Surprise visit

I walked into the house last Monday after work and there in the entrance hall were a pair of well-used, slightly smelly, running shoes. Sneakers. Guy sneakers.
I got a little bit misty-eyed. It'd been a while since I'd had the thrill of finding man-child clothes trashing the floor next to the front door.
Our boy, Surfer-Dude was home from Oregon for the week. We miss him and are thrilled to have him back in the house, smelly sneakers and all.
Since he and his brother moved out, the mess is less, but so is the visual interest. By visual interest, I mean things like socks hanging from the arms of chairs, blue jeans lying on the kitchen counter, wet towels languishing on the bathroom and bedroom floors.
It's hard to beat those kinds of very special and manly decorating touches.
Anyway, Dude had arrived on the Saturday before Christmas, a 20-hour plane trip from the south coast of Oregon.
"I have you for ten days," I told him, giving him a big old hug at the airport and feeling very motherly about the whole situation.
"It's good to be home," he replied, obviously glad to be back in a warmer climate. It was the coldest day we'd had in a while and he was running around in a T-shirt embracing the warm weather. "We'd just had a hail storm the day I left." (It seems every time I talk to him on the phone it's either in the process of hailing or has just finished. Very strange.)
"This is great," he said, holding his arms out to the Lowcountry climate.
We got him back to the house, fed him and put him down for a nap - he was tired after the long trip and I had a welcome home party due to start in a few hours.
Part one of his nap began as a he sprawled on the couch and immediately dropped into a coma-like sleep.
Two hours later and five minutes before guests would arrive, I nudged him and told him he could continue sleeping in the bedroom. Which he did.
But there were folks at the party who had not seen him since he was a little boy.
"Come see my baby. He's sleeping," I told one guest who hadn't seen him ever. Who probably didn't even know we had chidren.
"Is it your dog?" "A grandchild?" she asked as I led her to the back of the house.
"No grandchildren yet," I said. "And the dogs are in the garage."
We peaked around the corner into the bedroom and there lay my oldest man-child, Surfer-Dude.
"My baby," I said. He snored contentedly, a few clothes scattered on the floor, one running shoe on the bed, the other under the chair. An obligatory towel was draped over a corner of the table.
"Cute," she said. Her response lacked a certain enthusiasm. "He's kinda big - and hairy."
"Yeah. Isn't he great? No matter how old he gets, he's still my baby," I said as we returned to the party. He eventually joined us, and I showed him off in his waking state.
Sunday we shopped for Christmas gifts, ate too much and visited.
By Monday he was missing his beloved who was spending Christmas with her family in Kentucky.
"Can I borrow a car?" he asked, bringin back even more memories. "I'm going to drive to Kentucky Wednesday and will be back on Friday," he told me.
So now I await his return on Friday.
He'll be with me until Sunday and I'll put him back on an airplane and send him back to the west coast.
He'll be back in May. I'll be looking forward to clothes on the floor, sneakers near the front door, someone who needs to borrow the car - and my big hairy baby.

Contact Judy Watts at jwatts@journalscene.com or 873-9424 ext. 220.