bathroom breaks a-plenty all around.
Had one little mishap, though. The hearing just isn’t what it used to be. So my 7-year-old Dakotah came runnin’ up to us, announcing, excited as she could be, “Grampa, I found my watch!”
Hmph, I didn’t even know she’d lost it. But no matter.
“That’s GREAT, honey! Way t’go!” I shouted back at her.
Then her brother, 5, looked at me like my head was on backwards. “No Grampa, she said she got stung by a wasp!” And that’s when the floodgates opened up on her face.
Hmmm, that little mishap required about an hour break, with a call to Mom for kid-consoling purposes.
But now we have yet one more story to laugh about together. And we did, about a dozen times more.
Grandkids—now there’s a gift from God.
Tidbits of Wisdom
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