The Whole Family

The Whole Family
Christmas 2006

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12/14/11

Parenting, Part 1 of Who Knows

There are some funny parenting moments from my childhood...

Like the time I was playing basketball at the end of the driveway with Evelyn and Joe. Remember the game, Horse? You should. Evelyn missed a shot after me and I, foolishly, yelled out: "HOR! You're HOR!" This, of course, sounds like I am calling my sister an awful word synonymous with prostitute. Believe it or not, I was unfamiliar with either definitions. I was immediately called into the house by Mom and punished-- sent to my room to think about the awful uses of lower class vernacular. It was a perplexing hour of punishment, let me be the first to admit it.

Or the time I was running around the house in the madman fashion the Powells normally partook in as our new addition was in progress. Dad and I were supposed to make our way to Saint Francis of Assisi Chapel in Springfield in about 10 minutes. Energetically exploring the imaginative saga within the confines of my mind, I dove through the window separating one of the the main rooms in our home from the adjacent in-house construction site. A fraction of a second passed in the slowest of motions as my leg swung unforgivably and knocked, from their resting place, a stack of windows that the contractor was about to install the next day. I barely had to look, I heard it first-- the glass shattered into ridiculing pieces. I yelped. My father hollered. I teared. My body seized and ran toward the stairs. My father grabbed my arm. I wept even harder. My dad, surprisingly, forgave me. We went to the chapel. We prayed. I went to confession. I made the sign of the cross and knelt in the pew and shook the hands of  all church goers about me. I was in the clear. And then it happened. I was not taken out to McDonald's or to the Frozen Lemonade stand or to the gas station for a bottle of pop. I was exiled from the post-church pleasures and excitement. I learned my lesson.

I will have to continue, as there are innumerable amounts of stories to be told and miles to go before we sleep....

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