CLOSE KNIT (part 1)

   2:33 A.M., this morning. The farm was settled into sleep when a ruckus erupted out on the highway. Since our property borders a particularly deceiving bend of the road, we are accustomed to hearing the occasional skid and crunch of vehicles launching into the Front Forty where they may be introduced to any one of an assortment of stationary objects.

   (Except in winter when Grandpa puts Steve, his prized bull in the front 'yard'. Steve is possessed with deceptionaly quick movement)

   Our barbed-wire fence is usually the first member of the family that these errant individuals say howdy to and are considered lucky if the introductions stop there. Asphalt astronauts who insist of getting a closer look at Grandpa's tractor or Grandma's apple orchard (or Steve the bull, in winter), are more than likely to require some sort of assistance with various consequences which might include extraction from twisted metal, reconnaissance of eyes, teeth or limbs, and or relationship issues with a 2000 pound ill-tempered bull. (in the winter months).

   Dubbed the Drunk Catcher, or The Tourist Teaser, this piece of the highway is often the last conscience part of an individual's trip before making their aquaintence with Grandma and her first-aid kit, Grandpa and his welder or chain saw, or me with a pair of handcuffs from my bounty-hunting days. (I've no tolerance for drunk drivers)

   So this morning, with the din of destruction ringing in our waking ears, the adult folks of the household jumped from their respective beds in readiness. Then, something stopped us all in our tracks. Something different. Upon hesitation, we heard the sound of the catastrophe continue. And not only were these hideous crash sounds not coming to an end, it sounded as if they were moving up our driveway!

   Grandpa headed for the front door and the porch beyond, Grandma right behind with her first-aid kit and her newest piece of equipment, the Pulse Paddles.(Clear!) I grabbed my shotgun and followed them both.

  "What in tarnation are you gonna do with that scatter gun?" Grandpa asked me.

  "I'm going to put whatever is crawling up our driveway out of it's misery," I said.

  "Just put it away for now," Grandpa advised, "I doubt anything that loud and ugly sounding will require firearms to subdue. Whatever it is, it sounds like it's dyin' already."

   From the front porch we saw come, from out of the darkness at the end of the driveway, in a sickening cloud of smoke and screaming metal, one of the most blasphemous of contraptions - a 1973 Urine Yellow Plymouth station wagon.

  "Who the hell is that and why are they coming here?" I wondered.

  "Fetch back that scatter gun," said Grandpa.

   The beast of a machine smoked, screamed, retched and hiccuped it's way up the driveway toward the steps of the porch where it died thus, farting out a plume of smoke, the color of which I'd not experienced before.

  "Why, that's Susie Sharon and the family," Grandma exclaimed, heading for the car.

  "Hi, ya'll," Susie Sharon said, waving her arm out of the passenger window, apparently oblivious to the chaos unfolding around her. "We've come for the weekend!"

   Grandma, already at the car, bent through the window to hug Aunt Susie. Susie Sharon's husband, Henry, merely sat behind the steering wheel of the vehicle, grinning through the windshield like an insurance salesman. In the backseat slept Carol Alice, Aunt Susie's twenty year old daughter, and Camry, Carol Alice's baby and the newest edition to our clan.

  "It's going to be a long weekend," I said to Grandpa.

  "Let's hope that it's just a weekend," Says Grandpa. "Come on. We better get them kids out the backseat before that car catches fire."