Bragging Rights

This is our grandson Truman Braslaw, at his senior prom last Saturday. His date is Rachael, his "steady" (do they say that still?), a sophomore at the same high school Truman will graduate from next month in Piedmont, right next to Berkeley in the East Bay.

He is as intelligent as he is handsome and has been accepted by several universities including Cal Poly and UC San Diego. But he has chosen instead to spend a year teaching English in Senegal, Africa. Not the with the Peace Corps but some private organization that sends young people into villages to educate children. Some kid, eh?

Oh, and did I forget to mention that Truman is also charming. He is very family-oriented and was brought up to be polite and thoughtful. Very refreshing these days. When he visits (he drives all the way himself now) he invariably offers to help cook, wash dishes, and of course, drive. He is bringing his sister Quincy now for holidays and she now has her driving permit so of course Grampy has to give her driving lessons (see "Driving Miss Quincy" in the archive).

Here's the best part though; how many 18 year-old kids actually CHOOSE to visit their grandparents on their own?

Truman and two friends are driving up after school this Friday for a Memorial Day bike tour of Highway 3. We're going to drop them at Walmart and pick them up in Weaverville next Tuesday. They will use our bikes and camp out three nights along the way, two of them along the west shore of Trinity Lake.

Sally and I of course are nervous wrecks. That's a distance of at least 1,000 miles and all we have to connect with them is Tru's vague promise to call on his cell phone "every now and then". I wanted to follow in a chase car with spare parts and emergency supplies but that idea did not get very far.

We're going shopping tomorrow after we pick up the bikes from Fifth Season where they are getting the first real tune-up since we bought them. I'm not sure but three 18 year-olds should be able to put away a sizeable breakfast Saturday before we head out so we're thinking three dozen eggs, 5 lbs. bacon, a couple gallons of OJ, and a couple dozen bagels. I don't see how they can possibly carry enough food for three days on the road. Seems like a refrigerated 18 wheeler might be appropriate chase vehicle for this crew.

Truman is by the way a killer at ping pong. He beats me every now and then but I have to be sure he doesn't get too cocky so I'll train with the table folded half up for a couple of weeks before he gets here so's to be able to "whip" him maybe 21-18 after which I'm laid up for days in recovery.

But the point is he's sure to want a go Friday night and with my luck his pals will be good, too. That translates to a midnight bedtime which won't even put a dent into an 18 year-old's energy level at 8 the next morning. It would take several paragraphs to describe what it does to us, however.

So there you have it....bragging rights. I wish our other two children were planning families so we'd have more grandkids like ths one but that's a topic for another article.