
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, July 2, 1995                   TAG: 9507050003
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: TRACY GALLIMORE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

2 SONS HELP MAKE CHORE TIME COLORFUL

Late Saturday afternoon, I watch my oldest son gather up his car keys and advance, relaxed and smiling, through the knee-high grass of our back yard. His red Chuck Taylors barely graze the marshmallow manes of dandelions nurtured these past rainy weeks. Just as his wide and uncalloused palm touches the sun-warmed handle of his Big Green Love Machine (a 1974 Ford LTD with unmatched hubcaps and a funky smell to the interior), I call his name. He freezes.

On his return to our back door, it is safe to say that not one dandelion in his path will stalk again. A wide and indelicate swatch has been tramped by angry rubber soles soon to be stained a high and industrious grass green.

The much anticipated and beloved sound of our lawn mower finally fills the air.

Now for the No. 2 son. I find him awash in the delicate blue light of his computer monitor, smiling dreamily, ears sealed by the soft black pads of his headphones. He glows up at me as if from the bottom of the deep end of Bissett Park pool. Four years ago, at 9, he had the unnerving habit of exhaling and wafting down, down, legs tucked in a lotus position, to the grainy white floor of the pool. He would smile gently up at me then, his yellow bubble mask turned toward the surface like the glassy eye of some bright mollusk. Jake doesn't "surf" the Internet, he snorkels it, coming up only for Pringles and the occasional icy tumbler of Hawaiian Punch. I have neither as bait.

I lift his headphones and hear the aquamarine sounds of Hootie and the Blowfish. Then I say the word, the cruel word: "Weedeater." He breaks the surface, gasping and pleading for 10 more minutes.

To his credit, I do not hear the screen door slam before I hear the pleasant churring of the nylon string.

I draw my bath and fill it with cool green bubbles that will slough off the grime of my own Saturday chores. As I sink beneath the suds, eyes closed, I relish the drone of twin engines: one is the sound of a flame red rocket, the other a bright yellow submarine.

\ Tracy Gallimore lives in Radford with her husband and two sons. She works for the advertising department of the Roanoke Times and also as a free-lance writer. She worked as a consultant for AT&T for 13 years.

by CNB