High Flying Adventure

Our days are still warm, even hot, but it is beginning to feel like fall. The Pinsons combined all the corn on the farm this week and Bill Chatman has begun firing the tobacco.

NEW ACTIVITIES. We’ve added two things to the schedule now. First, the kids are going to Awana. Since our church doesn’t offer the program Vicki is taking them to Providence Baptist near Franklin, Kentucky. They came home last Sunday really excited about it, and Vicki is going to help out with the second graders.

Ben has added Cub Scouts to his schedule. This meets on Monday nights. Our first meeting was more about paperwork and information for the parents than being exciting for the kids so I hope he isn’t left wondering what he’s gotten himself into. One neat thing for him is that we stopped by to see if Mom could dig up my old Cub Scout uniform on our way home. The shirt fits, but he doesn’t have much room for growth.

WELCOME JAKE! Tuesday afternoon after work I brought a new puppy home. One of Vicki’s colleagues from the YMCA was trying to give a litter away. Nate was the only kid home when I arrived (Jenna and Ben were at Aunt Mar’s and Mom’s) so he got naming rights. Jake, or Jakey as Nate calls him, is a brown mutt and he was seven weeks old yesterday.

At first poor Jake was depressed having been yanked away from all his siblings, but he has settled in very well now. The kids have had the best time playing with him. Nate spent almost all day Thursday rolling in the grass with him. When he came in at one point Vicki said, “Nate, you smell just like a dog. Why do you have to roll around in the yard with him?” Nate defended himself saying, “But he’s so cuddly Mom.”

GIRLS NIGHT OUT. Vicki and five friends went to see Rascal Flatts in concert at the Sommet Center (Nashville Arena) Friday night. I hear they had a great time letting their hair down (though not too much since one of the friends brought her eighth grade daughter).

LATE BIRTHDAY PRESENT. It has taken about eight weeks for Ben to get his birthday present from Vicki and me. Ben and I have been known to stop by the airport to watch the planes on occasion so that gave me the idea to give him his first “flight lesson” for his birthday. But with the recent heat wave it just didn’t work out to go flying until now (if you are wondering why look up “density altitude”.)

Saturday we all loaded up and headed to the airport where local flight instructor, Kevin Black, took us up in a Cessna 172. This is a four seater so the boys and I took the first trip. We flew out to Cross Plains and circled over the neighborhood. Then Nate and I got out to let Vicki and Jenna go up. Ben rode both trips since it was his birthday present. They added a tour over Springfield as well.

I was actually sort of surprised as I looked back when we were returning to the airport. Ben was sitting with his head between his knees. I asked if he was sick but he said he was just scared. He admitted to being scared after the second ride as well. And while I think Jenna was glad to have the opportunity to go up I don’t think she wants to ride a small plane again either. Nate on the other hand wouldn’t look away from the window and pouted when he had to stay behind on the second trip. It was a very smooth flying day. Scared or not, I think that will be a day they’ll always remember.

Joe

Green Again

I really didn’t intend to wait two weeks before writing. I know we’ve been busy but I can’t for the life of me remember anything special that we’ve been doing. Life has been fairly routine around here. So, this will be short even though it has been longer than usual.

GREENING UP. We have had several nice gentle showers. Nothing that would make a dent in the rain deficit for the year, but enough to make all the grass and other foliage look a whole lot better. As a matter of fact, I had to get the mower out to trim a few spots of taller grass in the yard the past two weekends. It had been so long I was afraid the mower wasn’t going to start.

On the flip side of all this, several trees are beginning to lose their leaves. Not a lot of trees, but some of the older ones, or those that grow where they have to compete with other trees for water. So, while I was mowing Aunt Mar’s yard yesterday the kids were raking some leaves up in our back yard.

What seems strangest of all is the temperature, it’s normal again! Our thermometer recorded 50° for the morning low this morning. It was just over two weeks ago our daytime highs were more than double that figure!

A RULE OF COURTESY. When you have only one bathroom in the house privacy sometimes goes out the window. Because of this we have trained the kids to place the box of tissue on the toilet seat instead of flushing when someone is taking a shower. It really saves on those unexpected flashes of cold or hot water as the toilet refills. Nate really doesn’t understand why this is, he just plays by the rules. So the other morning when he came in and I told him to go ahead and flush even though I was in the shower he was really concerned. He was scared all his waste was going to come through the shower head and rain down on me. Boy, that thought will give you the willies, won’t it?

