Turn It Up

Tahoe Snowfall

My parents watch TV at full volume. The booming noise pushes me to the corner of the room, and they both sit on the couch looking like the Blown-Away Man from Maxell commercials. This probably explains why they are bad at listening and scream during casual conversation.
The kids and I are spending the weekend with my parents for Day of The Dead festivities. We stood around in the cemetery with a box of Franzia and Miller Genuine Draft tall-boys. George was leaping from one tombstone to the next. It reminded me of my grandpa, when he took my brothers, sisters and me to a cemetery in boonies, Nevada looking for Johnny Appleeed's grave sight. My grandfather stomped around raised graves, reading tombstones to find Appleseed. We never found it. I was reading a lot of Goosebumps back then, and was convinced we were disturbing spirits that would drive back with us, and haunt our nights in revenge. Well, all of us, except my parents, who wouldn't hear Marley's rattling chains.
I wasn't worried about upsetting the dead today. Old people love little kids. I figured they'd appreciate little George cruising around, listening to him sing, running and crunching snow.
I talked to my cousin about how she manually shelled three trees worth of pecans, and George wandered off into the woods. After a couple minutes, I noticed he was MIA. Her partner chased George down, and found him set on an Into The Wild adventure. George didn't even act like anything was wrong as we all ran towards him, panting and instructing him to stay near the rest of us. He picked up a piece of snow, and started nibbling on it. Maybe he was looking for Johnny Appleseed.