Missouri

It was a painless ride to Missouri. Now we’re in our grandparents’ giant house, which they built for their visiting offspring. This house has bed-closets everywhere in it. I’ve not been assigned to a bed-closet, or to the basement; I’m in a proper bedroom. (This bedroom was reserved for Karin, but Karin couldn’t come with us, and so I was lifted up from “bed-closet” status.)

At breakfast, our grandpa went several times around the table, asking us where we were born. “Quito,” Mary told him. And so he stuck out his chin and said, “High class.”

He told us of his life as a missionary in the Oriente – clearing airstrips, building houses, trekking through the jungle. “But we had no beards,” he said to Martin.

For this visit, I have grown a mustache.