Saturday Task Force

Before I even could open my eyes, I knew. I knew what today meant.

I knew it was a Saturday. A Saturday in the middle of June. I suppose that in most childhoods a summer Saturday meant a day to explore and laugh and play and soak up the sun and chase your friends on your bicycles while your parents sat on the patio and sipped their chilled wine.

Not on the Powell homestead. Dad was home from work for the first time all week and he was certain to make sure we all knew.

Oh, I knew.

Everyone up! He hollered up the stairs, There's a whole lot to do today and only a day to do it!

The task force was split up accordingly. Me, Joe and Sarah were sentenced to weeding duty. Evelyn lucked out and got to help Mom out in the cooled house. Therefore, she got to play with the kittens and relax with Mom. She always got the best jobs. Rob was ordered off to mow the 3 enormous lawns. Bill and Mike ran errands with Dad-- to the dump, to Home Depot, to till the garden and pick and water the vegetables. Mary helped out with the youngsters, playing blocks and reading to Nellie and Nina, the twins.

Typical Saturday in June.

On any other day, the sun was a playmate of ours. It danced as we foraged new lands, explored the vast forestry full of dwarves and evils and Indians, challenged our bare feet against the hot, sharp drive way gravel. But now, it turned against us. We bent over the stones surrounding the house, tugging and yanking at the overgrown weeds with our young warrior hands, the sun's belly shaking with a powerfully overtaking burst.

Ripping roots. Sweating. Kicking away the rock. Pausing to catch a butterfly. Pulling. Digging. Tossing to the side. Piles of discarded plants, dandelions and tall grass and the horrid stinging nettle, grew on the small side lawn where we worked.

Breaking in the late afternoon, we scurried to the hose out back. Mom would never allow our dirty hands and feet and faces back into the house after cleaning with Evelyn. We danced and splashed in the wet grass where we flooded a patch of the lawn as we cleaned off.

Turn off the hose! Mom shouted out. The dishwasher was whirring in the kitchen, the washing machine sputtering in the basement and Dad was catching an early shower.

Dashing away from the hose directly to the oak tree in the middle of our sand pile out back, we raced up the knotted fish net ladder to the tree house, purposefully entangling ourselves on the way up. Our huge tractor tire hung by a sturdy woven rope shook from the excitement, creakily giggling alongside us.

It was just a typical Saturday in June.