Sunday's Child

On Sunday, my husband Terry and I drove to Ft. Donelson Tenn. We did all the grocery shopping for school and home before we left and had a small breakfast here at the house. I volunteered to make a lunch, but Terry said we'd stop and eat.

We got to Donelson, in western Tennessee about 11:15. It was an absolutely beautiful day. There was a drive up to the site of the water battle, but we walked instead through the woods, about 3.5 miles. The gullies and gorges were deep and sometimes tricky. I lost my sweater.

We walked around the canon site and up to the battery. A barge came down the river and we got an idea of what it must have been like to wait for the ironclads to get there.

Then it was off through the woods again imagining what it was like on that freezing cold February day 150 years ago when the North made some really good decisions, and the South fumbled the ball. U Grant demanded an unconditional surrender and made a name for himself.

We saw two white tailed deer in the woods and an eagle hunting over head.

Once back at the ranger station, I realized that I was starving. It was 3:00 p.m. Terry wasn't hungry at all. He had had a piece of toast at 9:00, and I had my 1/2 peanut butter and walnut sandwich folded over at the same time. I wanted to stop; he wanted to get home.

We talked a lot about body types (he's a man; you can imagine how interested he was) and how one body type has different demands than another. I was trying to figure out how it worked with kids. As a fuel-er, I wanted to eat THEN. Terry is a creature of habit, so he could wait to an appropriate time. 3:00 p.m. is not a meal time.

Sometimes when I serve a big lunch to kids, I am disappointed when they don't eat. Ninety percent of the time, the food is gone, so you will always have the eaters eat, but when you watch the pickers and the passers by, I wonder what causes them to simply not eat. I wondered what it was like never to be really hungry because when the tank is empty, I'm literally sick. I wondered what hunger that is satisfied with a few bites would be like.

I heard a father say once, "If I never had to eat again, it would be too soon." I thought a lot about non eaters, and know that a lot of children can go on a few bites, and too often those bites are empty calories just to pass the moment of hunger by. Like my grandson, Will"yum," two cookies are not a snack. A box of cookies resembles a snack.

On the other hand, when I see how William moves and what he is able to do with his box of cookies, it's far more than other children and their nibbles. Is the intake of food and the output of work related? Do people who eat a great deal and are still in good shape more able to put out more work than the nibblers? Interesting questions. Does one body type have more energy because of food than another? Does one body type demand more food than another?

When we finally got home, we ate a large pizza. I ate half. Terry is a 6'.2" man. Then he settled in for the evening, and I got up and made cookies, and answered email, found out my daughter in law is pregnant from a call from my son. I tended the cats and raccoons that I feed religiously, and did a few household chores and read some Grant. I was fueled again, and ready for more work. I couldn't stand the thought of sitting more than five minutes after I ate.

Differences are a treasure.