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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] Awkward social situations. Slightly risque.

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  • From: "Dave Griffin" <griffingardens@earthlink.net>
  • To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Awkward social situations. Slightly risque.
  • Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2005 16:50:43 -0500

Hi Joe,
 
This must be the weekend for this kind of thing: I was just reminiscing with my long time friend and neighbor Rich about an incident that occurred when we were working together at a residential treatment center for young teen-age kids. We were very busy loading up to go to the north shore of Lake Superior for our annual smelt trip - a combination outing for the kids and fundraiser to provide for their summer canoe trip to the BWCA. It was a panic situation as we were all packed up and ready to go when Rich discovered that he had the wrong size ball hitch on his truck for the big trailer we needed to carry back the 1500 # load of smelt. It was out of the way and too late to drive back home to get the right one so he decided to buy a new one - something of a problem since it was an unusually large trailer hitch that not commonly stocked, so he needed to call around first. Into the office and the yellow pages and, focused intently on the problem at hand, he got right to the point when his first call was answered and said "What size are your balls?". There was silence on the other end of the line and all around until another staff member writing in the log in a corner of the office, a nun, asked Rich who he was talking to. Rich, turning scarlet with realization deftly saved the situation by saying "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that the way it sounded, I just wanted to know how big your balls were". Of course, I have take every opportunity to remind him of the incident during the twenty five years since it happened, some much less pertinent than this weekend's church dinner (Scandinavian Lutheran)....where somehow it came up as we were standing in line for their locally famous Swedish meatball diner.
 
Joe were these the Bebb's acorns you recently posted about? If so, don't you think that should have appeared in the subject line?
 
Dave
Central MN
zone 4a
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
To: North American Fruit Explorers
 
Sent: 10/16/05 10:59:07 AM
Subject: [NAFEX] Awkward social situations. Slightly risque.

Hello all:

It has been slow on the NAFEX mail list. I thought I would make a contribution.

Today is Sunday. The church we go to is in a rural area. Most of the attendees are only one (or at most two) generations away from production agriculture. Most of the attendees are in their later years. I think it has something to do with cramming the night before the final.

We are one of the younger families who attend. I like to sit in the good seats in the back of the building where accoustics work in favor of keeping the hubbub of a young family from entertaining the entire congregation. My kids, on the other hand, like to sit up front where they can better see the action. This morning my youngest, a very active 6 year old, lead the invasion of the church and chose a pew right up front. I had no premonition of what was to follow so I went with the flow.

Churches vary in their character. Some are emotional, filled with swaying and swooning people hollaring "Hallelujah!!" My church is at the other end of the spectrum. Dignity and Grandeur describe us. A wild party involves the liberal serving of caffenated drinks.

My boy is busy and enduring the sevice is hard for him. I really identify with him because, truthfully, the acorn did not fall too far from the tree.

I usually mine my pockets for things for him to (quietly) play with during the service. Rubber bands are great. Coins are OK. Keys are too loud. I was not too prepared today. The best I could do was a couple of very bright, shiny dimes. They were very nice dimes, every feature was crisp. Robbie was not impressed. He wanted more. I found a couple of acorns after mining a couple of more pockets and he was happy.

BTW, the acorns are the NAFEX tie-in. I know most of you are carrying around artifacts of your NAFEX interests.

We entered a section of the service devoted to silent prayer. I heard the distinctive sound of a circular saw loudly slicing up 2-bys. I looked over and saw Robbie reducing his acorns to sawn lumber. What to say?

I gave him the "Dad" look.

Robbie has his shortcomings, but is a very generous soul by nature. He looked over at me and asked in a pleasant, conversational voice:
"Dad, do you want to cut my nuts?"
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I was pondering how to respond. This is not a question I have to answer in sign language very often.

Kids, when they do not get an answer, will assume that they were not heard the first time and will ask again in a much louder voice.

Robbie did.
*******************************************

Next week, we are going to sit in the back of the church.

--
Joe Hecksel
Personal Webpage http://my.voyager.net/~jhecksel



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