Published: 9 Apr 2020

Friday morning everyone slept in a bit longer than usual and when I had finally become alert enough to realize I was waking up I instinctively reached for Mike who was for some reason not spooned into me and realized that somehow, he had shrunk in the night. My brain just couldn’t comprehend that, not with the amount of food he had put away yesterday. And then there was the giggling, muffled by the sheet and blanket, but giggling none the less, and then I heard the door open and another young voice asking what was going on, and then the bed shook as that body bounced down on the giggling one. That got me to finally open my eyes. Larry was snuggled between Mike and me, and Scott had wandered in, not finding Larry in his room, but he could hear his giggles out in the hall, so he decided to join us.

Mike was certainly not innocent in all this, he was the one tickling Larry to make him giggle and soon it was an all-out tickle fight on our bed, not exactly the way I had anticipated waking up today, but just as rewarding and pleasurable. Once stomachs began rumbling, we sent the boys to get ready for breakfast, Mike and I frotting to another kind of good morning wake up in the shower before we rushed to meet the boys in the kitchen.

We were trying to decide on scrambled eggs or cereal when Mom appeared in the kitchen, Dad following, but he went out to get the morning paper and Scott just had to go with him to the front curb where the newspaper tube was. Mom asked Larry what he wanted for breakfast and he looked up at her, after she had given him a good morning kiss before asking him what he preferred, and while looking up at her with this big pleased grin, he said,” Whatever, Grandma, I know if you’re here it will be good.” She stared down at the tyke before grabbing him up in a big hug which she held as she twirled him around, her eyes moist, as she tried not to cry at him calling her Grandma for the first time. Mike and I were a bit choked up ourselves, but even more so when she offered to make French Toast for breakfast, one of our all-time favorites.

So, it was a happy group that had started the breakfast that morning. Mike cracked the dozens of eggs into a big mixing bowl, Larry and I set the table, putting plenty of paper napkins out, and Mom gathered the few spices she’d need and a couple of loaves of bread out of the pantry. Dad and Scott came in with the newspaper, chatting away as they took off their coats in the front hall before walking in to see us all working away, and Scott figured out what we would be eating and turned to Mom and,”I love you Grandma, that’s one of my favorite breakfasts ever”. That got him a big hug from her as he began to help her stack the slices of bread onto a big platter.

As soon as our house mates and our guests began trickling downstairs the cooking began and I had just removed the pitcher of Maple Syrup from the microwave when everyone was seated, and the morning greetings had been exchanged. Breakfast sausages had been kept warm in one of the ovens, as the other held the already cooked slices of french Toast in it and now everything was served, and Mom declared that there was was more if anyone wanted.

When we had eaten our fill, the cleanup began and those of us who had prepared and cooked our meal got to sit and visit as the others cleaned up. We all discussed what we were going to do today, and Jan said he had that phone call to make to our Florida attorney, but once that was done and the offer was set in motion he was looking forward to a horseback ride, and he asked who wanted to join him. Larry was waving his hand in the air saying,” I do Uncle Jan, I do”, Scott said he did too and so did Logan who asked if Blake could come and ride with us. Mike and I and Matt were agreeable so we told Jan to get his work done so we could get going and he went back to their room to make his call.

While he was doing that the kitchen got cleaned up, the big post holiday newspaper got passed around, and we, Mike and I, sat with our boys just talking about this and that, letting them both know that if they wanted, just like we talked about the other day, that this was going to be their forever home with us. They snuggled in even closer and Larry asked if we meant him too, and we both kissed his cheeks and told him of course we meant him too, and then we pulled Scott into our cuddle and he kissed our cheeks, happy that we meant what we had told them after picking them up the other day, that our goal was to make them brothers, and our sons.

We did all go riding and Jan got a phone call while we were riding one of the paths between the fields Dad and Mr. Wagner, our neighbor and caretaker when we all traveled, had rented out. He motioned to me to join him and he slowed down and I sped up a bit and we were soon riding side by side and he told me that our offer for the two family house down the street from us was accepted and we got it for twenty-five thousand under the asking price with a closing the fifteenth of December. The closing would be by fax and a conference call and Jan as the financial director for the company we had developed, would handle the closing with Mr. Harris, our Key West lawyer. Once he and Matt returned to Key West next week, they would approach Jerry and John about the bigger apartment available for them and their daughter, and put out feelers for someone to take over their apartment and duties at the smaller cottage.

