Friday, December 3, 2010

Red and Quin meet for Breakfast

They met at seven the next morning, and Red spent the first forty minutes of the breakfast peppering Quin with questions about his classes and coaching pitching.  Quin ate it up. Finally Quin turned the conversation to Red’s phone message. “Now granddad you said that you had something very important to talk to me about. We need to talk about that.”

Red took a big slug of coffee and then began his spiel. “Well Quin you may remember that I am the President of the Appendix Historical Society.”
Quin nodded. “Absolutely.” Quin had been to one or two meetings during the summers when he was a kid and Red had brought him along. He had liked eating the donuts and all the attention the adults at the society had given him, but the meetings and the telling of the stories had been almost intolerably boring for him.

Red went on, “Well none of us in the society are that young any more and we need to get the history down on paper, particularly the history of Wondermaker and the carnivals.” Quin nodded he could easily see where this was headed. “We took a vote yesterday morning and voted to commission a writer to write the history for us. Then Quin the Society unanimously voted to commission you as the writer, since you are a son of Appendix, and you are a Professor of Literature. Only I didn’t know when we took the vote that you had your plate so full with your classes and coaching baseball, or I would have told the committee to think about somebody else.”

It was the perfect opportunity for Quin to beg off. Red was giving him an out. Quin had absolutely zero desire to write a paper about Appendix, but he was still basking in Red’s admiration of him as a coach and a professor and he did not want to disappoint. “I am pretty busy, but I would love to help out the society. I used to love going to those meetings as a kid,” he lied convincingly.

Red jumped in, “It would be wonderful if you could do it Quin, but I don’t want you spreading yourself too thin.”  Quin of course had all the time in the world since all of his lesson plans and tests were already written from his previous years of teaching, but he played along.

“I’ll have time, gramps once I get on top of my classes and fall practice will end in a few weeks here.”

“That’s fabulous Quin that is really fabulous, the society will be so pleased. Hey you should come join one of our meetings some time.”

This time Quin made the most of the busy lie, “I don’t think that I’ll be able to make a meeting. I really am swamped in the mornings getting ready for classes and planning practices with Coach Preston., but I can get going on a little bit of research for the paper. When does it need to be done?”

Red was a little disappointed that Quin would not attend a meeting like he had when he was a kid, but he was heartened by the prospect of him beginning research on the paper, “This is really fabulous Quin. The paper will be amazing I just know it. We hope to unveil the paper sometime in March or February at a meeting of the Society.”

At that moment Quin knew if that were the case he could rest easy, and that he wouldn’t even think of the paper again until late January. “That’s good gramps. That should really give me some time to really dig in and wade through the background material. I would like access to all the information that the Society has.”

“Absolutely, I’ll see that it is made available to you.”

“That’s great gramps that will really help me get started. Hey I need to get going so that I can get to class. The young minds need molding you know. Let me get the check so that I can hit the road,” Quin offered knowing full well that there was not a chance of him paying for the breakfast.

“No way Quin. This one’s on me.” Then Red added in a far away voice more to himself than Quin, “This is just fabulous. It will be a great paper,” then turning back to Quin, “You get going now and teach that class. I’ll make sure that I get the Society’s materials to you.”

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