When Gail and I arrived at the picnic spot along the Texas stretch of I-20, the place was packed! A Sunday afternoon and all but one of the picnic tables were in use. We had wanted to have a nice, quiet lunch of the sandwiches and Cokes that we had just bought in Louisiana--so Gail commented that there was another spot just fifty more miles down the road.
I, on the other hand, was hungry and frankly a little tired after driving just shy of three hundred miles in the previous four hours--I was ready to be able to relax even among the noise of all of these people--and, there was that one table, so, we both joyfully made our claim of the spot.
A couple of minutes later, an SUV with family of five arrived, and the three kids--appearing to all be teens jumped out and the two oldest, boys, began to ride their skate boards on the concrete sidewalk while the youngest, a girl, did her cheerleading routine on the grass and the shade of the tall pine woods that backed up the picnic site kept us all cool. The parents got out and watched their kids--smiling at the three robust adolescents and happy to finally be able to stop--and then they looked around and their smiles rapidly faded--and their hearts seemed to drop as there was no place to sit.
I saw their sadness as the father yelled out, "Hey kids! There's no..."
I quickly reacted and said, "Hey, we're alone, so why don't you all join us? Don't know whether you feel that our company would be fun, but I do know that yours would be a blast for us!"
The mother gratefully looked over and her smile was back, "Oh could we!? It would be so nice for Mike and me to be able to talk to a couple of adults for a while! Wouldn't it, Mike?"
The father, apparently Mike, joyously responded, "Hell, Yes!" After all the three siblings had ignored his earlier call anyway. They then brought over their picnic basket full of sandwiches and chips and Cokes and set it on the table. Mike then looked at us and said, "They won't sit here to eat with us anyway--you know how teenagers are." All four of us "old folks" laughed--Able to remember our own teen years.
While the picnic area cleared out, we learned the life stories of Mike and Karen Wallace--and we learned that their oldest son, Chris was a just turned sixteen high school sophomore (who we found had recently obtained his Drivers License when he came to grab a sandwich and ask his father if he could drive the next stretch.) Chris had an easy smile, that his mother whispered he uses most readily when he is going to try to con his parents out of something...like the chance to drive the next stretch.
Justin was the second child--fourteen and a half and just about ready to finish up with eighth grade. He was bright, according to his parents, but also lazy--choosing to watch tv or ride his "board" rather than doing his homework. Mike said that they had finally had to lay down the law about school work when the homework that he told them he had done suddenly became undone by the next day at school. I commented that Justin sounded a lot like me when I had been a fourteen year old eighth grader, and Mike laughed and said, "Yeah, like me too..."
Sarah, the youngest was eleven. Just a great little eleven year old in sixth grade who still enjoyed playing with he kitten and her soccer and her cheerleading--just getting interested in the boys in her class and the new thing in her life, boy girl parties (which Karen smiled and said, "Are like two different parties--the boys on one side of the room and the girls on the other side...They won't even be seen together standing by the food table!" She let out a wonderful deep laugh--the kind where her head tilted back, "It's like the food table is 'no man's land!'" These people were great.
While we sat talking at the table, the kids kept making quick appearances to grab some food and run back to what they were doing. We all just kept talking about the kids and remembering our own childhoods and wishing silently that we could all change places with the three. The sounds of the skateboards and the daring each other to try something new and the cadance of the cheerleading rhymes all became just background noises--that is until....
"OOOWWWWWW!" We looked over, and Sarah was sitting on the concrete while Justin, moving the board back and forth under his foot while he stood right over her was pointing at his just fallen sister and laughing.
"Ha! Bet that hurt your butt! Ha, ha ha ha!" He was enjoying what had happened--and Mike began to stand up while Sarah, crying, ran over to the table.
"Mom, Justin ran into me with his skateboard and knocked me down! Now he's laughing at me!" Sarah didn't realize how much she could have been hurt if her head had hit the concrete, but Mike sure did.
"JUSTIN WALLACE!" Justin didn't ignore that call, no longer laughing he looked up at his father--anger and fear in his eyes.
"Awwww Dad! It was an accident! She shouldn't have been standing in front of where I was boarding!"
"JUSTIN! I don't care if it was an accident. YOU should have helped HER up and APPOLOGIZED!" Mike's face was getting red--something that I also remembered my father's face doing when I was fourteen.
Justin's face was also red. "Look Dad! If you can't lecture me in private, then _d_a_m_n_! Don't lecture ME!" The teenager declaring his manhood while Sarah sat with her mother--no longer crying and Chris watched from the sidewalk with a worried look on his face--possibly also remembering being fourteen.
Mike was now calm, "OK, Justin, let's talk in private. Go into the woods about twenty or thirty feet, and we can have a nice, private conversation about how you treat the other members of this family."
Justin walked into the woods, "Fine. Just so long as we can talk privately without you embarrassing me."
I was amazed at how well Mike had backed down from the aggressiveness and anger to the desire to reason with his fourteen year old son, and I think that Justin was just as amazed at the respect that his father showed for his demand.
Then, I noticed that as Mike followed his son by about twenty feet into the privacy of the trees, he loosened the buckle on his belt and began to pull the leather strap out of its loops on his jeans.
We continued to make small talk with Karen--all three of us trying to ignore the muffled sounds of the commands and pleas and finally the strap connecting with its target and the yelps of the bent over boy coming from the trees--but me realizing that justice was swift and sure in the Wallace family just as it had been in my own those years ago.
A few minutes later, a weeping fourteen year old boy came out of the woods, one hand wiping tears from his eyes and the other rubbing his obviously sore bottom.
A couple of seconds later, Mike stepped out of the woods, buckling his belt--all anger gone. "Now Justin, Pick up your skateboard and get back in the car. Next time, your underpants come down too, so I expect your attitude to change--more for your sake than ours."
"Yes, Sir, Dad. I'm sorry Sarah for running into you and laughing." The adolescent who thought he was a man a few short minutes ago as he went into the woods, now thinking of himself as a little boy as he gingerly climbed into the back of the SUV.
The little girl smiled at her brother, "That's OK Justin. It just scared me, but I bet your butt REALLY hurts."
Karen looked at her daughter, not realizing that her daughter had grown enough to so easily see the irony of the situation. "Oh, Sarah, that's not a nice thing to say to your brother." Both of them were smiling, Karen to avoid laughing at that ironic statement.
"Well folks, Thanks for letting us share lunch with you, and sorry for the consternation--but that happens with three kids." Mike again had that big smile on his face, "Hey Chris, help load up the stuff and here are the keys!"
Chris ran over, and took the picnic basket and car keys and looking at us with that engaging smile, "Nice to meet you, Sir and Ma'm. Thanks for letting us sit with you" (like he really sat with us.)
Karen and Mike shook hands with us, and walking away, hand in hand, Mike said to Karen, "He'll be OK. He'll probably forget about it before we want him to--but, they're all good kids."
They climbed into the car and with a little lurching, Chris finally got going down the road.
Two hours and a hundred fifty miles down the road, Gail and I pulled into a rest stop to quickly stretch. There, down the sidewalk were Mike and Chris making sarcastic remarks about the other's ability, tossing a football back and forth, while surprisingly--or maybe not so surprisingly, Justin, laughing was patiently teaching his little sister to ride a skateboard while Karen, smiling, watched.
Sure takes me back. What a delightful family.