As it was, it was good that Matt and Jan got along so well with our boys because they helped keep them occupied when on Monday Mike and I, as well as the other students, had to go back to our classes. But that only lasted until that Wednesday morning when Dad and the boys saw them off on our jet, then Mom and Dad took over until our semester finals were over about the middle of December. It was neat how a question asked by the boys would turn into an hour or two of explanations, like when the boys asked how far Uncle Matt and Uncle Jan had to go to get to where they lived.

Once they arrived back home Dad had brought out a globe and showed them on it just where they lived and just where the uncles lived. Mom observed this and showed them on a big flat U.S.A. map the same things, they explained how far apart they were and how many hours it would take to drive or fly there to see the uncles, which we would probably do over Easter vacation, and that led to showing them on a calendar just how long a time in the future that would be, and there was a good possibility that they would be both adopted by then, so of course that had to be marked on the calendar and also when the trip to see the uncles would be had to be marked too. She said she would hang the calendar on the fridge in the kitchen so every night when they went to bed they could make an X on that day’s square on the calendar page and they would soon see the time until these big events would get shorter and shorter.

There were many examples of these learning experiences the new grandparents experienced with their grandsons over the period. Mike and I had classes and reviews to go through to be able to finish our first semester of our senior year, and to fulfill the requirements for the pilot program we were involved with to obtain our Master’s Degrees a month after we graduated. It was almost a nail-biting period, except for the two hours each night we spent with the boys before their bedtime. They, in a word, grounded us. They took us out of our world of scholastic achievements for a brief period each evening, regaling us with the activities of their day and asking us questions they needed answers to.

With our exams over on December 15^th we began another sort of test, one that most parents worry about, will the gifts we get the children, or for that matter, the adults in our family, be what they really wanted, or needed? We actually had a big surprise for our boys, they were each getting their own pony to ride, and of course the scaled down tack for each one. We also got them laptops for their own use. Scott had already shown he could use one for some of his schoolwork and even if Larry didn’t actually need one, it would keep him happy that we pretended he did.

We left toys and games to Santa to get for them, as well as new clothes. Mr. and Mrs. Santa, (Mom and Dad), had fun shopping once we were able to watch the boys just about full time when our tests were all done and shopping for the others on the property, and those in Key West was pretty much taken care of by prepaid gift cards, stocks or bonds, or in some cases gift certificates to auto maintenance companies, especially for those that had to commute to school or work every week day. I think little Kate had the biggest haul of everyone, just proving how much she was loved by everyone. Just a few days before Christmas our grades were posted and again, we all landed on the Dean’s list again, which just justified why our group was included in the trial program the University had started, combining our regular classes with added instruction for our Master’s Degrees.

The ponies were a big hit and our boys felt much more a part of the family, if that was even possible. The only drawback was that they could only ride them on our property, no, they couldn’t ride them to school to show all their friends, but we did print off a few pictures they could show their classmates once they were enrolled in the local school, which we accomplished on the Wednesday after Christmas when we found out there was a skeleton crew in the elementary school to handle midyear transfers. Mike and I took our custody papers with us when we took the boys to register them and they each got to see the classrooms they would be attending school in when the vacation period was over the next week. Larry’s preschool classroom was up and running, most likely to accommodate the younger parents who had to work the week between the winter holidays, so he got to meet the teacher who was a lovely woman who seemed delighted to have another young one in her care after the weekend.

Scott got to see his fourth-grade classroom which was not occupied, but he knew the teacher from church and also, he said about six kids from this class so far he had met at church through Logan and Blake. They didn’t ride the bus their first day at the school, we drove them as it was before our classes started for our last semester at UMASS. But after we saw them settled in their classes, we told them to look for Logan and Blake on the sidewalk out front when they were told class was over for the day and they would help them get on the right bus. We had been told at the office that the bus driver would know beforehand about where the two would be dropped off and picked up from now on.

Mom was acting a bit grumpy when we returned home and over coffee, she admitted that she and Dad had enjoyed the last couple of weeks that they had watched the boys to be some of the most rewarding they had had since Mike was young. She told us not to worry about them, after all Mike had grown up and gone off to school and they had survived that, they would survive Scott and Larry growing up, too.

Mike and I talked about that as we rode together for a while before lunch and we decided that once we had our degrees in hand and had teaching contracts, we might then consider a younger child to foster, but we would both have to agree on the child, for right now we had a half semester of all our classes and another half to do our practice teaching. We were both looking forward to that.

