I took George to his first movie on a cold December afternoon when he was three years old. We went and saw “The Princess and the Frog” at the matinee while baby Fritz stayed home with MomMom.
George made it through the movie that day and we still watch it together when it is on the television.
I thought about that day yesterday as George set out for a trip to Kenosha on his own. Kenosha runs old streetcars around town and George wanted to get pictures of them.
After a two hour train ride up the coast of Lake Michigan, my little boy was all alone in the State of Cheeseheads. He arrived at noon and had until 4:02pm to ride streetcars from the mid twentieth century.
“Do Not miss that fucking four-o-two George or you’ll be in a shit ton of trouble son!”
I was getting updates during the day and the occasional video or picture of lighthouses and streetcars.
…and then just before four o’clock I received a text from my little baby boy.
“Dad…. I’m stuck in an elevator and I might miss the train! The fire department is on the way!”
“NO… NO…. NO…. NO!”
The little boy that made it through ninety-five minutes of a Louisiana Disney Princess movie got himself trapped in an elevator at the Kenosha fucking train station!
No way am I climbing into Betty the Green Blazer and hauling ass to Wisconsin.
The good news is… Metra held the train for the dipshit stuck in the elevator and Kenosha has a decent fire department.
The train arrived at the Northwestern Station in Chicago and “Elevator Boy” made it home with an adventure from his first solo trip to Wisconsin.
George got back to Riverside about seven-thirty and for the next half an hour I heard about the twenty minutes trapped in an elevator story.
…. “And, oh yeah! The streetcar is amazing dad!”
The little boy that I buckled into a car seat in the movie theater parking lot fifteen years ago, took the train seventy miles away and got locked in an elevator.
For the rest of my life I will remind Big George that his first show at the theater was a Disney Princess movie.
…And his first adventure on the UP-North route ended with an emergency call to the Kenosha fire department.
I’m tired this morning because I did what I told everyone not to do on yesterday’s Morning Chalkboard.
I watched that debacle between two senior citizens last night.
The world isn’t going to end in January when the next presidential term begins. I’m still going to pay taxes and worry about my family. It doesn’t matter who the Assclown is that is sitting in The Oval Office. My life as an aging divorced dad will still have the usual ups and downs.
Have a glorious day and if you see Big George…
...ask him what floor the Choo Choo train is on.
