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It was a special time. That time of life when things were
wonderful and new. That time when adults were still incredible fonts of wisdom
and knowledge. That time when each day brought amazing things never before
seen.
Gemma woke that morning, instantly fully awake and with the
energy another might need a couple of coffees to attain. She threw on the
clothes she and her mother had carefully picked out the night before and ran to
her door only to stop short just before the exit. A quick about face, a check
in her mirror (Gee, how she loved it!) and a redo of her shirt to make it
frontside front, then out the door!
Down the hall, bursting without pause through her parent’s
bedroom door and launching herself onto the foot of the bed. “Get up! It’s
Missus-pee Day!”
Louise cracked one eye but it was Lance who spoke reaching
down to pull Gemma up between her parents, “The River is still sleeping, Silly!
Maybe we should have breakfast and let it wake up before we drive out. Whaddya
say?”
An “Awww” escaped Gemma before her brain even processed the
information. Then it hit her as a good idea and she said, or rather shouted
loud enough to make Lance wince, “Yeah! Let’s have Corn Flakes!” Before either
parent could groggily respond, Gemma was squirreling back to the foot of the
bed, plopping to the floor and racing out.
Her eyes still mostly closed, Louise pushed the covers back
and rolled to a sit. She mumbled and Lance understood more than heard, “I guess
we’d better try to keep up.” She padded off to the bathroom. Lance pulled
himself out of bed and staggered with increasing stability toward the kitchen.
In the kitchen Gemma was already halfway toward breakfast.
She had a plastic bowl, a spoon and the box of corn flakes on the island and was
pulling on the refrigerator door. The seal was more than her 3-year-old arms could overcome despite her
determination and Lance had to give a friendly assist.
“Thanks, Dad!” as she pulled the half-gallon jug off the
lowest shelf and carried it in both hands to the island. Reaching above her
head she carefully placed the jug on the island, tongue sticking out of her
mouth in concentration. Then a quick scramble into the chair and a satisfied
“Hmmph!”
Lance flipped on the coffee-maker and moved over to help
pour milk and snare a couple wayward corn flakes making a production of
bringing them to his mouth and chomping on them to a giggle from Gemma. Then he
walked back the way he’d come as Louise slipped past and grabbed a couple mugs
from hooks above the sink. Her eyes were still not fully open.
An hour later Gemma was still at full speed but at least
Lance and Louise were able to keep pace as they piled into their Integra and
negotiated the winding streets of the sub-division out to the highway. Louise
drove and Lance sang alternatively silly songs and classic songs with Gemma by
turns singing gleefully along and giggling at the edge of uncontrollability.
The first hour flew by.
Gradually the songs became less boisterous on Gemma’s end
and her gaze wandered more to the passing scenery. Finally she bottomed out,
“When is the Missus-pee?”
Louise gave Lance a knowing look and said, “Another hour,
luv. Maybe it’s time to count the red cars, but only the red ones, ok? I see
one! I have one red car. Can you count more than me?”
“Yeah!” screeched Gemma and was instantly absorbed in the
game scanning the road ahead for every oncoming car. Soon Gemma was up to nine,
Louise had six and poor Lance, on the passenger side in the back seat, had only
counted two.
Gemma cried, “Ten! Now let’s count blue cars!” And so it
went for another twenty minutes as cars of color after color in the girl’s
repertoire were duly counted as they headed south on the state highway away
from the headwaters of the Mississippi.
As the game wound down Gemma agreed to watch the country
passing by carefully identifying the corn fields from the soybeans and wheat
but needing help on some of the others. Hay and alfalfa and potatoes were all
differentiated but they ran into some trouble discerning the hops, the rye, and
the oats. A stinky turkey farm zipped past and a couple still functioning dairy
farms were noted by the cattle lazing in the sun.
Then the first sign flashed by and Lance said softly,
“There, Gemma, Mississippi Headwaters ten miles.”
“Yayyyy! Can I wear my water shoes now?”
Lance dug into the bag they brought, his hands reaching past
the snacks and the water bottles to find Gemma’s water shoes. By the time he’d
pulled them from the depths of the bag Gemma’s sandals had been kicked off to slam
into the back of Louise’s seat and carom onto the floor, just missing Lance’s
head as he bent over the bag.
She excitedly kicked her feet making Lance’s job doubly
difficult to secure her feet into their snug-fitting water shoes. With his long
experience Lance deftly snared first the left foot and then the right and
stuffed each foot into its waiting shoe. Gemma never missed a beat and Louise
was parking the car as the last shoe was successfully placed.
Only one admonishment was necessary to keep Gemma next to
her paents and not bolting across the parking lot alone but she still nearly
dragged them both to the gate and down the trail. When they arrived at the
small stream gurgling out of the lake that stretched out in a clear sun-lit
vista, though, there was trouble.
“Where’s the Missus-pee?” Gemma demanded.
“This is it! This is where the river is born!” said Louise.
“But it’s too little,” Gemma insisted. “The Missus-pee is
humongous.” And she spread her arms wide
above her head.
Lance tried, “But the river grows just like you. It starts
small like you did when you were born and gets big as it goes.”
“But I’m older!
The river here is the same years old as the one by us!”
“Rivers grow as they flow,” Louise tried alliteration. “The
Mississippi is old because it wanders, like Grandpa…”
“Or Mommy before she has her coffee!” This got Lance a
sardonic look from Louise.
“But it grows the further it goes. Feel it move.” Louise
bent to touch the shallow, swiftly moving water. “More water pours in all the
time as it flows, making the river grow.”
Gemma frowned. She did not like this much but she was
willing to consider this unforeseen development. She walked into the water and
splashed a bit. That made everything feel a bit better. She watched a bug
spiral downstream, caught in the splashing and watched the other people as they
variously stood, walked, and tip-toed in the water. They all seemed to think
this was the Mississippi.
“Can we see the Missus-pee grow?” She asked.
Louise and Lance exchanged a knowing look, turned in unison
to Gemma and nodded. They spent the rest of the day meandering like the river
from town to town, bridge to bridge and watched the Mississippi grow from its
rivulet at Itasca to its breadth at St. Paul.
