What is so rare as a day in June?

The answer to poet James Russell Lowell’s question up there in the title is, of course, a whole week in June spent with grandchildren in Alabama, or as the signs say on all roads entering the state, Alabama the Beautiful, Bob Riley, Governor. And it is beautiful, with huge white magnolia grandiflora blossoms decorating almost every yard, the crape (crepe?) myrtle marching down the medians dressed in demure white or pale lavender blooms that give no hint that their bolder fuchsia and cranberry cousins will arrive later this summer, and the ubiquitous and copious (look it up in your dictionary) mimosa trees (roadside-ditchia nuisancium) displaying their
fluffy, pink, come-hither blossoms as wispy and diaphanous as any negligée. If I were a bee, I’d go absolutely bonkers at the sight of a voluptuous mimosa. Here’s a picture of one that’s pretty voluptuous that was sent to me by my old classmate, Bill Bob Earl and his wife Fluella Sue. I can’t decide which is more startling, the mimosa or the amount of rust on Bill Bob’s pickup truck. But I digress.


We have returned to Alabamistan for a few days to help our busy daughter and son-in-law with two of the finest young men in the entire world, Sam (7) and Sawyer (9). Yesterday we took them into town to the Sonic drive-in, where our order consisted of one root beer float, one Butterfinger Blast, and two banana cream pie shakes. When we came back home we spent a couple of hours at the subdivision’s Country-Club-quality clubhouse and beach-entry pool. Today we plan to take them to a matinee showing of the latest Hollywood epic, something called Kung-Fu Panda starring four-time Oscar nominee, Jack Black. Oh, wait, that was Katherine Hepburn. More fun awaits tomorrow and the next day and the next, until we bid them a fond farewell and return to Georgia on Saturday.

Grandparenting is a tough job, but somebody has to do it.