Sunday, 6/27/10 - Forgot

The problem with grown-ups is that they forget.

I guess it's ok to forget some things but forgetting the fun things... well, that's just not right.

And just look here. See? Someone forgot!

Oh, they remembered the blankets to spread on the ground and the bathing suits so we can swim in the lake. They remembered the baskets with the fried chicken and the big wash-pail with blocks of ice and the bottles of cola and orange and cream soda.

They remembered the bats, balls and gloves. Steve even remembered to bring the bases so this year we won't have to use lids from the garbage cans.

Aunt Bea brought the radio. You can hear it now. Later they will play dance music and the old people will dance in the gazebo while the kids catch fireflies.

Then, when the sun sets, there will be a fire and we will roast marshmallows and make smores. Sweet and warm and gooey. Even the grown-ups will stand beside the fire slowly turning marshmallows on long, droopy willow poles until they are golden brown and melty then slide them, still hot, onto graham crackers topped with Hershey's chocolate then folding on top another chocolate and cracker.

Some marshmallows will fall like firey comets onto the earth. Others will burn and be blown out and the blower will explain that they like them this way...

Uncle Sonny, who's not really my uncle, remembered the fireworks. I saw them in his trunk.

But whoever remembered the watermelon forgot something.



Look. See what I mean? Seedless!

Someone forgot that the most fun part of watermelon is the seeds. And the best part of the seeds is seeing how far you can spit them.

Watermelon seeds are just the right shape for spitting: big on one end so you can put it behind your lips and hold it in place while you really build up some pressure, and small on the other end so you can press hard when you release it and direct it wherever you want. Poohhh - over the head of cousin Billy. Poohhh - ten feet. Poohhh- fifteen! Pohhh - twenty feet!!!

And they are all slippery so you can even send them short distances just by pushing them out between your lips, without a sound. Even from the side of your mouth - like small, black stealth bombs into Sally's hair or Frankie's drink or to stick on the back of Aunt Tiz's lime colored mu-mu.

Watermelon is ok without seeds, I guess. It's cold and sweet and you can eat it from the middle - like a great big smile - right down to the white part. The juice red and wet on your cheeks and running all sticky down your arms. After five pieces or ten or twenty you're still not full but the flies are coming and it's not a half hour but you run into the lake anyway and swim out to the floating dock and climb up and lie head-to-head with your cousins on the sun-warmed wood and the water drips off your skin and out of your hair and you watch the puffy white clouds float by and then you are dry again and hot and you jump up and off of the platform back into the cool, dark water and you swim back to the shore and race back to the table and to the bowl full of watermelon slices...

... without seeds.

What fun is watermelon without the seeds?

A boy needs seeds.