Adaptation of Grandma Moses’ The Family Picnic

The Sunday School picnic was in full swing when Chlora and
her family arrived. Chlora ran ahead to snag a good table away from
the trash cans, abuzz with flies and bees.
Leftovers were strewn all over the place. Chlora
noticed the Dairy Queen French fry baskets just like those they had
used this morning in Sunday School to make little baby Moses boats.
They had made itty bitty brown babies out of tootsie rolls
by taking off their wrappers and swaddling them in Kleenex.

She parked her Raggedy Andy at the table to save her place.
She eyed the big picnic basket
as Mom unpacked her usual dozen devilled eggs,
tomatoes, and a mound of olives.
Chlora stuck a black olive in one of the eggs and called it Judas,
since he was the most devilled of the dozen. Then she ate it.
Other kids were running around, playing swing-and-jump-out
or flapping like a flag on the monkey bars. One prissy girl
was showing off her panties on the jungle gym, hanging
on the barbeque bar like a rotisserie chicken.
Around the edges of the playground were other kids,
from who knows where, wanting to horn in on all the fun.
A boy she met at Vacation Bible School proudly stomped
around the perimeter of the playground,
waving a fly-swatter, spouting "Just Us, Just Us!"

No wonder justice was confusing. Chlora vowed to stay away
from the playground equipment today
and protect her own picnic table from the infidels. Plus she didn't
want to get her brand new tennis shoes dirty. Every time they played
Little Black Sambo around the merry-go-round, her shoes filled up
with gritty dust. While on guard she would be useful and open up
all the bottles of pop.

Last time she was in the park Chlora got in trouble for jumping
off of the teeter-totter too fast. The boy on the other end hurt his crotch.
He hollered to high heaven and her Dad said she had ruined him for life.
That kid was giving her dirty looks, so she hung a pickle in her mouth,
snarled, poked a green olive on each finger tip,
and wiggled them like the wicked witch of the west. He threw a ball
at her and she dodged, but the ball
knocked over the fried chicken bucket. Drumsticks rolled in the dirt.
The ball smashed her favorite meringue cookies
and bowled over six bottles of NuGrape Soda.
It fizzed and spread like grace over every available surface.
The Wonder Bread grew into purple mush. It was grosser than cannibalism.
Plus it ruined all opportunities for the sandwich contest she had wanted to host.
Her favorite invention --a mustard and mayonnaise sandwich--was bound
for glory. She would dub it the "must-may" sandwich, and the eater
would have to proclaim whether it was her duty or her privilege to eat it.

Now the prospects for lunch were getting grim.
So Chlora wailed and that quickly attracted a colony of aunties
to their table. They made over it like Columbus discovering America.
They stripped the table clean, tossing the dripping tablecloth
into the empty picnic basket. Out came the bounty of
their own picnic baskets, an amazing array of potato salad,
cupcakes, sweet tea, ribs, watermelon and baked beans.
Chlora knew from experience that such
bounteous goodness had its down side. Sure enough,
a volunteered Jell-O salad appeared, wobbly and pale, greenish
with cottage cheese and suspended carrots and raisins,
chow mein noodles poking out of it. It had lime disease.
Chlora fended it off with the sign of the cross.

It was the perfect time to get away and execute her experiment.
Chlora grabbed the jelly, peanut butter, a knife,
and two undefiled pieces of Wonder Bread, and stuffed them in
the picnic basket along with Raggedy Andy.
She announced that she had her own pot luck, thank you,
and sauntered off to the far end of the park, away from the hubbub.

She found a good spot for her experiment, squatted down
and carefully swaddled Raggedy Andy
in the tablecloth. He was the only boy doll she had
except for that Idiot Ken.
Andy would make a fine baby Moses since his hair
already looked like a burning bush. Andy was a compliant
suffering servant. Once he played the Fugitive, which meant
he had to have his arm cut off. Chlora apologized to him before
she disarmed him. But Moses had been a fugitive too.
The Bible didn’t say if he was a one-armed man,
but then it doesn’t tell you everything. She wondered
if Moses had a weenie roast on that burning bush.

Chlora would get Andy floating down the Nile in no time,
like hell in a handbasket.
The Bible said the basket had been covered with pitch.
Why didn't his sister Miriam just put that kid in something waterproof?
Didn't they have plastic back then? But to remain authentic
to the story, Chlora had been saving up a big wad of tar
from the public swimming pool, diving deep to retrieve it
from the cracks in the cement. And she had some sticky goobers of tar
from her bicycle tires, picked up on the hot summer streets.
She scrubbed the tar on the basket but it was too hard
and would not cooperate. The peanut butter could be Plan B.
Peanut butter should be a good waterproofer since it sticks
to the roof of your mouth. She sacrificed a whole jar to the cause,
smearing it all over the bottom of the basket.

Nearby there was a No Trespassing sign tacked onto a tree.
Chlora knew she was supposed to forgive her trespassers,
but she wasn't sure who they were. She walked gingerly
to protect her new shoes. A bunch of tadpoles were swimming merrily along,
wiggling like little black commas. A TV preacher once said
"Death was nothing but a comma, period!"
Chlora figured he knew about as much about punctuation as she did.
Skinny Jesus bugs skimmed the surface of
the water. Chlora reached for one and a red crawdaid
put up his dukes, punching the water at her. She'd show him
a thing or two about bravery and deftly plucked him up from behind.
This was her lucky day, for right there on a rock was a tiny green
turtle. The pet store quit selling them because they gave kids warts.
Chlora picked him up with only two fingers
and put him in the peanut butter jar. Yertle the Turtle was on
the Welch’s grape jelly jar, so at least he’d have company.

