Photo by Bill Stokes
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper and Phyllis were on hand when 16-month-old Augie experienced one of the greatest days of his life at four-year-old Blaize’s birthday party.
It happened at one of the clan’s river-rat haunts and it was the day Augie met a passel of his older cousins who are destined to impact his life with the force of gravity.
The keeper speaks from his experience with older cousins, and warns Augie to hang on tight because you are in for a ride! Witness the constant zoom-zoom of four-wheelers piloted by your cousins not all that much older than you, cousins of both genders who hop off their skidding machines to do impossible acrobatic moves on a huge metal reel that looks like an adventurous toy for polar bears.
Augie may not even remember this specific day, since they will be followed by a lifetime of high adventure with older cousins, but the keeper and Phyllis will remember it as one of those perfect sunny Sundays when a branch of the clan gathered by the river, solicitous of old age in the midst of blossoming youth.
Good luck, Augie, happy birthday Blaize, and thank you to all the clan river-rats.
What a day!
