King Of Marion

If summer had to end - and I guess it had to - John and I ended it on a good weekend.

Friday I took the day off and he and Gretchen and I went to Hardy to play in the river. First we drove up to Mammoth Springs and waded around a little there. You wouldn't think so much water could be so painfully cold, but it was. I went in up to my ankles and got the chills. I couldn't imagine submerging my whole body in it.

We were going to go tubing, but one place said we'd have to paddle for a while (uh-uh) and another place said we'd have to walk back to the car (no way). So we ended up just playing in the river. The river had wrapped around a small island at one point; this made for a fast current and a three foot standing wave. John went through it five or six times in his life jacket, bouncing over the wave and laughing his ass off.

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When we were leaving I was holding up one of Gretchen's gigantic bath sheets so she could change. On my side were the few campers at the campground. The river on Gretchen's side was deserted.

So of course she had no pants on when a canoe came skittering around the little island.

"Uh," I said, "there's a canoe."

She wrapped the towel around herself, laughed, and waved at the guys in the canoe. They seemed very pleased with the whole thing.

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Yesterday John and I went to the Rock and Romp in Minglewood Hall. I like the Rock and Romp, because for five bucks I get all the barbecue and beer I can eat. The caveat there is that you have to arrive promptly at the start time, or the lines will be outrageous or - much worse - the beer and meat will be gone altogether.

John, I think, is getting iffy about the Rock and Romps, though. There's tons of kids there, of course, and John doesn't usually have any trouble making the kind of temporary insta-friends the way kids do. He has a hard time with the Rock and Romps for some reason. After an hour or so he came back to where I was sitting, saying he couldn't find anyone who would play with him.

The Overinvolved Father in me wanted to catch some passing kid, shake the shit out of them, and say "do you not realize how awesome John is? How lucky you are that he wants to play with you? Take him into your circle and consider yourself blessed!" But the more realistic me knows that kids are clique-ish, and that most of those midtown kids go to school together, and John really is kind of an outsider.

Not that that upsets him. He told me he was hungry, but he's not a barbecue man. So we went to Toro Loco and he ate a couple of quesadillas. Then we went to Overton Park, where he effortlessly joined a group of kids on the playground.

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When we got home last night we were watching a little wrestling. Brock Lesnar was on, sporting a vicious midwestern farm boy high and tight.

"We need to cut your hair like that," I told John. He immediately went for it. So we did.

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It's been an excellent summer. Lots of swimming and in-pool beer drinking. A couple of trips to Hardy. My big birthday trip to Missouri and the long float down the Current River in a PBR haze. Fireworks. Yard work. Time with friends and family. Lazy Sunday afternoons with the girlfriend. I turned forty. Memorable stuff.