Sunday, The Wootton Men
A reunion of sorts was scheduled for Sunday. For one day, the busy schedules and distances that separate the Wootton men were put aside. We were men. We were alone. No women were allowed.
That’s right. Our women let us out without supervision. We were free for an independent day of manly bonding. The question of what exactly we would do with our time was still very much up in the air when my father’s three boys pulled up at his house.
Many years ago the old ping pong table in the basement was an object of fascination for me. My brothers were the masters, holding tournaments of will and precision. I was the enthusiastic little kid, just aching for someone to chase my mistakes into the dark corners of our basement.
It seems that times have changed a bit. The table was new, despite the fact that some miscellaneous objects it supported attested to its lack of use. I’ve been practicing a bit; I spent about a year of lunches knocking around a little orange ball. Their skills, however, have been left unused since college. I think I gave them enough of a challenge to work the rust off.
The great thing about the table tennis we played is that it gave us a chance to catch up while doing something that felt so natural. We could have been back at the old house chewing the fat for all I knew or cared. It also gave the sun time to warm up for our eventual destination: Gettysburg.
Gettysburg is a place where I spent many a day during my youth. We used to camp nearby. We lived a mere 15 minutes away. The fact that my father was once a tour bus driver in Gettysburg meant we always had a built in guide. I remember the fudge at the corner shop. I remember my father helping me up the walk-up towers as my fear of heights got hold of me. I remember the following the tape tour around the battlefield.
Not much has changed. The fudge is still wonderfully good. My knees still buckle when I get four stories above the earth. The tape is now a CD but sounds much like before.
We turned the two hour tour into a four hour tour. The battlefield was our playground for a bit. We climbed towers, hiked Big Round Top, and listened in on the guides meant for the official tour buses. It was great fun.
We then settled down for dinner in the cozy basement tavern of the Dobbin House. A storm rolled by and we barely noticed. The candlelight of the basement meant a temporary loss of power only added to the ambiance. I couldn’t help but get a bit reflective.
The four gentlemen sitting at the dinner table are now family men. The kids now have kids. Even the baby of the family – me – has a baby of his own at home.
It’s all a little surreal. It’s as if time rushed forward to this point. One day we were tackling each other in the backyard. The next day we were paying taxes and mowing our own lawns.
The trip home proved adventurous. The passing storm had been severe. Debris littered the roadway and we passed one tree blocking half of the roadway before coming to rest by a downed tree and a police car. I started to put the truck in reverse but changed my mind. Surely, there is something we could do about this. The four of hopped out of the car and made our way through the rain to the downed tree. Heave ho, guys. The tree didn’t stop us but the police officer did. Help in the form of a chainsaw was on the way. We were only interfering. We turned the truck around and found another way to my father’s house.
I have to say I won’t forget the day for a while (which is a good thing considering how long I took to write about it). I was unaware how easy it was to revisit my childhood. Sometimes the memories lie just a table tennis game away. The end of our day, which found four men working together to clear a path home, seemed just right. In a way, that’s exactly what we did.
