"When your Daddy was a little boy, only a little older than your cousin Doran, and your Aunt Dale was a little girl, only a little older than you, we went fishing with our Daddy and our Zayda -- you remember Zayda? Good -- on Lake...?"
"Bemidji," Judy says, with a little flourish, proud of having pronounced the strange word correctly yet again.
"Very good. Bemidji. We rode out on a little boat with a little motor until we were far, far away from shore, and started fishing."
"Can we go fishing sometime, Daddy?"
"Sure, honey. -- We were having such a good time catching fish that we didn't notice that it was getting dark, and not because it was late, but because a storm was coming up out of the West.
"And then it started raining, a first just a few drops, then harder and harder until it was raining so hard that we could just barely see the shore in the distance, and my Zayda said we'd better get back to shore. So my Zayda started the outboard motor and pointed the boat back toward shore, but it was just a little motor, and it was just a little boat, and we couldn't go very fast, and the shore was very far away.
"And then it started to hail. Do you know what hail is?"
"Hail is when pieces of ice fall from the sky, and they hurt a lot."
"Sure do, sweetie. So my Zayda told us to get in the bottom of the boat, and my Daddy took off his shirt and wrapped it around me, and my Zayda took off his hat and put it on your Aunt Dale, and the two of them huddled over the two of us while the hail fell."
At which point she gets impatient and finishes the story "And when you got to shore, your Daddy's back was bruised from the hail and Zayda's head was bloody from the hail, but Daddy and Aunt Dale were okay, cause they protected the kids. Right, Daddy?"
"Right, sweetie. Good night. Sleep well."
"Will you check on me in a few minutes, Daddy?"
"Sure, I'll check on you a bit later."
"No. Not a bit later. In a few minutes."
"Okay, in a few minutes."
-end-
Copyright © 1993 by Joel Rosenberg