Walter, Count your blessings (eBook)

Greg Bulla (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
112 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3178-1288-1 (ISBN)

Infos

As summer vacation in 1977 begins, eight year-old Walter is headed to the small town of Lake Hickory Ridge in North Carolina to spend the summer with his Grandma Della and Grandpa Curtis. With his friends off on their own adventures, Walter is excited about spending time with his grandparents at the lake. Walter's story continues, in a summer filled with fishing trips, front porch talks, and lessons only grandma and grandpa can teach.

Greg Bulla is a North Carolina-based writer. A life-long resident of the Tarheel state, he currently lives in the Piedmont Triad with his family.

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It's the summer of 1977 and eight year-old Walter is going to visit his grandparents in the small town of Lake Hickory Ridge in North Carolina. As much as he will miss his friends Johnny, Tommy . . . and Darla, he can't wait to see Grandma Della and Grandpa Curtis. Excited about the fishing trips with Grandpa and helping Grandma at her bookshop, Walter is sure to have stories to tell when he gets home at the end of the summer. But he hasn't even thought about everything he will learn from Grandma and Grandpa. Sure, Grandpa can show him the best way to catch the biggest fish and Grandma can give him a peek at the secrets behind her home cooking, but they both have something more they want to share with Walter, something that will help their little grandson grown up into a fine young man. Follow Walter as he spends the summer enjoying the love that only grandparents can give and learning how so much in life is a blessing.

Textauszug

Chapter 1

 

I’m awake early on a Saturday morning, getting ready to leave to go to see Grandpa Curtis and Grandma Della and stay with them for the summer. Momma’s already been in my room once, pullin’ me out of a good sleep and hollerin’ about “getting it in gear” so they can hit the road.

Sun ain’t even all the way up outside. I feel like I’m gettin’ up at nighttime.

Momma turned the big light on in my room and ‘bout blinded me. It’s taken me a minute to figure out where I am and how to get outta the bed and get dressed.

“All right, big fella. You good this morning?” Daddy asked as he popped into the room.

“Yeah, Daddy. We really gotta get up this early?”

“Sooner we leave, sooner we get there, sir.” Daddy answered.

I still don’t get why the two of them are always in such a hurry. I mean, me and Daddy have our “gettin’ dressed race” during the school year, but still . . .

“Go ahead and get dressed, so we can finish getting your bags packed up and put in the car.” Daddy added.

The car. The new car. The 1977 AMC Matador Station Wagon. I miss the “little spaceship”, the Gremlin, but I’m lookin’ forward to taking a trip in the new “starship”. It sounds like a big ol’ tank rollin’ down the road.

I look over at my desk near my closet, before I grab something to wear, and see the Halloween picture laying there from this past year. Me, Johnny, Tommy . . . and Darla. Gene Simmons, Mr. Spock, The Fonz, and the Good Witch.

I’m gonna miss gettin’ to see them this summer. I’m gonna be at Grandpa and Grandma’s for like seven weeks or somethin’. Just wonderin’ what the summer’s gonna be like.

Johnny just left for science camp a few days ago. He kept on talkin’ about new experiments he might learn to do. Me and Tommy had been wonderin’ which ones he was gonna try when he got back. We were both pretty sure he was gonna try to recreate something from Star Trek.

And Tommy left for summer camp a few days before Johnny. He’s headed to a “wilderness” summer camp, he said. Watchin’ Wild Kingdom so much has got him wantin’ to be like the old guy that does all the exploring’ on there. He’d been practicing’ for it all spring, ever since the weather got warmer. I remember the last thing he said to me before he got in the car with his momma and daddy:

“Wally J, I’m off to rough it in the wilderness and live off the land.”

He’d also started watching that new show about Grizzly Adams, too.

The KISS logo pin Darla gave me for Christmas was laying right next to the Halloween picture. I picked it up and held it in my hand for a minute.

Darla . . . she’s going to visit her aunt and uncle this summer and headed to the beach.

I wonder what her summer will be like? At the end of the summer . . . is she still gonna like me? And what about when school starts?

I mean, what’s she gonna be up to? It’s gonna be a lotta weeks before I would even get to talk to her again. But, like she said on the last day of school, we will have a lot of stories to tell.

I guess we’ll see.

“Walter James, I don’t hear you doin’ a thing in there. We ain’t got all day to get you to the lake!” Momma hollered, scarin’ the mess outta me.

“Yes, Momma. I’m gettin’ dressed.”

Just like school mornings, but on a Saturday.

I got started last night, picking out clothes to take with me to Grandpa and Grandma’s for the summer. Like a bunch ‘a shorts, some of my favorite t-shirts, and grabbed some socks, too. Momma wasn’t too happy about my work on packing up.

“Walter James, you piled some t-shirts and shorts on top of a suitcase and that’s what you call packing up?” Momma asked me.

I looked at her and shrugged my shoulders, thinking “Yep”, but saying . . .