By the end of February, Mike and I were officially Daddies. Mr. Lane had done a wonderful job of preparing our petitions for each of the boys and he helped keep us calm through the whole process. Another big help was Lucas who spent time with the boys getting them both familiar with what would happen when we went into Northampton (the county seat) for our two adoption hearings, thankfully scheduled back to back. Of course, Mom and Dad had to go with us, I think they were afraid that if for some reason one or the other adoptions did not get granted that that boy (or boys) would be taken away, but no matter who told them that wouldn’t happen, it was hard for them to let go of their fears.

I have to tell you right now that the others in the family were preparing a big party at the property for the boys. Some of their school friends were arriving on the school bus after school and we had hired a dozen ponies from local riding stables to keep the kids entertained. There was a juggler and a magician to do their thing when the cake was served, and everyone had their turns on the ponies. We didn’t know about this, but Matt and Jan had flown up for this party, as they wanted to be there to welcome home their nephews from court.

Well the first one went really well, and we soon had armfuls of Scott Denver Clarke who was so happy he was crying silent tears. It then came as no surprise when the judge announced that Lawrence Denver Clarke was now our legal son, and that both decrees and new birth certificates were ready to be picked up at his clerk’s desk in the office next door to the room we were in.

The boys wanted to stop on the way home for a snack, but we told them that we thought there were enough snacks at home, and we thought they should wait until we got there. Boy were they surprised when we drove into the property and they saw the banner welcoming home the Denver Clarke boys. Not only that, but the big marquee with all the tables and chairs had a stage in it, the boys were so surprised, but then they looked over to the pasture by the stable and saw all their friends riding ponies all over the place. They couldn’t believe that this was all for them and they were hugging each other and crying happy tears all over again.

A month later we were flying to Key West on the jet and the two youngest were so nervous at first that Logan had to have a talk with them about how nervous he was the first time too and that yes there were some pretty scary times, like when the plane was barreling down the runway to take off and then when the plane climbed to get higher, but just look out the window and you could see for hundreds of miles and when we got closer to the island they would be that much closer to Uncle Jan and Matt.

It was a calm flight thankfully and when we landed Matt was there with a minibus that had the name of the hotel chain that grandfather had owned forty percent of and had passed that on to Mike and me. I guess that as the owners of the largest privately-owned block of stock in their company we were now entitled to some of the perks they had extended to Grandpa. I tipped the driver a hundred dollars when he dropped us all off at the house and he thanked me, calling me Boss, just as he had with Grandpa. I walked into the house just a tad taller.

We were all greeted with hugs by Jan, just as Matt had greeted us at the airport, Larry and Scott getting the full treatment, now that they were officially adopted. Jan had taken care of setting up the trust funds Mike and I started for the boys to take effect the day their adoptions became final. Logan took the boys around, showing them upstairs first so they could see the room that had been prepared for them, the last of the in-house guestrooms, the one with the twin beds in it. This time Jan informed Mike and me that the rooms Grandfather had used were now set up for us, with the belongings we had left in our old room now moved into the big space. Our former room would now be the in-house guestroom.

We were just a bit emotional about this, but as Jan said, we were the bosses now and this was where the boss slept. The mini office space was set up so both of us could work on our laptops at the desk, and he had set out a stack of papers for Mike and me to go over and some that needed our signatures. We then went to get our sons settled in their room for the week and then they watched as we unpacked our own suitcases into the bureau and closet in what used to be the master suite. With those chores done we took the boys on a tour of the whole house and then out to the patios and pool area, reminding them that they didn’t go in the pool without an adult present, the same rules from back home applied here too. Both Scott and Larry nodded they understood.

It was a great first trip down to Key West for our sons. We went to real beaches, on both the Atlantic Ocean side and the big beach in the National Park on the Straits of Florida side. We went to the Key West Aquarium at Mallory Square and out to the Botanical Garden out on Stock Island. We took a tour of Ripley’s and also of the Maritime Museum. The boys were enthralled by everything and the others kept them occupied while we did the small amounts of paperwork Jan had laid out for us.

