QUIET...

"School's Out For Summer!" I've been pondering something the last few weeks. It's really something that I know in my "knower." But it really hit home this morning.

Tuesday is "trash day." So, I went out to roll the trash can to the curb, and it felt amazingly light. I opened the lid and found it only about half full. "My goodness," I thought to myself, "I can remember when we would fill this big can, and also the little one from the back yard every week."

Summer has always been a wild, and crazy season at Andy's Place. We have had kids for 28 years. I can't remember when we didn't have kids. And every Summer, Andy's Place became the gathering place for the boys, their friends, their friend's friends...and a bunch of other kids nobody even knew for sure.

Man...the driveway always full of boys shooting hoops...a car or truck always in one state of being "worked on" or another...a constant trail of teenagers parading in and out of the house...cookouts initiated by the boys and their friends...teenagers sleeping on couches, floors, chairs, and some even standing up in corners...

We would go through enough milk to drain Elsie...enough Apple Juice, Orange Juice, Bread, eggs, cereal, bananas (you get the idea) to feed an army, and enough hot water to bathe said army. Even up through last Summer when #3 son was still here, this place could accurately be described as a "zoo."

Too many wild and crazy stories have piled up in my cranium to bore you with.

The 3 older boys are gone, and on their own now. We still have a 13-year-old at home. But he is different from the other boys, and doesn't have a lot of "buddies," if you know what I mean.

It's quiet at Andy's Place. The milk sours before we use up a gallon. The bread gets moldy before it's all used up (becomes bird food), bodies are not strewn all over the house in the morning, the foosball table is neglected, no loud music blares indoors, or outdoors...and that trash can is awfully light.

Too light. Well, it is what it is...