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| Hey there! Where's the treasure??? "But seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." Matthew 6:33 |
Linking up with Wordless Wednesday, Steve at BeThere2Day, Catsynth, and Sandee at Comedy Plus.
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Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and has become a moveable feast of word or picture or music prompts to encourage us to write stories, poems, or whatever strikes our fancy.
The prompts will be posted by Elephant's Child this month and are provided by Alex J. Cavanaugh.
This week's prompts are:
- staple
- symbolic
- relic
- ebony
- flames
And/Or
- moon
- general
- drums
- presto
- thrilled
Charlotte (MotherOwl) has given us Pearl Opal Green as the colour of the month. If you can also incorporate it into your stories she (and I) will be grateful.
Last week it was #2 Son, this week, it's #1 Son's turn to be showcased in my WfW story and the whole of it is SYMBOLIC of the kind of stuff that happens to me, or to my family.
In fact, such stories are a STAPLE of family lore.
Being that i'm an old RELIC who gets up between 3-4am most days, i'd gone to bed by 9 last Friday after cleaning Grandma and Grandpa's house that day to have Saturday free for babysitting my little Annie.
At about 11:55pm, i was awakened by my phone, and through bleary eyes saw it was #1 Son, who wouldn't call me at that time unless it was an emergency. My kids know my hours.
I answered while trying to blink the sleep from my eyes and he said, "I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have called you, but I didn't know who else to call, I was on my way home from work and the axle cracked and the tire fell off my car! I've been calling towing companies and some of them the person answering sounded sketchy and the others are busy and..."
It's okay, i stopped him, i have AAA for just this reason and i will be on my way in a few minutes. Where are you?
He told me his location, one of the worst areas of town which he drives through on the way to work and back.
"Are you sure you don't mind helping?" he asked, and i reassured him it was fine, especially since i'd probably be able to sleep a bit later in the morning, babysitting was for the afternoon.
"That's good," he said, "and I don't have work tomorrow, either."
Slipping into my daytime duds, i went to the loo (never, ever pass up the opportunity to use the can or take a nap) and headed out, calling AAA while on the way over.
The nice lady reassured me they'd get there within about an hour, which sounded great, considering the area. No one would be THRILLED to wait there long.
I noticed the waning MOON on the way, and took time at the red lights to admire the skies. The light pollution from a city seems to my eyes to turn the sky EBONY and the few stars we see, and the moon, stick out when you catch a glimpse of them.
When i arrived the scene was unmistakable, as there was a police car with him. The unmarked vehicle had its back blue lights going, but not the ones in the front, just the regular hazard lights could be seen from the front. This is important later in the story.
#1 Son had been turning onto a side street to try to get off the main roadway and slid to where he was at an odd angle right in the intersection, and a very nice sheriff's deputy, who had just gotten off duty and was going home, stopped and decided he'd best stick around to keep trouble at bay.
I pulled onto the side street and up a ways, knowing a tow truck had to get in there somehow to get him, and walked back toward them.
They were discussing DRUMS (#1 Son plays a bit of piano and guitar, but he's a drummer at heart and has a regular and an electronic set). They apparently both know the same member of a cover band they admire, and their GENERAL discussion after i arrived was about the music scene in the area and how it has dwindled.
We talked about lots of other topics, too, including the officer's time in Germany while he was in the military, as the towing company kept giving us later and later times to arrive and the cold began really seeping in.
#1 Son at one point laughingly said he was glad he'd stopped to use the restroom before leaving work, as he's only a ten minute drive from his place and considered waiting. "I'd be hurting if I'd done that!"
Yep, always use the can or take a nap, every time the opportunity arises.
Finally, around 1:30am we got the call, the tow truck was on the way. He pulled up a few minutes later, his Pearl Opal Green lettering on the side announcing he was from the company i'd been told to expect.
The driver pulled around, tried to back up in such a way as to be able to easily get at the disabled car, and wasn't able to do it.
He pulled back into the main road to think about the situation and how to proceed when we heard the most awful sound from up the road, engine and tire sounds, crunching sounds, then revving sounds.
A small pick-up truck had hit a parked car up the side road and was fleeing the scene!
We watched as he roared past us and barely stopped at the stop sign, only long enough to note the two cars with emergency flashers on, remember the blue lights were only flashing behind the unmarked "cop car." Thinking he was fine to turn and keep fleeing, he stepped on the gas and pealed out wide, planning to turn into the outer of the two lanes on the street, and pulled right into the side of the tow truck!
As #1 Son and i both agreed after, we'd seen it coming but he didn't. He was shocked to see a tow truck stopped there as he'd been looking left to make sure he could turn right, but after his truck hit and stalled a moment, he threw the truck into reverse, tires squealing and burning so much rubber i was surprised it didn't burst into FLAMES.
He completed his turn, squealing and taking off with the sheriff's deputy, who'd gotten back in his car as soon as the tow truck showed but was waiting for the driver to get the car on the tow bed, took off after him, full lights now on and siren screaming.
