An Online Journal / Diary

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Wednesday, May 9, 2001

"I Want My Mummy!"/Railroad Park and a Creek called Lotty Lynn Marie/A Late Evening with Mummy

Caution: What I have written about the new mummy movie may be considered a spoiler. Read ahead at your own discretion.

"I Want My Mummy!"

Saturday I called up Lynn Marie to see what time we were going to the movies. Sonny, overhearing me asked after I hung up, "What movie are going to?"

"The new mummy movie," I told him.

He narrowed his eyes and then followed the first question with, "You weren't planning to go without me, were you?"

I was more amused by this then intimidated. I answered, "Well, yes I was. Why? Do you want to go?"

"Dad! You know I've wanted to see this movie ever since I first heard about it."

I knew that. But being currently short on cash and with him jobless, I didn't want to have to pay for his movie ticket in addition to mine

But I did anyway, spend-all that I am.

Since Lynn Marie was the one driving us to the theater, I asked her to come a half an hour early. I had a feeling we wouldn't get a good seat if we arrived too close to the time the movie started.

Guess what.

A half an hour was not early enough. The movie had already sold out!

I would have gone to another movie playing there but Lynn Marie, like Sonny, had her sights set on our first choice, and so we bought tickets to the later show.

Since we had several hours to kill before the next mummy unwrapping, (nifty pun, ain't it?) Lynn Marie and I decided to take a hike through Railroad Park. We asked Sonny if he wanted to accompany us and he told his no. Consequently, Lynn Marie had to drop him off back at Creekview and this time it was I who narrowed his eyes. I told him he'd better be there waiting for us at the trailer when we came back to retrieve him or there'd be you-know-what to pay

Railroad Park and a Creek called the Lotty Lynn Marie

Trekking through Railroad Park was the perfect way to kill a few hours. For the past twenty years it has been one of Lynn Marie's favorite haunting grounds. I can see why. It's a few square miles of tranquil forest located on the fringe of Rainville. The trees are old and towering. The vegetation and brush is thick and mostly undisturbed. And the walking paths through it all rise and fall over the hilly landscape and there are several cement benches situated along the way where you can stop to sit and enjoy the scenery. The paths consequently either lead you to one small wooden bridge or another depending on which path you take, and the bridges both cross over a small, unnamed creek that runs the length of the park. In another area, beavers have damned up a portion of the creek creating this wonderful marsh home for themselves and other any other aquatic woodland creatures that have come to dwell there.

If you bring your lunch to Railroad Park, you can eat it in this large cement mushroom that some ingenious sculptor created. And I like what artists did to the inside walls. They decorated them with caveman-like drawings.

I probably never would have frequented Railroad Park if I didn't hang out with Lynn Marie, or my other good friend, Lotty, both of whom have a strong interest in nature and the study of botany. Now if I had my way, I'd name the creek the Lotty Lynn Marie in tribute to these two ladies. Not only do they immensely enjoy the park, but also it is a great concern of theirs. For several years now they have consistently urged our city fathers to keep Railroad Park in the natural state that God intended. The park is home to several plants on the endangered list and Lotty and Lynn Marie are two of their greatest protectors. Because of Lotty and Lynn Marie there are signs in a specific area of the park to remind hikers to stay on the paths so not to trample any of those endangered plants. Also because of Lotty and Lynn Marie, city workers were stopped from mowing and chopping down vegetation in certain park areas where some of these rare species thrive.

I won't mention all the good that Lotty and Lynn have done fore the park, but it is plenty. And of course there are some unnamed people here in Rainville who did not appreciate all of Lotty and Lynn Marie's tireless efforts. Lynn Marie told me at one point in time city officials had been contacted by those unnamed cranks with demands to get those two tree hugging ladies off their backs.

And since Lotty and Lynn Marie only consider themselves as quiet warriors when it comes to saving the local environment, they backed off a little. They're not made up of the stuff crazed political fanatics are made of, they just raise people's awareness of these issues through peaceful activism.

Lately they have directed their attention elsewhere to another park across town. My two remarkable friends went in and cataloged all the creatures and plants living there in order for the officials developing it to likewise keep this park environmentally safe.

And now as I write about all this, you know naming that creek the Lotty Lynn Marie doesn't sound like a bad idea to me at all.

Heck, I'd even go so far as to suggest they erect statues there in Railroad Park of my two friends.

I think they are both that terrific, I do.

 After first stopping at a drive-in for coffee and an ice cream cone, Lynn Marie drove us back to Creekview Trailer to pick my son up. My threat that he'd better be there when we return worked, but in the time Lynn Marie and I had been to Railroad Park and back, Sonny had changed from one excited movie enthusiast to that of one unhappy young man.

"I'm not going," he grimly stated. "Don't worry. I called the theater. They said they'd refund your ticket."

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I got an anonymous call from someone at Job Corp." They told me Holly is going out with someone else."

Holly is his girlfriend. I tried to reassure Sonny. "Maybe the anonymous caller is lying and wants Holly for himself. "

I then asked him, "Did you talk to Holly?"

"Not yet. I can't get a hold of her. I'm waiting for her to return my call."

"Look. Come to the movie with us. Get your mind off this. You'll feel better than if you stayed here alone."

"But her phone call..."

"The answering machine will pick it up. You can call her back when we get back. If it's too late then, you can call her tomorrow."

I convinced him to come with us, and later when the movie ended Sonny told me he was glad I did. He had liked the movie that much, despite his romance woes.

Lynn Marie really liked it too. She rated it a 10 and 1/2 on a scale from 1 to 10.

Oh yeah, I need to mention at this movie showing we sat through was sold out. But we had good seats. We made sure of that by arriving an hour early this time, and we ended up in the absolute front of the line of the people waiting to get in. There was this kid taking tickets and handling the rope gate that allowed people into the other movie showings, and when he took off to go help clean an auditorium, I jokingly took over his job. Lynn Marie encouraged me on with her laughter but Sonny tried unsuccessfully to get me to maintain a low profile. And then he really got embarrassed when I yelled out, "Anyone who has tickets to a movie other than The Mummy Returns, come through here. This line is for The Mummy Returns only."

Hey, I was just being helpful. And some people did realize they were in our line unnecessarily.

But when the kid whose job I took over came back and I asked for a portion of his paycheck, he laughed and refused to pay me.

Ungrateful brat.

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