Back in August.

The big picture will emerge, eventually.

When I think about it, I think the most impressive thing I’ve ever seen was the paint factory burning down when I was a boy. We stood in the field and watched 55 gallon drums rocket into the sky, and big orange balls of fire roll up out of black smoke, and listened to the sirens. The second-most impressive thing I’ve ever seen was a grown hippopotamus taking a shit at the zoo.

Anything man-made comes further down the list, unless the fire was arson.

I have no idea what my kids would say. Or my wife. I wonder. I’ll have to ask them. The sunrise was pretty good this morning, too. I got up early and ran down to the Danube. It was foggy and a barge was going past, headed upstream.

What about you?

Waiting for the Cankle sisters to finish gabbing and get out of my way at the store today so I could finally pay for my lunch and get back to my desk, it occurred to me how life has sometimes found it necessary to get my attention in rather dramatic ways, in order that I realize the full extent of my good fortune such as, forgive me, with my children, whom I used as flashlights when they were small, as the sun has shone out of their asses since the day they were born.

I suspect I would have taken them for granted but they were both born quite prematurely so I am grateful not only for their intelligence and humor and talents, but for other things as well such as, they can walk. They can speak. They can dress themselves.

They can see.

Or our luck with teachers. Since they began going to school, all their teachers have been very good. Once each they had poor teachers for a short time, with the result that we appreciate the rest.

Beta had a teacher in 4th grade whom she corrected, in class, in the subjects of math and English. Not sure about the other subjects.

Gamma, in first grade, had a real knucklehead, known generally as The Mummy. She has another teacher now, in second grade, who impressed me greatly. She took her class – Gamma’s – and the Mummy took hers in a single bus to the zoo recently.

They split up once they got there, not sharing a common philosophy of zoo visits. The Mummy did what I would have done – marched the kids through the zoo in double rows, buddy system etc. Actually, I wouldn’t just have had them hold hands, I would have employed super glue.

Gamma’s teacher, you know what she did? She gave her class maps. Each kid got a map, man. Here are your maps, so you can’t get lost, she said. We’ll all meet back here in two hours.

And they all did.