Shelley has gotten me really excited about writing down some of the funnier stories from our pre-blog events. Here are a couple:
Last Summer, we were asked to participate in a non-violence festival put on by Not With These Hands. This is a great organization started by Kristin Hott, Heidi Abbott, and Carter Carpin, all close friends with the Harvey family. The event was held on a beautiful Saturday and featured different organizations dedicated to preventing violence. Unfortunately, Shelley and I witnessed two events that involved different degrees of violence. Well, I guess it's more honest to say that we were directly involved in each event.
The first involved the son of a friend who had just come over to hang out with us with his new balloon. For some reason, he decided that he was going to practice kung fu kicks on my lower leg. It was somewhat playful, and after growing tired of dodging his kicks, I decided to grab his foot and hand so that I could spin him around. He was laughing as he spun, but, as I dipped him towards the ground, his balloon hit the grass and popped. This really upset him, and despite my attempts to replace the balloon right away, he crossed his arms and sulked away behind a tree. It kind of made me feel like a chump to make this kid cry. Shelley and I were trying to figure out how to deal with this when he storms over. "I'm not talking to you!!!" Ok. He walked back to the tree. A moment later, my back was turned and he came over and punched me in my leg. I tried to tell him that while violence is the lowest form of communication, it still is communication and technically the punch didn't jive with his claim not to be talking to me, but by that point he was running to get another balloon.
Just a few minutes later, we noticed a 10 year old decked out in a Braves uniform. He had the full get up on. I told Shelley "I bet I know who's kid that is." Shelley didn't get the joke until she turned around and saw a full grown man in the exact same uniform, number and everything. The funniest part was that this man was fully asleep, leaning against a tree with his mouth hanging open. This cracked us up, but I think the kid though we were laughing at him, so he carefully eyed us and walked over to his dad. Still looking at us, he tried to wake dad up by hitting him on the head. Since he wasn't watching what he was doing, he ended up sort of hitting him in the face. But dad didn't wake up, and we started laughing harder. The kid smiled, getting that we weren't laughing at him, and encouraged our laughter by hitting his dad harder and more frequently on the head. By the time dad woke up, confused as to why his son was smacking him, Shelley and I were close to tears.
It was around this point that a young woman brought her bike over to have the brakes fixed. "Is this going to take long" she asked with the tone of someone who was really bothered. Later I regretted not immediately apologizing for wasting her time, but at that moment all I could do was hope the two boys we had just dealt with would set their sites on this girl.
Last Summer, we were asked to participate in a non-violence festival put on by Not With These Hands. This is a great organization started by Kristin Hott, Heidi Abbott, and Carter Carpin, all close friends with the Harvey family. The event was held on a beautiful Saturday and featured different organizations dedicated to preventing violence. Unfortunately, Shelley and I witnessed two events that involved different degrees of violence. Well, I guess it's more honest to say that we were directly involved in each event.
The first involved the son of a friend who had just come over to hang out with us with his new balloon. For some reason, he decided that he was going to practice kung fu kicks on my lower leg. It was somewhat playful, and after growing tired of dodging his kicks, I decided to grab his foot and hand so that I could spin him around. He was laughing as he spun, but, as I dipped him towards the ground, his balloon hit the grass and popped. This really upset him, and despite my attempts to replace the balloon right away, he crossed his arms and sulked away behind a tree. It kind of made me feel like a chump to make this kid cry. Shelley and I were trying to figure out how to deal with this when he storms over. "I'm not talking to you!!!" Ok. He walked back to the tree. A moment later, my back was turned and he came over and punched me in my leg. I tried to tell him that while violence is the lowest form of communication, it still is communication and technically the punch didn't jive with his claim not to be talking to me, but by that point he was running to get another balloon.
Just a few minutes later, we noticed a 10 year old decked out in a Braves uniform. He had the full get up on. I told Shelley "I bet I know who's kid that is." Shelley didn't get the joke until she turned around and saw a full grown man in the exact same uniform, number and everything. The funniest part was that this man was fully asleep, leaning against a tree with his mouth hanging open. This cracked us up, but I think the kid though we were laughing at him, so he carefully eyed us and walked over to his dad. Still looking at us, he tried to wake dad up by hitting him on the head. Since he wasn't watching what he was doing, he ended up sort of hitting him in the face. But dad didn't wake up, and we started laughing harder. The kid smiled, getting that we weren't laughing at him, and encouraged our laughter by hitting his dad harder and more frequently on the head. By the time dad woke up, confused as to why his son was smacking him, Shelley and I were close to tears.
It was around this point that a young woman brought her bike over to have the brakes fixed. "Is this going to take long" she asked with the tone of someone who was really bothered. Later I regretted not immediately apologizing for wasting her time, but at that moment all I could do was hope the two boys we had just dealt with would set their sites on this girl.
-Ward
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