A: “Time to Get a New Fence!” - Zoe Grenier, as told to Brad Morbeck

Sunday, August 13 - This is bigger than those infernal “Countdown to the Millennium” Clocks. We have been carefully following Father Time’s inexorable trek to the BIG, BIG DAY. I’m referring, of course, to AUGUST 18, Brad’s 5th Birthday! For about a month now I wish I hadn’t lost the handy dandy date calculator software which I deleted when I reformatted my hard drive a few years back. We’ve been on a bit of an emotional roller coaster, first delighted that August had arrived and then disappointed that August 18th wasn’t the first day of the month. If I get a spare moment, maybe I’ll write to our congressman and see if anything can be done about this pressing social policy issue.

We manage to show up at Wallingford Presbyterian Church today - two weeks off, countless road miles, and we’re still home all three Sundays. Brad breathlessly meets me and the little boys up at the front door with the news that, “My teacher was selling cookies up at the Snack Bar.” I hope this isn’t true because I know that one of the basic tenets of our form of rampant Presbyterianism is that the social hall cookies are ALWAYS free. We dispense with the Sunday morning after church hike, imbibe some of the traditional Sunday morning Hawaiian Punch from the Wallingford Wawa and return home. Luckily we just practiced “How to Pack for a Trip” on the earlier leg of our adventure last week, so our own motorized version of Exodus wasn’t that painful. We headed north to meet up with The Turnpike at Exit 4, noting that the Chazz is in even more of a state of disrepair than the last time we made this journey.

When we jumped on to the Ultra- high speed turnpike we discovered to our dismay that our intense velocity was causing the straps holding down our canoe to vibrate at a very annoying resonant frequency. Brad took a moment out of his busy day to innocently explain the Wonders of Science to his brothers: “The ropes holding the canoe down are hibernating!”

As we ventured through the New Jersey hinterland of my youth we found it very odd to blast right past friendly old Exit 11 (Garden State Parkway), as our destination on this day was Rutherford and a visit to the Grenier residence. We only had a little trouble finding the place as someone had strategically removed a street sign at one of our key turning locations. When we got there the Chips and Dips emerged with great gusto, to the delight of all concerned.

As we look around we realize that this place is inhabited by some sort of strange creatures foreign to our way of life, toywise.........that’s right, the lifeforms I am referring to are none other than...........GIRLS!

 Ellen had to run to take her mother down to Newark Airport (I should have gone; at one point of my life I was the KING of Newark Airport runs) so Gerry and the girls did their best to entertain us. Interestingly enough, Zoe Grenier shares our fascination with the August 18th thing - she was born 3 years before Brad on this date so she, too is in an pre 8/18 frenzy. We had a pleasant time sitting out in the back yard munching on chips and while the boys were entertained by rides in a full size motorized “Barbie” car!

The strangest part of our outdoor suburban adventure came when a normally nimble squirrel traversing a limb 30 feet above us obviously made a small miscalculation, resulting in an acceleration factor of 32 ft per second per second. He landed with a large thud several feet away from us, surprising both he AND us. Shortly before this incident Gabriel was obviously possessed by demonic squirrel spirit and took a large friendly bite out of Sally’s leg, to her surprise.

The kids all had a delightful time playing together (they have another overwhelmingly cute daughter named Isabel) and everyone seemed to enjoy sitting at the “Kids’ Table” for dinner. At one point afterward the children all adjourned to Dad’s Den to get their nightly fix of Nickelodeon as we adults had a pleasant supper out in the dining room. We all looked over and the door was mysteriously closed to the TV room; in some twisted merging of 70’s memories Sally mused that maybe they were about to lay a towel down by the crack of the door. We had dessert and reluctantly made various leaving noises as we still had a good bit of driving ahead of us. Gerry led us out to Rt. 17 North with the ultimate purpose of gaining access to the Parkway.

My plan for this leg of the journey is not to waste valuable “awake” time driving so we budgeted the three hour drive up to Happy Valley for tonight. We get caught in a horrendous jam of New Yorkers returning from the mountains on the Thomas E. Dewey Memorial Thruway - ironic that we northbounders get so hopelessly mired in these southbounders’ traffic snarl. Our other problem is The Weather: a massive thunderstorm has moved in just as we’re crossing the Tappan Zee Bridge, and our visibility is suspiciously very poor. Luckily for us things vastly improve when we get up towards Brewster (N.Y.- “That Girl’s fictional home town) and we blast quite nicely across Connecticut on I-84. We stop at one point to call the Norwottuck Inn in Hadley to let them know we’ll be arriving a bit late (9/00-I just received the phone bill for this call: $17.71! It’s an OUTRAGE!). The little boys doze off and Brad continues to hurl pearls of wisdom from the far back seat, making it quite difficult for Sally and I to listen to the cassette tape we want to listen to.

We finally arrive in Hadley (Asparagus Capital of the World) about Midnight. Our room looks nice and cozy and we pour everyone in through the motel’s back door. Brad immediately goes exploring and comes tearing out of the bathroom announcing, “The water’s off and the toilet’s closed!” Au contraire, it’s been “Sanitized for Your Protection”, young man. We rip the tag off and give the toilet a healthy flush to make sure it’s in good operating order. As we get situated every one perks up and the little boys proceed to throw a bit of a “I don’t want to go night-night, I don’t want to go night-night” hissy fit. We finally compromise by all communally watching the 3,654th showing of the “Gilligan’s Island” episode where they’re making a zany movie using movie equipment and film they found washed up on the beach. Brad tries to inform me about some nuance of the plot, not realizing that I’ve already seen this episode about 3,653 times before. We finally all drift off to sleep, doing our usual rotation of sleeping locations as people fall off beds and curl up on Therma Rest pads.

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