The tow truck driver, who'd been a bit surly (he said he'd had a long day and this was his last job when we were on the phone), got out of the truck as #1 Son and i walked over to survey the "damage." We realized all the debris on the road was from the guy's truck, the tow vehicle had sustained no damage, and PRESTO, the tow driver was laughing and in a much better humor as we were all asking ourselves, did we really just see that?
We did, and the driver still managed to get the car onto the bed of the tow truck with a slider and some clever maneuvering. He'd drop it at Kevin and Lenny's with the key in the key slot of the building, and i took #1 Son home then went home myself.
As a postscript, the next morning #1 Son sent me his usual good morning text, followed by, "Sorry I'm so late, you wouldn't believe the night I had!"
Somehow, i do.
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Today is:
Anniversary of Cerro de Pasco -- Peru (founding of the city and its silver mine)
DrinksGiving -- if you've come home for Thanksgiving and are meeting up with old friends for a night on the town, don't forget to call for a ride
Electric Guitar Day -- birth anniversary of Jimi Hendrix
Feast of Ullr and Skadi -- Asatru/Norse Pagan (celebrating craftsmen)
Freckle Pride Day -- show your spots, you are beautiful!
Khoiak Ceremonies -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (ceremonies surrounding the stories of the death of Osiris, date approximate)
Lancashire Day -- Lancashire, England (celebrating their first elected representative in Parliament in 1295)
Maaverar Naal -- Tamil Eelam, Sri Lanka (Tamil Heroes' Day)
National Bavarian Cream Pie Day
National Family Caregivers' Day -- US (if you are a caregiver who needs support, you can get it here or here)
Pie in the Face Day -- internet generated, and supposed to be a virtual one, so no mess to clean
Pins and Needles Day -- celebrating the 1937 opening of the Pins and Needles Music Revue
St. James Intercisus' Day (Patron of lost vocations, torture victims)
St. Virgilius of Salzburg's Day (Patron of Salzburg, Austria; Slovenes)
Thanksgiving Day -- Norfolk Island
Tie One On Day -- an apron! on US Thanksgiving eve, write a note of encouragement or prayer, tuck it in the pocket of an apron, and wrap the apron around a good home or bakery made loaf of bread, then deliver it to someone who needs a kind gesture
Anniversaries Today:
William Shakespeare marries Anne Hathaway, 1582
Birthdays Today:
Jaleel White, 1976
Samantha Harris, 1973
Brooke Langton, 1970
Robin Givens, 1964
Fisher Stevens, 1963
Caroline Kennedy, 1957
Rick Rockwell, 1956
Kathryn Bigelow, 1951
Jimi Hendrix, 1942
Eddie Rabbit, 1941
Bruce Lee, 1940
Gail Henion Sheehy, 1937
Alexander Dubcek, 1921
"Buffalo" Bob Smith, 1917
Chick Hearn, 1916
James Agee, 1909
L. Sprague de Camp, 1907
Forrest Shaklee, 1894
Chaim Weizmann, 1874
Charles A. Beard, 1874
Bat Masterson, 1853
Robert R. Livingston, 1746 (O.S. date)
Anders Celsius, 1701
Emperor Xiaozong of China, 1127
Debuting/Premiering Today:
"Magical Mystery Tour"(Beatles album release), 1967
"Never Too Late"(Play), 1962
"The Dinah Shore Show"(TV), 1951
Today in History:
The first elected representatives from Lancashire were called to Westminster by King Edward I to attend what later became known as "The Model Parliament", 1295
The first Eddystone Lighthouse is destroyed in the Great Storm of 1703
The Portuguese Royal Family leaves Lisbon to escape from Napoleonic troops, 1807
Adoption of Constitution of the Kingdom of Poland, 1815
NY Times dubs baseball "The National Game", 1870
Alfred Nobel establishes the Nobel Prize, 1895
In New York City, the first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is held, 1924
The Soviet space program's Mars 2 orbiter releases a descent module; it crashes, but still becomes the first man-made object to be on Mars, 1971
The left-wing Labour Party takes control of the New Zealand government with leader Helen Clark becoming the first elected female Prime Minister in New Zealand's history, 1999
A hydrogen atmosphere is discovered on the extrasolar planet Osiris by the Hubble Space Telescope, the first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet, 2001
The Canadian House of Commons endorses Prime Minister Stephen Harper's motion to declare Quebec a nation within a unified Canada, 2006
Icelanders vote for their own constitution after using a modified Danish constitution for 66 years, 2010
The Nissan Leaf self-driving car completes its first test in Japan, on the Sagami Expressway, 2013
The wreck of the San Jose, considered the "Holy grail" of shipwrecks, sunk 1708, is confirmed found by an international team off the coast of Colombia, 2015
Pope Francis begins a three-day trip to Myanmar, amid the Rohingya refugee crisis, 2017
Mauna Loa, the world's largest active volcano, erupts for the first time in nearly 40 years on Hawaii Island, 2022
