Trip to Kansas City December 2012 - Day Two

First off, the mystery of the universal remote has been solved. It was not so much that my brother Terry withdrew the remote from active service a la casa de mama but that he forget to take the written instructions as well. Thus, she was tying to use those instructions with the television remote. Not so much. My niece, Kate, confirmed what I suspected and now the instructions are history. Still, there is the matter of actually pressing the right buttons while pointing the television remote at the television!

I met Anola for coffee at Homer's Coffee Shop, near her house and thus near Grand Court. Peter joined us for a bit as well. She told me that she had just had a story published in a new anthology, pictured at left. Not Your Mother's Book: On Being a Stupid Kid is a wonderful collection of stories from many people about the funny and often stupid things that happened to them as children. Her story is "The B....... Word" and is a true account--almost--of her experience in the fifth grade at St. James School. Mom plays a key role in it and when I read it to her she actually remembered the incident. Actually it led her to take herself down the block to the school to tell Sr. Whatshername that she wasn't sending her children to Catholic school to have such words enter their innocent little heads. It is a funny story and there are many others including one about naming a pagan baby! Well worth the $13 hard copy or $9 Kindle edition. Anola will be on television talking about the book in a couple of weeks.

The first night at dinner and then twice on Friday I bumped into Beech Tuckness. He was a coach and physical education teacher at Rockhurst High School when I was a student there. He retired from Rockhurst. Now he and his wife Jean are residents of Grand Court where Mom lives. I know he doesn't look old enough but he is. He was the only teacher who showed up at our 50th high school reunion and he looked younger than the majority of the class. He still enjoys football, but especially high school football. He attends Rockhurst games when possible. He told me that the high school has three full freshman football teams with separate coaching staffs and full schedules along with two sophomore teams also with separate coaching staffs and schedules. No wonder, the varsity tends to dominate its competition.

We ended the day with dinner at Sweet Tomatoes, Mom's favorite place to eat. Mary and Louisa were busy setting up Mary's booth at the holiday craft show this weekend but Kate and Ryan were able to join us. We even had a chance to say hello to Alex, the young man adopted from Russia whom we met in October. Kate and her Mommer had a great time.
We made it home in time for Blue Bloods, one of Mom's favorite shows. She says that Tom Selleck looks like my brother Tom although none of us can see it.

You can see more photos in the updated Kansas City album on Picasa.

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Location:State Line Rd,Kansas City,United States