Among the paperwork was a proposal for a project he thought we should invest in. One of the strip malls out on North Roosevelt was currently only about half full, the smaller shops having been closed since Hurricane Irma a few years ago, and of the 14 spaces there were currently only seven occupied stores, with one having a going out of business sale right now. Jan thought that once we purchased the strip mall, we could not only update the drainage system in the huge parking area, but to give all the shops a new facade to make it more updated in its look. During the height of the hurricane the parking area had flooded and almost all the shops had flooded out. Insurance had taken care of the individual shop damages, but the owner of the strip mall hadn’t done anything about the drainage in the parking lot and now was a good time to do work like that, it being another couple of months until the June Hurricane Season started.

Jan had done his homework and found that there was a provision in the existing leases of the seven businesses still operating that stated that upgrades to the existing common areas would be done in a grid pattern, always leaving an entrance and an exit to the parking area available for the public to use to access the shops open during the renovation, as well as at least a quarter of the parking spaces available to patrons of the shops to use during system upgrades or repairs. Jan had further found out that there was a possibility of the drainage system just needing a repair, and not a total overhaul as originally thought. As potential buyers we would have the right to have inspections done to that system as well as the buildings that held the stores. He thought that a proper inspection with cameras placed in the drainage system at various places would show us what was really needed to correct the drainage problem at the strip mall.

That one project, when completed, earned Mike, Jan, Matt and me each a couple of hundred thousand in income a year. By the time the facades of each shop were being upgraded the entire strip mall was rented out, including a popular grocery chain in the space once occupied by a major furniture store that had gone out of business and another store front next to that. If we never worked a day in the rest of our lives that strip mall would provide each of us with a more than adequate income to live on and support our families on.

We thoroughly enjoyed the rest of our stay on the island and the boys were so thrilled to be told that we would come down to visit again at least one more time after school was out and we might even spend a whole month next time, depending on the weather.

Mike and I returned to begin our last semester, half of which would include our three to three and a half weeks of practice teaching, to complete our active classroom requirements. The rest of our semester would be filled with class reviews, testing, and fulfilling the final requirements for our Master’s Degrees.

We knew that at least one of us fulfilling our practice teaching at the local middle school might get the child of someone we knew from town or from church, and we were grateful that none of the boys from our household would be in these 7^th and 8^th grade classes, yet, but both Logan, our brother, and Blake, his boyfriend, would be in the next year’s seventh grade. It would be a few years before we had to worry about Scott or Larry being assigned to either Tim or James’ math classes. We didn’t have to worry about Ben ending up as one of the boys’ teachers, he had finally decided to continue on with a dual major, but to get his Masters in Library Science and take a position at the University’s main library, working the same hours as Ken, but in different departments. He had already had the position offered to him, it just depended upon him graduating and obtaining his Masters in June.

The time came for us four college seniors to do our practice teaching at the local middle school where we had during the Fall semester been teacher’s aides for almost a month. It was gratifying that the teachers we had helped in the fall had asked for us to be assigned to their classes again, and their requests were granted. We each had a different classroom assigned to us, Mike in the history classroom, me in one of the English classrooms, and James and Tim in the math classes. It really was not only a great learning experience for the students, but it was for the four of us older students as well.

After the three and a half weeks in the classrooms, we had our “debriefing” back in our college classes and then the semester reviews in and out of our classrooms before our finals. We also worked with our advisers on our Masters’ Thesis’ and prepared them for submission as soon as our finals in the prep classes for our Masters were finished, which would be the same week as our last class finals for our teachers’ degrees. It was a very stressful week, but the boys had a lot of support from Mom and Dad and Carole and Sam as we seniors crammed for that last week of finals.

Mom had prepared a sort of celebratory dinner for us college seniors the evening of our last exams, the Friday of the last exam week. We had planned to spend a week in Key West after our exams were over and that particular Friday coincided with the last day of school for our sons, Scott and Larry and our brother Logan and his friend Blake. We had decided to go down that weekend and just relax after a very strenuous two weeks of testing for our degrees as well as the Masters’ Degrees we all had been studying for, but Jan called that Friday night and asked us to postpone our trip until the following weekend.

It seemed there was a tropical storm expected to hit the island that weekend and they, Jan and Matt, felt that by waiting a week we’d have a much calmer visit and not have to worry about the storm that could potentially cause widespread outages for some days, maybe up to 3 or 4.

