a dramatic reversal
Our week with Warren was drawing to an end. We still had a day planned to visit Conner Prairie Farm, a living history museum. But Friday was the hottest day of the week. We arrived and immediately it looked like things would go sideways. We went to the barn to see the baby animals. Warren liked petting the goats, but he couldn’t stand the smell. The hot air balloon experience was temporarily grounded. Warren wanted to go walk through the cornfields below the main house, but those are rented to a farmer, so you aren’t supposed to walk through them. Warren was starting to flag and I was discouraged. I love this place and I had wanted him to enjoy the experience
Finally, the tethered hot air balloon opened and we were transported 370 feet in the air, where we had a panoramic view of the park and the surrounding area including downtown Indianapolis, 24 miles away. As the breeze aloft cooled us, Warren got his second wind. We wandered into the 1836 village where Warren could work a real water pump, sit in a one room school classroom and watch a blacksmith working a real forge. Every person is dressed in the period and talks to you with only the knowledge that they would have had in 1836.
Warren wanted to go into a house where a woman was doing sewing handiwork. Her name was “Mrs. Curtis”. We talked about the forge where we had just been and she described how someone Warren’s age could apprentice himself to a blacksmith for fourteen years and after that time, maybe have his own shop. Then she asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. “I want to be a baseball player,” replied Warren. Mrs. Curtis hadn’t heard of baseball, so we described it, and she told us that at “Mr. Whitaker’s” General Store, there were leather balls and sticks that could be used to bat the balls around. So, we went there next, and Mr. Whitaker was making a ball right then. He called over his young clerk Jamie, and Jamie grabbed a bat and ball and took Warren out to play a game called “Rounders”. We thought that Warren might hit the ball a couple of times. But for the next twenty or thirty minutes he and Jamie hit balls, ran the makeshift bases, eventually attracting a crowd of other boys who wanted to give it a try. As we left the park, Warren once again proclaimed this the best day ever. A dramatic reversal from where the day began. And we weren’t done yet.
That night we surprised Warren by going back to see the Indians play again. This time we arrived at the ballpark early because we didn’t have tickets yet. We purchased our tickets and went into the park to get our food and take our seats. As one of the first kids in the park Warren was asked if he would like to be a junior announcer and appear on the jumbo-tron announcing the first Indians batter. He was thrilled that he would be “famous”. He handled the moment like a pro. This really was the best day ever!
Whatever is the opposite of blasé, that is Warren.
Love, Liz
