Sunday, September 22, 2013

September 23 – “Day Three: The Gorilla”

Once while we were driving around, safely secured in our “Buckle-uppers” (that would be seatbelts to the uninitiated), Zakary decided to wax philosophical and ask some deep life questions.  He wanted to know which superhero everyone always wanted to be.  I chose Superman, of course.  Josh told him that “Uncle Kel wouldn’t even hesitate.  It would be Spiderman for him, all the way.  In fact, he even thought he was Spiderman at one time:
Zak – “Well, he’s the youngest brother so that makes him confused”
Josh – “But he is the oldest brother”
Zak – Now, that’s really confusing, then.
Wanting to be helpful, I texted Nathan to see what the real youngest wanted to be.  He answered: Captain Bedtime.

Next stop was the Waco Children’s Museum on the campus of Baylor.  Now that was an experience.  There were lots of hands-on exhibits for the boys to play with.  We got to walk through a huge, seven foot tall heart they had built.  It was even beating loud enough for everyone to hear.  It had a problem, though.  Nurse Chris said it had an obvious heart murmur.  Sad.  One room had a table with lights coming from the center.  And small prisms of different shapes were available to see how the shape of the prism affected the bending of the light.  Fascinating.  Another room had some strange mirrors.  The favorite of the day, though, was the pioneer room.  Zakary learned to weave.  Caleb climbed up on a saddle and declared, “I am the teenager.  I’m going to help Dad out in the field.”  And help he did.  Josh and Christi were resting in a makeshift wagon. Caleb soon walked over to them, obviously struggling with some imaginary burden.  He finally plopped the invisible beast onto the wagon and explained that it was a deer (a dead one) for dinner.  He wasn’t finished yet, though.  He soon returned with something else.  This was no deer, though.  Oh, no.  This one was a cow (also dead).  We all dressed up in the pioneer era clothes provided in the room and took some silly pictures.  Definitely a place to return to for a longer visit.

During rest time for the boys Chris and I went to the Baylor Book Store to see our Seaside college students, Kelly and Lora Boyer.  It was great to see them, but Lora was working there and Kelly was headed to the Baylor football game, so we didn’t stay long.  We arrived back at the hotel just as Christi and boys were leaving for the mall.  I graciously volunteered to stay and look after things while they went.  Since I wanted to be as responsible as possible, I decided my best course of action would be to stay in the room.  Can I help it if the Baylor football game just happened to be on at the same time?  Besides, the hotel cleaning staff was hard at work when I arrived, and they really wanted to be updated on the score regularly.  Actually I dozed off when the score was 21-0 in favor of Baylor.  When I woke up it was 42-0 … and still in the first quarter.  Ouch.  At halftime the boys were back, so we went swimming and back into the hot tub.  When we got back to the room, the score was 42-7.  I went to the bathroom to change out of my swim suit, and when I returned the score was 63-7.  Double ouch.  How could that even happen?    

That evening we went for a drive with Robert and Melinda.  We had some really good ice cream at Katie’s Kustard.  Then we drove through some park, but several roads were closed, so we detoured out of there.  We learned about a place near Waco called Homestead Heritage where people live like it’s the nineteenth century.  We saw from a distance a footbridge over the river where they toss tortillas at the bulkheads.  Odd tradition.  We also saw the haunted castle and the gorilla.  The story there has something to do with the homeowners association voting down an attempt to make the castle into a bed and breakfast.  In protest a guy bought a life sized gorilla statue and put it in his front yard to see how they would handle it.  Apparently they had no choice but to embrace the new resident, so now he dresses it to match the seasons.  Right now he looks like Uncle Sam.  Still in his 4th of July garb, I guess.

Psalms 112:4 says, “Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man.”

Father, thank you for odd traditions and local color. They sure make every place you created have a special flavor.  Amen.

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