We kept watch on the tropical storm on the nightly news and online and of course by telephoning Jan and Matt a couple of extra times during the week. They did get a couple of days of heavy rain and some strong wind gusts, but there were no power outages. They had a lot of help cleaning up after the storm and by the next weekend we were all heading for Key West, James, Tim, Ben, Mike and I all recent grads with only three weeks to go before receiving our Masters. While there, the official grand opening of the Bahama Village Townhouses was held (Strauss Place). There were now 100 of the 200 units “sold” (rented to buy) and others were ready to be moved into as soon as the paperwork was completed.

It had been an honor to be asked to cut the ribbon and the powers that be were willing to delay this ceremony until we were able to be down there to participate. With half the units currently occupied they felt this might be the best time to do this. There were the usual tiresome speeches by local government officials, some wonderful accolades by a neighborhood clergyman, and an explanation of how the project developed, and then Mike and I were introduced to thunderous applause. It really was a moving experience for us and it was difficult for us to remain tear free as we held the ceremonial scissors to cut the symbolic ribbon, but we did it and got the ribbon cut.

Our graduation party was pretty understated as we had the big celebration scheduled for the day, we received our Masters’. Even so, it was a very rewarding experience for all of us and more so for us because Mike and I had Scott and Larry to cheer us as we crossed the stage in the amphitheater to get our diplomas.

That same week we signed contracts to teach in the middle school here in town where we had practice taught and Ben signed a contract with the University to work in the campus main library with Ken. Mike and I had to make a concerted effort to reign in our spending when it came time to set up our classrooms. We could afford to do and buy just about anything we wanted for our students, but we soon realized that not all the other teachers could do that also. We learned that from our fellow teachers during the preschool opening during the workshops held during the summer, and did not splurge, but we also made an anonymous donation to all the teachers to enable them to all spend what they wanted to be able to provide their classes for the upcoming year without having to dip into their own pockets to pay for supplies themselves. We set this up with our lawyer, Mr. Lane, as a recurring donation for the next several years.

We would spend a few hours a day that summer preparing our lesson plans and occasionally going into our assigned classrooms to set the rooms up the way we wanted them. We would then spend as much time with the boys as we possibly could, swimming in our pool or going to the beach at Forge Pond for a picnic lunch, and horseback riding in the afternoons, usually followed by another swim in the pool. Most days Logan and Blake would be in on the afternoon’s activities and at least once a week we’d find something for all of us to do, such as a trip to Agawam to Seven Flags to have some fun at the big amusement park or maybe something more educational like a drive to Nash’s Dino land to see the excavated dinosaur footprints or for a canoe tour of the Quabbin Reservoir, the largest man-made lake in the state, made pre-World War Two by flooding five small towns to provide water to Boston on the other side of the state.

We had just come back from one of our canoe trips on the reservoir in late July when Mike’s cell phone started to ring and before he could get the phone out of his pocket my cell started to ring also.

Lucas Bryant (one of Blake’s dads and the caseworker for DCFS that had helped us foster both Larry and Scott before their adoptions) was calling Mike and on my cell was Carole, who was now a caseworker at the DCFS offices in Springfield. Both were calling about the possibility of us helping them out, as they had a pair of twins that were awaiting a relative from California to pick them up. It would only be for two or three nights at the most before their aunt could arrive to take custody of them, the boys were only three and their aunt was trying to get a friend to come with her to be able to help her on their return flight with the boys.

They were hoping to get a flight out of San Diego in California. The twins’ father had been raising them by himself, their mother having died in childbirth. He had gotten out of work last night and had been shot dead while walking to the childcare facility in his inner-city neighborhood in Springfield, the childcare place where his sons spent the day while he was working. Apparently, some drug dealers or gang members were having a shootout on the street and he had gotten caught in the crossfire. The aunt was the only living relative of the father, or his deceased wife.

It only took a look between us for Mike and me to agree to their requests and two hours later Carole arrived home, the twins strapped into child seats on her back seat. The boys were soooo cute!!! They had their eyes opened wide, taking in everything around them as Carole handed them out of the car after getting them unfastened from the child seats, the bags with the boys’ clothing and two with their toys were next, but we had a lot of help with everything as Logan and Scott and Mom and Dad were right there to help. Mom seemed in a dreamy state as she held one of the boys, nuzzling into his neck and eliciting squeals of laughter from him as she blew a little raspberry into the soft skin there and his twin was getting about the same treatment from Dad. Carole explained that Dad was holding Tom, and Mom was holding Jerry.

