wurkin'...

...in the produce dept. today. Standing in one place for four hours. Doing the demo. as a warm up for the football game tomorrow. I think it will be something really lame like baby carrots and ranch dip. I hope I will think about the last time I did this: standing for hours and hours. When I was practicing my balancing - got up to thirty seconds of being able to stand on one foot. Counting: oneMississippi, twoMississippi, threeMississippi, etc., etc.. And thinking about my granddaddy Benson.

When I was a kid, and he was making jokes -something that he did a lot, loved to tease. He would ask if we could spell that word, for the state and river. For a little person, it is a long word, and fairly difficult to spell, with all those duplications. So he would say: 'Oh, you know how to spell that: it's just big M, then little eye, then crooked letter, crooked letter, another eye, crooked letter, crooked letter, eye, hump-back, hump-back, eye.'

 I remember being completely baffled. Looking at him in wonder and astonishment. But eventually understood what he was saying, and cannot spell the word to this day without thinking of him. 

Now, when I am driving, arriving at an intersection with a stop sign, I apply the brake. I am trying to remember to come to a complete, total stop. Make myself count three seconds: oneMisssisippi, twoMississippi, threeMississippi, smiling to myself as I think of my grandpa. While I am looking to the left, to the right, and to the left again. Just like my dad taught me. Then proceed on my merry way.