Storytime

Derelict. Absolutely derelict.

How could I have let three weeks slip by without a "Report?"

Especially since during that three weeks, Davis's bike team set new records and recorded an unprecedented fourth sweep of the 52nd Annual Rice University Beer/Bike race. Beyond that, during those three weeks, Davis accepted a summer mathematics research internship offer in Rochester, New York at Rochester Institute of Technology. Then, only yesterday, he called with the news that he had been selected to captain the bike team next year and that he might want a new road bike for his 21st birthday which comes up on Easter weekend.

In honor of these accomplishments, I am offering a special glimpse into the world of Davis Buenger.

At Rice, story telling with a twist has grabbed the imagination of the students. They have made up a game where people tell stories (elaborate or simple), and everyone in the circle has to decide whether the story is true or false. Apparently Davis has gotten quite good at the game (more because of his range of interesting stories than because of his ability to lie effectively). Here are three examples. You choose which one is true.

Story 1: The Danger Boys

You all know we live out in the country, so Davis never had a neighborhood full of friends to hang out with in his idle time. He did, however, have two brothers: Jaret and Robbie, AKA The Danger Boys. I don't want to get off track with this story to give you the many examples of their behavior that led to that moniker (perhaps I'll explain some other time), but this story gives you a glimpse.

President's day of 1997 brought us brilliant weather. Davis, Robbie, and Jaret were beside themselves with the idea that they had a day off school and it was truly warm and beautiful. The Danger Boys had waited for just such a day to launch their floating trampoline. That's right, their dad/stepdad had welded sheet metal and old 55 gallon drums to the legs of their ancient trampoline, and they were ready to pull it out into the lake to give it a try. No thought that the winter lake level was really low in most parts of the lake (so that an unlucky bounce might lead to someone burying his head in the bottom of the lake. . .or worse). No thought of the bleeding potential of clamboring up onto a trampoline with random bits of sheet metal and rusty edges attached to it and submerged in the muddy waters.

I put my foot down. "No, Davis, you can not risk tetanus nor paraplegia just to go jumping around on an unstable and rickety trampoline on the middle of the lake."

Instead, we pull up lawn chairs on the back porch, where we could watch the lake, enjoy the springlike weather, and finish the book we were reading together. Bliss.

After a while, Robbie and Jaret, having survived the outing on the trampoline, headed over to our house to check us out. They had a Christmas toy with them that would record voices, then skew them, and play them back in some cracy, silly way. Of course, for eight- and eleven-year old boys the potential was enormous. They walked up and activated the machine to play some high-pitched screechy speech they had programmed. This completely startled our yellow lab, Luke, lying under Davis's chair. He scrambled his ninety pounds up to his feet, upending Davis's chair. Davis fell off the porch, the chair fell across his forearm and snapped the bones in half, and . . .

I became the mom who injured her son by reading to him on the back porch instead of letting him play with The danger Boys on the rusty, rickety floating trampoline.

Story 2: Time Stands Still



Do you know what this is?

This is the world's largest hour glass, containing enough sand to measure the elapse of exactly one year. It lives in Budapest, Hungary, where Budapest people erected it to commemorate the 1957 revolt against the communists.

What does it have to do with Davis Buenger?

Last fall, Davis had an encounter with the clock. He was driving down the road on his bicycle with his Hungarian friend when suddenly we were sidewiped by a drunk Hungarian (Hungary has the highest per capita rate of alcohol), forcing them to crash into the clock. Fortunately, they only hit the granite edge. None of the glass shattered, but the force knocked the massive clock slightly off center.

As a result of the mishap, the sand flow slowed just a smidge. The local paper confirms Davis's calculation. The sand will now take a year and a day to flow through.

Davis truly made his mark on Hungary.

Story 3: Escape from Babysitter Mountain

I made an exceptionally bad hiring decision in the summer of 1995. I needed to hire someone to watch Davis while I worked. I had done theis many times before and really thought I had a handle on hiring (usually college students) to do interesting things with him and help around the house a bit. I have to admit that the one I hired that summer buffaloed me during the interview. I promise, I would not have knowingly hired someone who would not let Davis play outside (too hot for her) and who valued her own television time more than life itself.

Luckily, Davis was a problem solver extraordinaire, even back then.

When this sitter, once again refused to let Davis play outside (even though his best friend Bradley was over) and sent them back to his room so she could watch her programs, Davis and Bradley thought of an alternative.

They spent about an hour playing with Rockin' Robot. Davis had gotten Rockin' Robot when he was about two. It was a almost indestructible cassette player shaped like a robot. For years he carried it around by it head handle, listening to his tunes and later listening to episode after episode of Hank, the Cowdog and whatever other audio books he fancied.

That day, however, they discovered Rockin' Robot's recording capabilities. For the first hour that the babysitter sat in the living room, they entertained themselves telling jokes and in general messing around with the tape player. In the second hour, they set Rockin' Robot on autoreverse play (basically a repetitive loop) and snuck out of the house down to Robbie's. The sitter would never own up to how long she went without checking on them, satisfied that she could hear them playing away happily behind the closed door in Davis's room, but I think it was several hours.

She tried to quit, saying that Davis was the nastiest little boys she had ever taken care of, but I fired her before she got to the point that she said "I quit."

Now that you have read these three stories, vote in the poll on the right for which one you think really happened.