POPPY LOVE

My husband and I are halfway to a hundred. Or as I informed my college editing class, “I’ve lived half of a hundred years, and I have a lot to say.” And then I said some crazy crap about needing to take the grammar class so that I could say what I want to say more clearly. Then I failed my first grammar test.

Here’s what I’ve learned so far in Editing Essentials. Human beings can take the fun out of just about anything. Just. About. Anything.

“Hey there, Grog, I sure like those spear chuckers’ spears you’ve painted on that cave wall. Spear chuckers’, plural possessive, right?”

Not my husband, he’s a man who knows the value of simple pleasures and simple fun. He knows that grandchildren would rather play “Monster” with Poppy in a dark yard, than join a league of any kind, ever.

Monster is a simple game. The children run screaming in terror while Poppy sneaks up on them, leaps out at them, or hunts them down like a spear chucker stalking baby bison. The game is considered successful when one or more of the younger children are booger crying from fright, and the older children are so sweaty from running around they smell like baby mammoths.

It’s a little known fact that a romping good game of Monster can cripple Poppy up for two, even three days. But still he answers the call of “Play Monster, Poppy. Play Monster.”

And that’s why when our ten grandchildren walk in the front door they take one look at me and then ask, “Where’s Poppy?” Because he’s fun, that’s why. No quizzes. No tests. No note cards. No stupid, endless rules. Just fun. Just screaming, adrenalin pumping, heart stopping fun. And what’s wrong with that? Not a single thing.

Linda (Chopped Liver) Zern