A PRAYER REQUEST. Elizabeth Graves is a third grade student at East Robertson. Our kids don’t know her all that well but I know her mom, Michele, as she is also on the faculty there. Elizabeth recently suffered a hemorrhage on the brain due to a wad of capillaries that decided to start leaking. This happened on Labor Day weekend and the doctors at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital had to operate to remove the tangle of vessels. They don’t think she has suffered any permanent brain damage but at present she cannot speak and is partially paralyzed. They are optimistic this will heal in time. Last week she was moved to Children’s Health Care of Atlanta for rehab. She has a long road of recovery ahead and her family needs prayer.

I will not be updating Elizabeths’ progress here as she is listed on www.carepages.com. If you are interested you can log in to that site for updates and leave notes of encouragement for her there. You will have to create an account for yourself on that site and then you need to know the account name for the patient. You can email me privately if you need this information and I will say it has been very uplifting to read about her progress. Of course, you don’t need to do all this to pray, which is what’s so cool about God in the first place.

Joe

RAIN!

We finally got rain! One really good soaking rain. It came Tuesday night. More importantly we’ve had a break in the heat. We were still suffering from daytime highs reaching 100°, now temps are still above average but its cooler than it was. I have noticed a few trees are beginning to lose their leaves already. Also, Bill Chatman has been cutting tobacco.

FOUR YEARS. I can’t believe that Thursday will mark the fourth anniversary of the Swann Family News! It doesn’t seem like we’ve been doing this that long. Looking back over the record I am amazed at what all we’ve done in that time. God has blessed our family in many, many ways.

SICK BOYS. The boys have suffered from a stomach virus. It started with Nate week before last and he missed both days of Mom’s Day Out. Last Sunday morning Ben began to complain as we were getting ready for church. When we went to the choir’s pool party last week Vicki and I decided to drive separately because of Ben’s complaints. It was a good thing we did because he hurled as soon as we got there. Fortunately it happened in the yard and not in the pool or my truck. He wound up missing school Monday and Tuesday. I’ll just spare you the messy details and summarize it by saying we washed a lot of sheets, underwear and pajamas. However, when Nate first got sick Vicki was cleaning up his mess while he was sitting on the toilet. When she came back to the bathroom to check on him she mentioned that he had diarrhea as well. Misunderstanding what Vicki meant he asked, “Oh no, you mean I’m turning into a girl too?”

COULD YOU DEFINE OLD PLEASE? Vicki and the kids were about to get on the highway the other day when Vicki pointed out an old car. It wasn’t a Model T but about that old passing by. This car was painted bright red which made Vicki recall Henry Ford’s famous statement that customers could get any color they wanted as long as it was black. With this on her mind she proceeded to explain this to the kids. Then Jenna asked, “Oh, was that in the late ‘70s?”

HANCOCK FAMILY REUNION. This year’s reunion was held Saturday evening at the old Hancock homeplace which Matthew and Jodi Hancock have renovated and made their home. Matthew farms and it is so nice to see what they have done to the place and how it is still a working farm. The house had been rented for many years so this was the first time many of us have been back there for a family function. After enjoying a dinner catered by Baldwin’s Barbecue a friend of Leslie Hancock’s flew over in his ultralight airplane and landed in the field beside the house. It was just breezy enough that he didn’t feel comfortable giving rides (darn), but it was neat talking to him and getting to see his plane up close.

On neat thing they did was to make index cards available so that everyone could jot down their memories of the old homeplace. While I shared this here a couple of years ago one memory I had was of Aunt Myrtle teaching me to jump rope there when I was seven years old. At the age of 77 she could jump rope with the best of them. Another fun thing I remembered was of a family dinner we were invited to about 30 years ago. Someone had hosted a foreign exchange student that year. This student was part of a folk music and dance group back in their country (I think it was Sweden) and they came back to the US that summer. They were all invited to the dinner and then entertained us afterwards as they danced on the concrete driveway and we watched from the yard. There was such a commotion that all the cows came up to the fence and enjoyed the show as well.

Yesterday morning we went to Hopewell Baptist Church as part of the reunion activities. Many of my ancestors attended Hopewell before Mt. Carmel was organized in 1894.

LABOR DAY. We grilled out at Pauline’s for Labor Day today as is our tradition. We also invited Kenny. Lori, Andrew, Wil, and Mrs. Connie over to eat with us. We had a really fun time together!

Joe