AT THE PARK

My wife knows about Fairs. She used to show dairy cattle at the State Fair in Springfield. We still have an expression in our family that "he stayed too long at the fair," when someone(s) overstays their visit.

We added a new family expression this past week. Our 5 year old cousin Jude wanted to go to the park when his grandfather was watching him. I won't use the term baby sitting because if you're around 5 year -olds, you know they don't like being called babies. Roy, his granddad told him it was raining.

"That's ok. I'll just put on my raincoat."

Granddad's being granddads have a hard time refusing.

Off to the park.

"There's no one else here," Jude announced.

"There's water on the merry-go-round," he continued.

"And on the slides."

"And on the swing sets."

"This was a bad idea, wasn't it?" Jude concluded.

So now when things don't work out, when we couldn't find a parking place after searching for 30 minutes in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, last Sunday after church, it was announced by my wife: "This was a bad idea, wasn't it?"

Thanks, Jude, for adding to our nomenclature and our family history.