Gee Gee is the best buddy a boy could hope for

Last weekend I watched in belly-laughing amusement as a 4-year-old playfully chased his pal around the yard for over an hour with a remote-controlled car.

I had happened upon the improvised game after hearing joyful screams coming from my daughter’s backyard. Both predator and prey laughed hysterically as the shoebox-sized car zipped, whirled, growled and spun at the command of its diminutive driver while the pursued scrambled all about the lawn dodging the pursuer. I’d never seen either of those characters laugh that much — and I’ve known the older of the two for almost 40 years.

The whole scene proved once and for all why “Gee Gee” is my grandson’s favorite playmate. My wife will go along with darn near anything the kid can conjure up.

As I looked out on the scene, I tried to imagine a similar moment with my own grandmother. By the time I arrived on the planet, Grandma B was tired of kids, and she made no effort to conceal the fact. Mother to eight, grandma to dozens and great-grandma to a number eclipsing the population of many small towns, she had changed more diapers, wiped more snotty noses and rocked more cranky toddlers to sleep than an orphanage nurse. To her credit, Grandma B also had baked more cookies, rolled more of the world’s best popcorn balls and individually wrapped more pairs of Christmas socks than any human in history. By the time I knew her, however, there wasn’t a playful bone left in her body.

If I’d have chased my grandmother around the room with a Tonka truck, she would have swatted it from my hand with her cane, then stomped it to smithereens. Supporting this theory is the fact that she once beat a rattlesnake to death with that same cane on a visit to Arizona while in her 80s.

James will be happy to give Gee Gee a free pass on the baking thing as long as she continues to be the one who buries plastic dinosaurs in his sandbox, fashions entire zoo populations out of Play-Doh and runs through the yard screaming theatrically when pursued by radio-controlled vehicles.

She’s his best buddy, and I don’t see either one of them growing tired of that relationship anytime soon.

Kristin and John Lorson would love to hear from you. Write Drawing Laughter, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email John atjlorson@alonovus.com.