“Well, Momma, I just wanted to pick out the clothes first, then I’ll thr- I mean put ‘em in the suitcase.”

Momma had a different idea.

“Fold these things up and put ‘em in the suitcase tonight, son”.

I’m sitting here this morning looking at my shelf of all my books. You know I got a whole row of them. Which one do I wanna take now? I haven’t finished Call of the Wild yet. I’ll take that and some of my Batman books.

 

“Walter just pick a book or two and let’s . . . get . . . going. You can get new books at Grandma Della’s bookshop this summer,” Momma fussed.

 

Momma makes it hard for me to make decisions. She rushes me too much. I ain’t been in here but 10 or 15 or whatever minutes.

Anyway, I got dressed and got my clothes in my suitcase. I put some books in another small bag.

I was about to carry one of my bags into the livin’ room and saw my fishing pole sittin’ in the corner. I walked over and picked it up and looked at it, thinkin’ about using it at the lake this summer.

I got my new fishing pole from Grandpa Curtis last Christmas, when he and Grandma Della came to visit. I bet I’ll catch a bunch of whoppers with this one. It’s a really nice one. It’s what they call a bait cast rod and reel. A shiny, black fishing pole, with a silver reel.

 

I can just see it now, sitting on the bank in the sunshine with Grandpa. I got my line out in the water waiting to see the little orange float to go underwater. I’m just bettin’ it’ll be a big old catfish on my line.

 

Me and Grandpa can catch a mess of ‘em to take home and clean. I bet Grandma will cook ‘em up. Maybe she will even make some cornbread too.

 

I’m standin’ there holdin’ my fishing pole, thinking about me and Grandpa’s big fishing trips and Grandma cookin’ dinners . . . when Daddy pops into my room.

 

“Let’s worry about the fishing later, Bill Dance. We gotta get packed up and on the road, fella.” Daddy told me.

 

Him and Momma stay in too much of a hurry.

 

I bet the neighbors are gonna think we’re moving or something, with all the bags we carried out to the car. I didn’t even think I had this much stuff anyway.

 

“Good gracious, Walter. How many clothes do you have?” Daddy asked.

 

“Well, I gotta have something to wear. You know I can’t just wear the same old thing every day. I gotta have my outfits for fishing with grandpa. I gotta have something to wear at the store with Grandma and when I’m at the tackle shop with Grandpa,” I explained.

 

Before headin’ off, n Momma claps her hands together and says, “Let me run back in the house and take a look around Walter’s room and make sure we didn’t leave anything”.

 

“Mary Ann, you’ve been in and outta the house two or three times already. I think if he’s forgotten anything we can send it to him or they’ll have stuff there,” Daddy reminded her.

 

The look on Momma’s face after Daddy said that to her kind of reminded me of pretty much every time I ever said anything back to Momma after she told me to do something; he better watch out or he’s gonna get grounded or something, too.

 

Mama went back into the house. I looked at daddy. He looked at me. We shrugged our shoulders and got on in the car. A few minutes later Momma came on out, locking the door behind her and got in the car.

 

“All right, I checked. We got everything, so let’s head on down the road. Everybody ready?” Momma asked, slapping both hands on her legs after she got in the passenger seat.

 

I looked at Daddy, he looked at me and we just kinda nodded and smiled, as he cranked up the car.

 

The starship station wagon fired up and off we went, going klug, klug, klug klug down the road.

We stop for gas just before we get out of Oaktown and get on the highway. Daddy always stops at that same gas station anytime we go out of town or on Saturday mornings when we go fishin’. It’s called Woodford’s Filling Station. Mr. Woodford always stops to talk to Daddy when he comes out to fill up the car with gas, asking about fishin’ and tellin’ us about what he hears people’s been catchin’ lately.

“Will, how you and the family been doin’?” Mr. Woodford asked, waving to us as he walked out to our car.

“Ben, if I was any better, I don’t know what I’d do,” Daddy answered.

“I see ya got the whole family with you today. How you doin’, Mary Anne? Hey there, Walter!”

“Good morning, Ben. I’m good. How’s Eileen doin’?”

Eileen is Mr. Woodford’s wife. Seems like every time we’ve stopped in here, Mr. Woodford has always told us about how much his wife is fussin’ at him or if she ain’t been feelin’ good.

“Oh, she’s doin’ fine. Them mornin’ headaches are easin’ off for her now,” Mr. Woodford said, nodding and smiling.

“You been behavin’, Ben?” Momma asked with a grin.

“Heh, heh, well . . . I think it has more to do with her allergies clearin’ up than anything else, but . . . I try.”

Momma laughed and Daddy just shook his head and smiled.

“Looks like y’all are gettin’ ‘round in something a little bit bigger now,” Mr. Woodford noticed, looking at the station wagon.

“Yeah, Ben. We thought something with a little more room would be nice for trips and the Gremlin was a bit small,” Daddy explained.

“I...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 19.8.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3178-1288-1 / 9798317812881