It's a Tie

When my six year old son received a football at Christmas from his grandmother, he decided that he knew all about football. When all the exchanging was finished, and his siblings had moved their gifts to their respective collection places, he embraced the football and said, "Let's go outside." He led me out to the little front lawn.


Holding the football to his chest, he showed me where to stand, and put the ball on the grass in front of him. But then he stood up and said, "Now, you kick it to me."


I accepted the ball and put it where he said to.


As I prepared to dink the ball in his direction, he held up his hand with his palm toward me.


"And one more thing," he declared in a firm voice, "Either I win, or it's a tie."

Cretan Adventure

I've told this piece so often it may be familiar to most of you, but I still believe it 's worth relating again. In Iraklion, Crete, I boarded a local bus for the east shore of this remarkable island. I'd heard good things about its coast.

My funny looking local bus was right out of a Gordo cartoon: people with live chickens, a goat, everyone with those net shopping bags that hold everything from a week's groceries to a winter coat, a bicycle, too, maybe. People were jabbering to one another in a way suggesting that this ride was one of their ways of getting together.


Nearly everyone smiled at me as I worked toward the only available seat near the back. And everyone pointed at my camera. You get used to that.


As the little bus rumbled over the rough, narrow roads, the driver paused at various lonely spots for someone to alight. The passenger hadn't signaled, so the driver clearly knew his passengers' habits.


After nearly two hours, nearing the top of a long, steady rise, and with no house, side road, or even fence visible, the driver stopped and left the bus. Turning, he leaned in and beckoned to me. Every passenger turned and pointed at me, nodding. I was to get off.


WHAT!!!  I thought. This is forty miles from nowhere, and I haven't seen any other bus going back toward Iraklion! What have I done wrong?


But, as the driver and a dozen passengers wanted me off, off I got.


The driver then led me across the road and up to the crown of the hill. He kept repeating ""Paolo, Paolo," and, at the crown he smiled broadly, pointing over the edge.

Hundreds of feet below, was a tiny village with a surprisingly large church. Just beyond was an acropolis, and beyond that a land-locked lagoon, a creamy green lining at its edges. Also visible was pale pink coral. I have never seen anything more beautiful. 


The bus driver stepped next to me whispering again, "Paolo." Then I realized that this local Greek bus driver, with his passengers' approval, had stopped the bus to reveal to this wandering American a scene even Paul himself never had the joy of viewing. I doubt that professional tours were so privileged.


And at last I understood. This was where St. Paul re-supplied on his journeys to Greece or Rome.

I was not now surprised, as we returned to the bus, the passengers cheered, as if I had done something wonderful. The driver even patted me on the back.


When we all left the bus at the village, the remaining passengers said something in Greek, which didn't sound much like "drop dead." as they dispersed.


The people in the village were especially warm, too. As I climbed the acropolis steps, a fellow who spoke excellent English introduced himself. He was on leave from Australia to marry off his sister. He spent the whole afternoon telling about Greek weddings, and the acropolis. He took me into the church to explain the services and the murals, and he proudly informed me that the Greek Orthodox church predates the Roman Catholic. (There are no pews. Everybody stands.)

As we parted, he said that he was not concerned for his sister, because, while the groom may bring only his shirt to a wedding, if the marriage is dissolved, that's all he leaves with.

Sons and Christmastime: 2 Stories

David and the Chimney Story One



The fall that David started school our house had a flat roof. As November passed Thanksgiving, David suddenly became interested in getting up on the roof. He scouted around the house from all angles. After a couple of days, on a Saturday, he came to me and asked if I would help him up onto the roof. We didn't have a ladder, and there was no way I was about to help him up onto the fence to get on the roof. Still, he seemed to feel this was an especially necessary height to accomplish. Eventually, I went to our carpenter neighbor and borrowed his ladder. 

David's legs could barely make the stretch from rung to rung, so I had to keep him secure every step. But he was so intent on getting to the top that he let me keep him secure. 

Once we were on the roof, he took off like a jack rabbit directly to the chimney, grasped the top edges, leaned over the flue, studied it for several seconds, then slid off the top, turned to me, and stated flatly,

"No way."


He headed back toward the ladder, but about half way stopped and returned. Leaning well over the flue, he stared down for several seconds. Then at last he stood away from the chimney again, he said with vigor, "Never."

David lost interest in visiting Santa after that; but it didn’t diminish the season for him in other way we could tell. 




Jeffrey's Christmas Gift to His Mother  Story Two


The Christmas season before Jeffrey started school, he came to me to ask if I would help him buy a present for his mother. He wouldn’t tell me what he had in mind, but the place was "downtown."

The first evening I could, I drove him past the Stanford campus into Palo Alto. Since he wouldn’t tell me what kind of store he needed, I trailed along after him as he weaved his way from one shop to another.


When he turned into a year-round toy store, I thought, uh-oh. Of course he would! Whatever Jeffrey had in mind for his mother, this store would erase it. I was glad that I had given over the whole evening to his request, because this diversion was apparently going to use up most of it.


But NO!  Suddenly, with clear resolution, Jeffrey darted along an aisle toward something. He stopped in front of an array of hand sized vehicles, cars, trucks, wagons, and the Christmas gift for his mother.


He picked off a shelf a shiny red…

                                                                    …fire engine.

Gnomes and Fairies

Splashed across the lower part of the magazine ad was the lettering "Get there before the travelers do." High on the page was an airplane. Centered was Machu Picchu. The logic of that still escapes me. National Geographic does pretty well; but they are, after all, rather especially equipped.  And you don't find out until they've come back.


However, there are places that don't feel like football games, where you are shoulder to shoulder with other "travelers" and not steeped in hawkers and "services."


As with Havasu Falls, in our America there are some astonishingly inspiring places with, happily, relatively few other travelers rushing to maintain their schedules.


One is Luray.

En route you don't pass miles of ballyhoo, or promises of being amazed. But you are amazed. A single step into these caverns suspends time. Virginia, a few feet above you, stops being the reality. An undulating succession of pastel hued paths is the only thing with meaning -- that and the almost visible gnomes and fairies. They are simply shy.

You see on the grotto ceiling a tiny drop leisurely swelling. In a minute, or an hour, whenever, it will descend to the shallow basin beneath. With it a tiny bit of calcium joins others that have formed its basin, drop by drop over millennia. Time here is irrelevant.


Then it hits you. This Elysium meandering beneath the streets is exactly what made Havasu, time zones away, nestled among the massive buttes beside the Grand Canyon. 

Spider Woman Rock / Canyon de Chelly 

When finally you must reenter the surface world, you think surely the gnomes and fairies of Luray have cousins in Havasu and Canyon de Chelly. Didn't you see them dancing atop Spider Woman pinnacle terrorizing Navajo children?