The Big 4-0

On Tuesday, the day before his 40th birthday, Warren and I went to lunch. I had been pressing him for weeks trying to figure out what he wanted to do on his big day. I had been met with, "Uh, I don't know," for weeks. I had to pin him down or risk being viewed as the world's lamest wife when he woke up to a whole lot of nothing on Wednesday.

We had at least agreed to both take the day off. When I started talking about going to a movie--my idea of a good time--he finally said, "It would be fun to go somewhere with the kids."

Miraculously, I said, "We could go to Oxford for the day."

When I put Jiro in Satchel's old Square Books Jr. t-shirt a few days earlier, I was reminded of the huge mama/baby roadtrip I had taken with Andria, Kristy, and the rest of the Mothersville crew in 2004.

"I've never been to Oxford," he said interested.

"We could see Faulkner's house, eat at Ajax, and hang out at Square Books Jr.," I said. "It's only about an hour's drive."

"Okay," he said.

"I'll get on the Internet and see if I can find a cool playground," I added as we left the restaurant.

Back at my office, I googled "Oxford, Mississippi" and looked under recreation. When I saw that they had just installed a brand new skate park, I knew we were in for a fun day.

We arrived in Oxford around 11:30am. Thanks to most people being in school or at work, we had the place all to ourselves. I put on my skates, the boys took to their boards, and we spent several hours rolling around.








Satchel had a minor spill that resulted in a chaffed bung-hole, Warren was spared a concussion thanks to his helmet, and Jiro got a busted lip. Nothing we couldn't handle!

It was hard getting the boys to leave, but they did eventually agree to get food as long as we came back later. We had a yummy lunch at Ajax to refuel, dropped a wad of cash at Square Books Jr., did a drive-by of Rowan Oak, and returned to the park for another few hours of skating among the youngsters. Warren soon had a small following of kids checking out his board, and the boys developed some fans of their own. After a particularly long run, a teenage girl ran over to Jiro and gave him a high five.

We ended the nearly perfect day with treats at a nearby sno cone shack.