Shoot The Moon

Dear Boo and Bubble,

The mind is a funny thing.  Thank heavens for me, mine spins constantly—searching through the Rolodex of memories tucked way down into the creases and folds of my brain—presenting me with untold tales to share with you.  For a reason only my mind can explain, I was thinking about your great granddaddy Schaefer this morning and his girlfriend, Anne. 

Yes…I said girlfriend.  After Mamaw Mary died, granddaddy slowly meandered back into the raging seas of singleness.  To be sure, there was a plethora of options for him, as he was a very popular man in many quarters of the community of Greenville.  After several false starts, he finally settled into a comfortable relationship with Anne.  She was known to the family—a neighbor across the lake from 3 Lakecrest; a member of his Sunday School class; mother to a daughter in my class in high school.  They maintained a steady schedule of dates and travels, but they never married nor moved into the same house. 

One of their favorite activities was playing the card game called “Pitch,” where the top bidder names a suit as trump and tries to win more points than the opponent.  There are four points available—the high card of the suit; the low card of the suit; the Jack of the suit; and the Jack of the same color suit (known as the Jick).  If the bidder gets all four points in one hand, it’s called “Shooting the Moon,” but you must bid all four ahead of playing the hand in order for it to count. 

At the time this story took place, Uncle Gene and his wife Lisa were living with Granddaddy, along with your cousins Chelsea and Natalie.   They had a wonderful symbiosis of generational compatibility—with Lisa taking care of Granddaddy’s household needs and the girls giving him such pleasure on a daily basis

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One evening, Granddaddy announced that he would be having dinner at Anne’s house and playing “Pitch” afterwards.  He suggested that he would be home at his usual time, so there was no need to worry about him or wait up.  His car was always parked in the basement garage—underneath Gene and Lisa’s bedroom—with an automatic opener wired to a remote so that he could open and close the door from inside the car.  That evening, he took the steps down, opened the garage door with the automatic opener, backed out into the expanded paved driveway where he turned to face uphill, put the gear into Drive and headed out to Anne’s.

Gene and Lisa went about their nightly routines, heading to bed around 10:00.

Granddaddy always insisted their game of “Pitch” that night became so feverish that he lost all track of time.  (That was his story and he always stuck to it!) Before he knew it, the clock on Anne’s mantel struck midnight.  

“Good heavens, Anne!  It’s twelve o’clock.  I’ve got to get home!” he said frantically.

To wit, Granddaddy Schaefer got in his car, drove to 3 Lakecrest, and pulled into the driveway—after turning off his headlights.  He parked the car on the side of the house, not daring to go to the basement and open the garage door.  Shutting the car door softly, he went up the steps on the back stoop to the kitchen door.  There, he fumbled in his pocket for a door key and, upon finding it, carefully turned the lock so as not to make a sound.  Once the door was open, he took off his shoes and secured them under one armpit.  Tiptoeing in his stocking feet, he made his way through the kitchen into the hallway leading to the bedrooms.  (Remember now—this is HIS house!)

Without making a sound—or so he thought—he passed the open door to the bedroom where Gene and Lisa slept.  Granddaddy thought he was home-free when he came to his bedroom door.  Alas, as he started through it, Lisa’s voice shattered his self-deception.

“Well, well, Granddaddy…did you SHOOT THE MOON?”