High stalks of cattails lined the riverbanks. It was good
that creeks had banks or they'd spread themselves too thin.
Chlora parted the reeds with her basket,
pretending to be Miriam in the bullrushes.
Or she could be the beautiful Egyptian princess
who rescued him. No, she'd rather be Miriam, because she knew
how to hide and watch. Being a princess would require
a tiara which of course she had earned many times over,
but she had left it at home.

She eased the peanut-buttered basket with Andy into the water.
It bobbed around in the current and twirled. It floated!
But soon it began listing to the right. Andy was not much of a sailor;
the basket whacked into a low branch and his cap went overboard.
It was getting dangerously out of reach.
Chlora followed the basket downstream, taking note that the peanut
butter held up pretty well. Her experiment had been a modest success.
Next time she would try rubber cement. Suddenly the basket lurched
and careened into a whirlpool. She performed
the Princess rescue routine just in the nick of time,
right before Andy would’ve catapulted over a small waterfall.

The waterfall was a pleasant, private spot, so Chlora sat near it
on a rock, hiding like Miriam from the Sunday School crowd.
The water smelled like chlorine, betraying its source
as the public swimming pool nearby. She rubbed the basket
in the grass to remove the remaining peanut butter.
Something told Chlora to take off her shoes and stick her feet in
the water, so she obeyed, except she left on her bobby socks
to protect her from any pee that might be in the water.
Yaw Wee! It was cold! But it felt good as she wiggled her toes.
She recalled that picture of Jesus in his bath towel.
He was washing Peter's feet, and Peter didn’t get it
and he protested, like the aunts always did when somebody
offered them dessert. Of course the aunts always took it anyway,
and then served more to others. Those desserts seemed to
multiply at night. Chlora didn't quite understand
this chain reaction of generosity. But she did remember that
Jesus told his disciples that they would understand their foot washing
later. That gave her hope, since they were such flip-floppers.
For no good reason, the sun came shining down
on her like a spotlight, and her heart felt strangely warmed.
So did her feet. Chlora reverently peeled off her soggy socks
and kept them as a promise of better things to come.
Who said only boys could be Promise Keepers?
She tugged on her tennis shoes. They squished as she
walked back toward the park, swinging her Moses basket.

The nasty trash cans were now spilling over.
Chlora did her second (or was it her third?) good deed for the day.
She gathered up twelve baskets full of fried fish sticks and rolls.
It smelled bad, like some miracle she had heard of.
Jesus had passed out food to 5000, or was it 3000 people?
And he didn't even quiz them first to see if they deserved it.
They were simply hungry, like the poor kids across town,
and it shouldn't take a miracle to feed them with all this surplus
from church picnics. All this wasted food could be sent to Africa.
Kids there would like to have a whole menu to choose from,
she bet, if somebody would just listen to them instead of cleaning
their own plates all the time.
She made a mental note to tuck some Tootsie Rolls into
their care packages.

The squeaky tennis shoes were rubbing a blister on her big toe.
Chlora took off the shoes and ran toward the playground
The green clover felt good on her bare feet.
Instantly a sharp pain sent her reeling,
hopping around on one foot, and yelling all the bad words
she had saved up for a moment like this.
She plopped down and examined the tiny stinger still stuck in her heel.
Suddenly a kid from the Other Side of the park
hoisted Chlora up and swooped her aside. He gently sat
her down on the path away from the bee zone. She stared
into eyes darker than her own, but at the exact height.
The kid said something in Spanish and pointed at Chlora's feet.
The bee sting was swelling up pink and proud. Chlora winced.
The boy gently plucked out the stinger. He spit in the dirt, made
a bit of mud and gently dabbed it on her wound. Then he slipped
off his own flip flops and kindly handed them to her.
They were worn down rubber, stained, the plain yellow kind
they make you wear in the showers at camp
to keep your feet from getting athletic. Chlora put on
the groaty flip flops, since sometimes it was better to receive than to give.
She said "Gracias" and the Other Kid smiled brightly.
He solemnly bowed to her, turned, and ran off.

Chlora stood there and stood there.
She felt her face glow.
She was sure if anyone saw her they would be blinded
and have to cover her with a veil,
like Moses coming down from the mountain top.

Chlora placed her nice new tennis onto the grass, tied nice bows
in the laces, making them as attractive as possible. She curled up
the damp socks. She made a nice thick jelly sandwich
and cut a cross into it. She let the little green turtle go back to nature.
Since she hadn’t named him yet, that made it easier.
Chlora gave Raggedy Andy a hug and sat him
in the midst of it all where he could oversee some miracles.
His red hair was sticking out every which way,
but it looked better than hers. At least he hadn’t grown horns
on his head, like Michelangelo’s Moses did.
She beautified the arrangement with dandelions
and hummed the Andy hymn:

"Andy walks with me, Andy talks
with me, Andy tells me I am his own, and the joy we share as
we tarry there, None other has ever known"

It was corny, but it was true.
Chlora waved at friends on both sides of the park.
She slowly skipped around her offering, a wider circle each round,
making a happy, flippy noise....a bit off-rhythm due to her limp.