By Rich Creason | For The Times-Post
I saw one of my regular readers, Bob, again today.
He informed me he wanted to read about something besides my garden.
My garden is about finished for the year anyway, so that’s not a problem.
I know he doesn’t spend much time in the kitchen, so I’m sure he doesn’t want to read about my latest recipe.
I asked him what topic he wanted to read about.
Of course he replied, “I don’t care.”
I asked Susie, a couple friends at church and our daughter.
All gave me the same response.
Big help.
The biggest problem about writing a column is coming up with something to write.
To help decide on a topic, I usually think about what is taking up the biggest part of my life at the time.
That usually means garden, kitchen or metal detecting.
As mentioned above, the garden is almost over. My baking is at a standstill because Susie doesn’t like me running the oven all day when it is so hot outside and the air conditioner is already working overtime.
Because of the heat, lack of rain and my bad back, we have done almost no metal detecting this summer.
That leaves the grandson as the most time consuming item in our life.
Last year, Benjamin started classes at Butler. They live in Fort Wayne, which is just at 100 miles north of us.
Butler is then another 45 minutes to an hour from our house depending on traffic on the interstate.
For whatever reason, he spent almost every weekend at our house or back in Fort Wayne.
This meant we would drive to Butler, pick him up, and either feed him and Susie would do his laundry, or his mom would drive down from up north, get him at our house, and take him home to play in a hockey game or go to a Tincaps baseball game.
This year will be slightly different.
This summer, Benjamin was a counsellor at a church camp. He met a female of the species who was also a counsellor there.
He then had his first official girlfriend.
She also lived in Ft. Wayne but she was going to school at Ball State.
After camp was over, they went out almost every day for a week. Bowling, movies, Dairy Queen, dinner at her house, etc.
Then, she had to leave for classes in Muncie.
This weekend, Angi, Paul and Benjamin came to our house on Saturday with a van load of school stuff to get Benjamin checked into his room on campus on Sunday.
Saturday evening, Benjamin’s girlfriend drove to our house from Muncie, and we all went out for dinner at the Hacienda Viejo in Pendleton.
After dinner, we sent her back to Ball State with a large plate of carrot cake I had baked and a bag of snack mix Susie had fixed.
At 5:30 a.m. on Sunday, I fixed breakfast for everybody.
They had to leave for an eight o’clock check-in at Butler.
The schedule for the next year was in the writing on the wall.
We will probably pick up Benjamin after classes on Friday and bring him back to our house.
His lady friend (she is an older woman—he is 19 and she is 20!) will probably meet him at our house for dinner or else she will take him to Fort Wayne if she is also going home for the weekend.
If she can’t leave Muncie, Benjamin’s mom will drive down to get him since he will either have a hockey game to play or he will be working as a batboy for the Tincaps until the end of the season.
Sunday night, he will somehow make it back to Anderson, and we will take him back to Butler late Sunday or early Monday morning depending on his class schedule.
Pending the progression of the romance, this will probably be the standard activity for the next school year.
Is this story different enough for you, Bob?
Rich Creason is an award-winning outdoors and travel writer whose work has appeared in local, regional, national and international publications for 40 years. Born in Anderson, he is a graduate of Markleville High School. He lives in South Madison County with his wife, Susie. He may be contacted at [email protected].