Charlie's Pumpkin Patch Observations #4

The pumpkin patch makes my back hurt and my face smile.  There are four nicely dressed women walking up to the pumpkin patch.  I watch them for a few minutes; they’re smiling and laughing, enjoying themselves as if they were a third of their age.

As I take the wagon out to greet them, I hear one of them say--isn’t this the coolest pumpkin patch you’ve ever seen!  Three of the ladies look about my age, one looks in her 30’s.  I greet them with y’all look like you’re on a ladies day out.  The ringleader says more like a ladies week out, we’re from Atlanta and I brought friends here last year and this is the coolest pumpkin patch I’ve ever seen.

She said it again, the “coolest.”   Maybe it’s a generational thing.  I use cool a lot, too.  Some time back during a conversation with Sally where I’m describing something, Sally said you say cool a lot, is that your favorite word?  Maybe it is.  Cool doesn’t create a word picture; it conveys an emotional reaction.  With lots of degrees of cool—like really cool, the coolest, way cool, super cool, and really, really cool, really way cool, really way far out cool, and really way far out super cool.

So as the ladies are paying for their pumpkins, the ringleader says she thinks these green ones are the coolest ever.  Must be a generational thing.

Lynn sits there listening to Steve, LeRoy and me talk boy talk--football, cars, football, cars.  She has such a sweet countenance about her and I wonder if she knows her presence affects the subject matter we talk about.

There are three beauties, two blonds and a brunette, probably in their 20’s, looking at pumpkins not far from our table.  If Lynn had not been sitting there, one of us would have made a highly intellectual and spiritual based observation like—Ever notice how some of God’s creatures are easier to look at than others?

I’m in the decade after my 50’s and wondering when do guys stop noticing pretty women.  Maybe I should ask Rev. Cecil…um, no, maybe ask Colonel Mike, Air Force guy to Air Force guy.

I’m driving home thinking my back’s not hurting much, and then it hits me.  Lynn sitting there with that sweet countenance—it’s the Mona Lisa, that’s what Lynn reminds me of, the Mona Lisa.

Charlie Spriggs