13/Jul/2007
An Editorial
Grandchildren are the Precious Flowers of a Long Life...
Clearly one of the best things anyone has ever said about me was when my 11-year-old granddaughter bragged to one of her friends recently, “Oh, we always have fun when we go anyplace with Grampie!”
That is definitely a statement designed to send grandparents
out hunting for fun things to do with their grandchildren (Clever kid my
granddaughter, don’t you think?).
So, last Saturday my wife and I went blueberry picking with three
of our ten grandkids (soon to be 11) and two of their friends. We journeyed up
to Ethel, La., a few miles north of Zachary. Berry Sweet Orchards is a great
place to spend a Saturday morning in June. The kids had a wonderful time
picking for a couple of hours, and I was the only one who got stung by a
wasp.
We checked out with 27 pounds of berries (not counting the ten pounds we consumed while we picked). The berries were just $2 a pound, so Grampie figured he got off pretty cheap for a morning’s entertainment. And then they said they were hungry!
We got lucky, though, when we stopped at LeBlanc’s
Supermarket on our way out of Zachary because right there in the parking lot
LeBlanc’s was selling $1 hamburgers and 25 cent cokes. Of course, the burgers
were small, so everybody needed two.
I
mean, so what it’s only money, and Grampie has an endless supply!
If you think you have more money than you
need, just try taking your grandkids to the water park or a church fair.
Trips to the movie these days set you back
$100 in the blink of an eye.
Somewhere along the line my sister-in-law embroidered a plaque that hangs in one of our guest bedrooms where we have a couple of twin beds and where the grandkids hide out whenever they spend the night. It says, “Grandchildren are the precious flowers of a long life...” and then she embroidered a bunch of flowers with our grandkids’ names on them. The names need to be updated, but I look at that thing when I can’t sleep sometimes and go in there to read.
And you know it really is true what that plaque says. Our only real purpose in being is to continue the species, and grandkids are the natural product of our Lord’s plan. The man I have tried to pattern my life on was my mother’s father and the most love anyone showed me until I met my wife was my grandmother.
I never knew my father’s parents, because his mother died just a couple of days after my dad – her fifth child – was born, and his father committed suicide the next year. Poor people, they sure missed a lot.
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