The Severed Cortex

Raging Rivers

As is par for the course, I have been remiss on posts about Robert. He recently passed 5th grade, or so he says, so we have that to be thankful for. He missed the last day of school and doesn't actually have his report cards. At least that's the story I'm getting from him. He swears he will be in 6th grade when fall arrives. When I was in sixth grade, our history teacher Mr. Sumpter disappeared over Thanksgiving. No one knew what happened to him. Some suspected he picked up a hitchhiker and was killed and someone else said he joined the French foreign legion. Ah, the wild dreams of youth. Now that I'm much older and jaded, I suspect he got tired of 11 and 12 year old kids in a craphole town with a wife he couldn't stand and he said screw it, I'm outta here. French foreign legion would have been pretty cool though. Back then I suppose it was much easier to disappear. I also had Coach Alls for Science class in sixth grade. You always knew you were going to be called on to answer a question in his class. Well, until you showed a proficiency for answering questions, that is. After that he'd either stop calling on you to answer, or he'd have you help prod the person who didn't know the answer to find the answer. Or he'd try to trick you with a question for being a damn smarty pants. He managed to call on everyone without making those who didn't know the answer look like a retard. I look back on it now and I can truly say he was a teacher. I don't remember a damn thing from the class, but I do remember the method. He also told us not to step on the flowers when we snuck out the window while spending the night with his son Derrick and that we looked like girl scouts sitting down for a pee while lining up at scrimmage in football practice. Of course that was later in junior high and we were wearing green skirts to be fair.

I digress.

So Robert's mom calls me up on Thursday and says she can get some discount tickets to Raging Rivers, did I want to take Robert?
Sure.
On Friday night Robert left us a rambling message on our voicemail that we didn't really understand. On Saturday he called, asked me what time I was picking him up (for the 3rd time), and promptly handed the phone over to his sister Keyani. The following occurred.

Key: Robert drowned at summer camp last year.
Me: I don't think he drowned. I've seen him since summer camp.
Key: Robert almost drowned at summer camp last year.
Me: I'm not going to let Robert drown. I promise.

I arrived at his house pretty much on time. He was in his Spiderman swimming trunks and had a towel. It seemed like proper attire for Raging Rivers. I asked his aunt did she know where the tickets were. She didn't know. She asked Al. He didn't know either but he called Robert's mom and handed me the phone. The following occurred.

Me: Did you get the tickets?
Mom: Robert didn't tell you?
Me: Tell me what?
Mom: He was scared he would drown.
Me: Huh. He's wearing swimming trunks. Oh well, we'll find something else to do.

We decided to go fishing and maybe try to shoot the model rocket. It took the better part of two hours gathering rocket engines and nightcrawlers and mealworms but we finally made it over to Glik Park where as it turns out, a wedding was taking place. I'm sure we shot rockets off during the ceremony. Oops. We did only shoot the thing off twice so I'm pretty sure it wasn't a major interference. It was pretty windy this day so the first time we fired it, which by the way was the maiden voyage of the rocket we built a couple months ago, we pointed it into the wind pretty hard. I was pretty unsure of how air worthy this craft might be because I skimped out on sanding the fins. I may not have lined them up as well as I could have either. But ... The rocket took a pedestrian parabolic route, culminating in at least a three second journey roughly parallel with the earth's surface at an altitude of 250 feet. There was a dramatic pause between the time the rocket was spent and the time it takes for the ejection mechanism to fire. I wondered if it would eject the parachute. It did and it floated back down to earth safely a leisurely 100 foot stroll away from the launch site. Perfect. I mean the rockets path wasn't all that exciting to watch, but we brought the men back safely from their mission. We may or may not have looked like the Olympic javelin catching team doing so. Let's adjust the launch pad just a little.

Mistake.

The second shot left the launch pad as if it were on the end of a yo-yo string held by the gods, spinning mercilessly on the launch pad until finally pulled homeward by a pop on the string that made that orb jump skyward instantaneously. At least 1000 feet. And when the parachute opened in that 30 mph wind shear, the rocket floated peacefully to its landing approximately 13 miles away. Smack dab in the middle of 6 foot tall weeds. I trekked through it for a good fifteen minutes realizing that at night there must be 20 plus deer laying down in here. I also realized that I may get a healthy dose of ticks to go along with my side order of chiggers. When I finally gave up and started out of the weeds, I looked back and saw the rocket. So I trekked back down to get it and then back out of the weeds again, past the No Trespassing signs I heinously ignored walking into the weeds. Sign, sign, everywhere a sign. You're bringing me down man.
The following occurred.

R: Hey Mr. Drew, did you find it?
Me: I found it. We're not doing that anymore. Let's go fish.

It was too hot at Glik Park so we headed to LeClaire Park to fish in the shade. And besides, who wants wedding photos with a bunch of goofballs fishing in the background. We caught a couple of bluegills before Robert became bored. He liked to catch the small fish next to shore but they swallow the hook quickly and usually die. Right now he doesn't have the patience to wait out the bigger ones farther from the bank. In the end we went home and washed our legs thoroughly. I checked myself for ticks, but I could find only one nervous one. And then we ate.

Kung Fu Panda

I arrived in Alton about 15 minutes earlier than projected so I decided to just run over to the theater and buy the tickets ahead of time. Nancy was to meet us there. If I had known what his room looked like, I would not have bought the tickets at all. It was disgusting. I saw what his mother showed me on the video and it was only slightly better when I got there. She said they had been at cleaning it for awhile. We went to the movie anyway even though I was pissed I put myself in that position. Anyway, the movie. Meh. Typical story line. Nothing spectacular.
And then we went home.
The smart man would realize he has been fortunate and would fix that room situation immediately to even up the score. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.