Burying, Unearthing

Hello, all, and welcome to a quick and newsy edition of Meet The Johnstadts.

Q and T have both had tennis camp this past week. T, Tuesdays and Thursdays for 45 minutes, and Q Monday throught Thursday for ninety minutes. And both have enjoyed it a lot. Q was scheduled to be in a camp for 8-9-year-olds, but it was canceled, which we didn’t find out until Janneke was there to drop him off. But someone informed her of a concurrent camp for older kids up the road a piece, and she took him there, where, after assessing his skills, they accepted him. And he has really flourished there – since T doesn’t have day care this week (a wholly different saga that is beginning to tick us off), I would drop him off there and take T to a park for 45 minutes or so, and would come back expecting to see them curled up in the shade, suffering in the heat. But he was always skipping from game to game, getting into his stance with renewed energy all the time…The instructor made a point of coming over to Janneke on one of the days she picked him up and saying “He’s a very good tennis player.” Janneke said “Thank you,” and the instructor repeated it, emphasizing: “He’s really very good.” So of course I rocket straight to thoughts of enrolling him in classes at the indoor tennis facility in Pittsfield, then growing a paunch and wearing sunglasses everywhere, getting thrown out of a few tournaments for aggressive and strange behavior, then glowering over him at a press conference, leaning down to take my cigar out of the side of my mouth and whisper something in Spanish into his ear before every reply, immediately after he wins Wimbledon at the age of 17. Promptly thereafter he'll quit tennis and join a Mexican ska band. I'll have to shake my schedule around some to make all that happen...

T’ camp, meanwhile, consists of a lot of variations of tag, meant to teach them the sections of the court, and basick ball-whacking. She really enjoys it and is proud to be going. There are only two or three other kids there when she goes, and it’s at the North Adams public courts, which have saggy nets and a fair amount of litter. So it can be a somewhat disheartening sight when you drive up. But she loves it, and the instructor is great. T gets a very serious look on her face when we arrive, and also when the kids get together at the end to do their cheer. Typically it's "Tennis!", and you can tell she believes with every ounce of her being in the cheer every time she gives it. They use spinner balls, oversized foam balls that bounce remarkably well and which the kids find easier to locate and to hit.

Q went to a two-hour baseball clinic put on by the Steeplecats, the North Adams summer college league team that put on the 4th of July game last week. We went and watched the whole game, analyzing everyone’s batting stance as we watched, and then watched the fireworks. T did much better on the fireworks this year – that is to say: She sat in my lap with earphones over her ears and hands over the earphones for good measure, and softly cried. Last year, she bolted and had to be corralled and held inside a store by Janneke to keep her from pulling her own head off. But the game was fun, and Q was thrilled to spend two hours getting fist-bumped and high-fived and butt-slapped – oh, yes, also: coached – by twenty of the coolest college athletes any kid ever met. They gave him a tee shirt and a free hot dog, and cemented Q as a lifelong fan, all in one swell foop. When he did his round of batting practice, I sat in the stands and watched – we’d been practicing a lot lately, trying to remember to keep his weight on the back foot, and he did really, really well at it, hitting all but about two of the thirty or so balls pitched to him. (Nice when the pitcher can reliably throw strikes.) A man in the stands noticed me clapping softly to myself when Q finished, and asked if that was my son. I said it was. “Kid’s a player,” he said. “I said so to my wife right when we got here. You can just tell when a kid’s got it, and he’s got it.” And his wife happily confirmed it. They were there with their own son, who was six, and was off in another group, being taught to run bases. Nice people.

Bought a bird bath today and set it up, and when I was showing it to the kids, they found a dead robin, right by the deck. Probably died in the storm we had a couple of days ago – pretty fresh, and very young. Barely out of the nest, still largely speckled, and with undeveloped underfeathers. We buried it by the bird bath – it’s under the slab of stone visible to the left of Tie, on the ground. (There’s also a stick on top that has “Robin’s Grave” written on it in Sharpie.) I posed the kids to show their sadness, and to show the new birdbath. Q began to sing a very sad, haunting little refrain while I dug the hole and he and T kept watch over the robin. “Goodbye” was its only word, but it was extremely catchy and memorable. And after a few rounds of it, he did a key change up the scale a ways and repeated it, and my heart just about broke. It literally sent chills up my spine. Here's the photo:



When I was leveling out the patch to put the concrete slab that the birdbath sits on (it’s been leaning up against our fence since we bought the place), I found seven or eight rectangular slabs of what I think is marble. All broken, one of them over four feet long, most less than three. They were laid out on the ground under where I put the brid bath, covered by a layer of soil and creeping weeds. Very strange thing to find – they look so much like tombstones. I’ll have to find something to do with them.

OK, more photos, and then I’m off to bed. It’s getting late:



T shows everyone how to make absolutely anything look good. Thank you, Flavia, for the outfit!



The kids were playing around, pretending to nap, and bang!, they were asleep. That's napping: Dangerous stuff.



More napping adventures - Siblings of mine: Remember that picture of Ma napping on the couch where she looks dead...?



YOU write a caption that does this justice. I dare you.



Yeah, I'm bushed too. Off to bed.