Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We followed our daughter and her two boys to a nearby park, about a fifteen minute drive. Everything was wet and green, with a lot of fallen branches from the storm. The boys played in the playground, then we ate on an isolated picnic table, later walking into the forest, which was dark and streaked with flash flood marks. There we discovered a grove of tall pines and redwoods, and a sign that told us at one time in the mid eighteen hundreds, the redwoods here (now cut down) had been the beacon ships used to navigate where they were coming into port in the bay. After these giants had been cut down, sprouts grew up and now are pretty tall themselves. Further down we found a plaque that honors Japanese troups of the 442 division who fought valiantly in World War II even though many had been interred in the camps. So two surprise bits of history in this modest park off a highway in the hills. Our four year old grandson asked us to read each plaque, and I don't know what he made of these bits of history, but he listened intently. His big disappointment was no banana slugs, which we'd all hoped would appear because of the rain. Then he got scared when he went to fetch the stroller with his grandpa, somehow ran off thinking he saw his mom, me and his brother, and I ran back toward the woods and called his name. He appeared quickly, but he needed a big hug and reassurance. I flashed back on all the times my kids had disappeared, luckily to be quickly found again, once in Target, and once in Madison campground in Yellowstone. My blood pressure is still heightened a bit now.