Dearest Rachel –
It may seem a little inappropriate for me to be reporting in to the ‘office’ today – although it’s been pointed out since the holiday was created how odd it is to celebrate ‘labor’ by not laboring – but that’s the beauty of being retired and being able to set one’s own hours. If I want to (and let’s face it, that’s the key phrase), I can head over there and put in some time on the statements for the church – particularly now that another month has just wrapped up – or process registrations for camp (because those are still coming in thick and fast, for weekend sessions coming up this month). There’s been a few… interesting developments that need to be addressed, and the sooner they get taken care of, the better.
At the same time, I was also given a hint or two by Mom that she certainly wouldn’t mind if I were to drop by, in any event. She’s commented about how I’ve been out of the ‘office’ for the last couple of Fridays (thereby confusing her into thinking she had two Saturdays for each of those weeks), and if I were to be there today, however briefly, she would appreciate it. Not that she has any tasks lined up to take care of – that’s she’s specifically mentioned, anyway – but it wouldn’t surprise me either way. In any case, while I will acknowledge a certain level of obliviousness to others’ needs, I think I can take this hint. So I’m going to head over there, at least for a couple of hours.
But not all day, you must understand. You never laid a ‘honey-do’ list of tasks on me for my weekends (I think your own innate laziness when it came to housework determined that it would be the height of hypocrisy to impose such things on me; that, and I’d demonstrated myself to be all thumbs with regard to most home repair – the one way I wasn’t much like your dad), for which I am thoroughly grateful. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t such stuff to be done; I mentioned that we needed a new faucet for the upstairs sink, so this seems like an ideal day to shop for it. Once we have it, we can call the plumbers back tomorrow (once they’re in the office) and arrange for them to show up and put it in, hopefully putting paid to the leaks that have had Daniel coming downstairs to wash his hands all the time.
While we’re out (and I say “we” because I intend to drag Daniel with me on this leg of today’s journey; it’s his sink, after all), we can stop by at Meijer and do some certificate shopping. Granted, they don’t expire for another week, but why wait until the last minute every month, especially since we have a day in which it would be ideal to go about running these errands? Besides, we used up a few things over the weekend (including a few chips we brought to a cookout yesterday that we – I? – discovered to be particularly tasty, to the point of addictive. Having left them with our hosts, I thought we might as well replenish our stock. You can argue with me about whether that’s wise, given my ongoing fight with my waistline).
That should be more than enough to satisfy my apparent need to do stuff on a day that’s specifically set aside to do nothing in. At the same time, my subconscious mind made another recommendation to me last night that I have to tell you about, since you would often tell me your dreams in the morning, and be mildly disappointed when I didn’t have a similar story. I think it was more disappointed for me than with me – among other things, while you didn’t seem to value sleep in general, you did value R.E.M. sleep, and worried when I didn’t get much. So here goes.
I should probably give this one a little background, as I may or may not have told you about it; and even if I had, I could understand if your terrestrial incarnation would have forgotten, so how much more so, now that you’re celestial? In any event, one point of pride during my high school career was our marching band; it may have been considered to be an activity for wusses by the jock contingent, but said jocks during that period couldn’t even get a whiff of any competitiveness at the state level.
However, the year before I had arrived at high school, they had apparently stunned the competition (and themselves) with a win at the state competition, and were looking forward to doing so the next year (i.e., my freshman year), only to be similarly upset by a school from a town – New Lenox – that seemingly hadn’t even existed on the map in previous years. This brand spanking new high school out of nowhere had fielded an enormous squad, and beat us in the parade and field competitions by a total of six-tenths of a point. That margin of defeat became a rallying point, and the squad made it a goal to crush them the following year, which we did. And indeed, our high school, to the best of my knowledge, went on to win State as if it was some sort of birthright, claiming the title (and retiring more than a few trophies, as they traveled from year to year, only coming to rest at a single school after three straight wins) for the next twenty-five years, at the very least.
With that sort of background, for some reason, my subconscious suggested to me that it would be worth investigating the sort of field routine that Lincoln-Way High School (the last rival to ever defeat us, by those measly six-tenths of a point) was working on this year. And so somehow, I found myself driving out to suburban Joliet to check them out.
And they seemed to be working on a full-on Napoleonic battle, with squares of brass arranged like pikemen, siege engines with soloists playing from the tops of them, and even the odd explosion here and there (presumably the old standby of the 1812 Overture, but the bombs rather overshadowed the music). These kids were preparing for a musical war. Having been out of the game since midway into my sophomore year in college, this was rather intimidating – and actually struck me as a bit over-the-top. I mean, it’s just a state competition; there’s no need to bring out literal heavy artillery. And it seems odd for them to be out a practicing on a Labor Day, too, for that matter.
Then again, considering what some have said about the importance of winning in life (whatever that may mean to them), maybe that statement would be falling on deaf ears. That, or it’s the band, or the bombs that drown reason out. Who knows?
Letters to Rachel 