Little things occur in the world to let you know people are still with us. Still watching over. Still keeping you company. My father passed away suddenly in 2011 but is evidently still listening intently in New Jersey. Here is the story of how he ruined my new shorts with a kamikaze crap.
Walking on the Ocean City boardwalk, I was telling my 4-year-old, Ike, of how my parents would frequent those very beaches for years.
“Everytime your Grandma Nance would walk on the boardwalk, a seagull got her,” I told him. More details were needed. “You see how they swoop all around up there? They’re like fighter pilots (as though he knows what those are)… They’re looking for French fries, funnel cake, or whatever else people are holding loosely. Then she became the bomb target.”
Once comprehended, he found it to be, of course, hysterical that my mother was consistently used as a bird’s personal toilet from high above. And then, retribution came from another world. No more than a minute after telling the story, I could see it from the corner of my eye approaching with a vengeful ferocity. Splat. Right across my new silver mesh shorts. And it was the kind that resembles blueberry pie filling. Ike loved it. My wife smiled. And somewhere, amidst the sound of crashing waves and ocean breezes, I could hear my father laughing.
The torch had been passed. It was now my turn.
Walking on the Ocean City boardwalk, I was telling my 4-year-old, Ike, of how my parents would frequent those very beaches for years.
“Everytime your Grandma Nance would walk on the boardwalk, a seagull got her,” I told him. More details were needed. “You see how they swoop all around up there? They’re like fighter pilots (as though he knows what those are)… They’re looking for French fries, funnel cake, or whatever else people are holding loosely. Then she became the bomb target.”
Once comprehended, he found it to be, of course, hysterical that my mother was consistently used as a bird’s personal toilet from high above. And then, retribution came from another world. No more than a minute after telling the story, I could see it from the corner of my eye approaching with a vengeful ferocity. Splat. Right across my new silver mesh shorts. And it was the kind that resembles blueberry pie filling. Ike loved it. My wife smiled. And somewhere, amidst the sound of crashing waves and ocean breezes, I could hear my father laughing.
The torch had been passed. It was now my turn.