A Picture in My Pocketbook

The easiest thing about being a grandparent is taking sub-teen grandchildren to a playground.  And so it was that I found myself mid-week with my 10yr old grandson, and 8yr old granddaughter at our town’s rather impressive playground.  Our daughter and son-in-law were off for business related activities for a few days, and we were enlisted to provide food, shelter & entertainment for the kinder.

Maybe it was lucky that this visit coincided with their school vacation week, and that our school district was still in session… because it meant that there were just a few folk at the playground when we arrived.  Before going further, it should be well understood that playground was my area of expertise; the kids went to play, Grandpa Rick went to a bench to read Earthly Powers (my grandfather told me once that it was the finest novel ever written in the English language).

It was a beautiful spring day with a small wind playing under a blue sky. The few other adults in the playground looked to be stay-at-home-moms, or, like me, doting grandparents hoping to keep up with their young charges who raced from one apparatus to the next.

For me there is something so endearing about the sound of young children giggling and laughing on swings, dropping down slides, climbing a tangled weave of a jungle gym.  An ear piercing shout is not off-putting in the context of little ones traversing a mini zip line.  As a child I loved it.  I think I love watching it more now.

During a low in their general activity, I thought to retrieve a picture from my pocketbook.  My mom had found the picture amongst a collection of many, and gave it to me years ago.  It has been in my pocketbook ever since.  I look at my wonderful grandchildren, I look at the picture and I am happy that there is a gentle breeze to dry pleasant tears.

Me and my Grandfather (who I called Winnie-the-Pooh) & my first pocketbook

— O.H. Hume

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