Once we had the two boys settled into the small bedroom just outside our own bedroom, we took them into the bathroom just next door to their room and let them use the toilet in there. They had to sit because there was no way they were tall enough to ensure that what came out of their tiny penises would go in the bowl, and we resolved to get a couple of little boy potties for their use. They were full of questions about all they were seeing in the house and since all was going well, we had decided to take them down to the barn and then to let them see the horses and ponies in the stable.

The thing was, once Carole had introduced the boys to us, we had fallen for them. We were going to try and keep them occupied so they wouldn’t miss their father. Everything was new to them, the big house with spacious rooms, having Mom fussing over them, and playing with Scott and Larry which had started as soon as they were finished in the bathroom. It took Dad to say something after dinner that night. Tom and Jerry were playing with Kate, who was just their size and about ten months older than their 3 years. Dad warned us all about getting so close to the boys too fast. He reminded us that their aunt was going to be here in a few days. Yes, playing with them, keeping them occupied to distract them from their thinking about their father was all good, but we were all getting emotionally involved, himself included.

It was good to be reminded about that, but just looking at those cute faces and not wanting to cuddle them and try to make them happy and giggle that little boy giggle was hard to ignore. Dad was right, we all had to keep in the back of our minds that this was only a temporary placement. We all kept the boys occupied until one, and then the other conked out about 8:15 PM and Mike and I carted them up to the room they were sharing and tucked them into the double bed in that room, their nightlight on and the door of the room left ajar, and new potties placed in the bathroom for their use.

The next day, about lunchtime, Lucas called and said he had had a strange call from the boy’s Aunt that morning. He told me that both Carole and he had listened to the Aunt. As soon as she had identified herself he had linked Carole’s phone to the call and had started recording their conversation, well really mostly the Aunt rambling on and on about how her girlfriend wasn’t really keen on having the boys in their household, how it would change their relationship and the way they lived their lives, and both were thinking they were too young to accept the responsibility for the twins. Lucas and Carole both agreed that she sounded like she was under the influence of either drugs or alcohol, as her words were slurred at times and she sounded kind of vague and out there.

Several times Carole asked her if she was reneging on her earlier statement about wanting to care for her family members and the woman said that that was why she was calling, she wouldn’t be flying out here to pick up the boys. Carole explained the ramifications of her decision and either she just didn’t care or wasn’t willing to upset her current relationship by taking in the boys. Once that phone call was played back for the Director of the DCFS branch in Springfield, it was decided, with both Lucas and Carole agreeing, that Mike and I would be asked if we wanted a more permanent placement of the boys with us as their foster parents.

That of course had to be put on hold, at least until the signed and notarized paperwork came back from California, making it official that the aunt was relinquishing any rights to her nephews. Once those papers were received, it only took a few days before we were granted permanent custody and the boys were our foster sons. Mr. Lane had all the paperwork filled out to submit to the Family Court to file for our adoption of Tom and Jerry. Because of the Aunt’s slurred speech during the taped phone call, the state required that the documents relinquishing her rights to the boys be signed in front of witnesses, multiple witnesses. In this case there was a Family Court Judge, a Medical Doctor, a Notary Public, a Police Officer, a Lawyer, and her Lawyer. Once everyone was in agreement that she was of sound mind the signing occurred and the documents were FedExed to the local director of the Department of Children and Family Services in Springfield, both Carole’s and Lucas’s boss.

Of course the twins had wormed their way into our hearts that first day they were with us, but by the time the final permanent guardianship paperwork was completed and had been passed on by all the powers that be in our area, those boys were as much a part of our family as anyone else already in it.

The trips to the school to set up our classrooms often included all four of our sons. Granted Scott and Larry were often the most help, but Tom and Jerry did have opinions about some of the posters we hung up, but mostly they wanted to play school and have one of their brothers “teach” them while the toddlers sat in big boy seats at two of the desks.

It amazed us that Scott was so patient with his three younger brothers. He would sometimes have them sit in the front row and draw something on the blackboard at the front of the room and have them guess what he was drawing, like Pictionary on a classroom blackboard. He also ran through the alphabet and also numbers, coaching them in the proper pronunciation of both the numbers and letters, but when he did story time for all three, well, that was their favorite, next to pony riding.

The twins would be attending the kindergarten at the elementary school next door to the middle school.

We hope that you are enjoying this new story by Art. You may contact him by email: ArtWest at CastleRoland dot Net

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