We went to the school carnival last night. The Parent-Teacher Organization makes it clear that this is not a “drop-off” event. Children are to be accompanied by an adult family member. With one high school student, one preschooler, and two elementary students, as well as a father who has a 45-minute commute after finishing work, getting the girls to the carnival would have been a significant challenge for our daughter-in-law, especially since the carnival began at dinner hour. It was a perfect setup for grandparents. Supervising a couple of girls at the school carnival is light duty. The biggest challenge of the evening for me was finding a place to park, which wasn’t a big problem. The girls attend a small-town school. Even with many parents and grandparents transporting children in their cars, there is still plenty of on-street parking available within a couple of blocks of the school. I got lucky and found a place less than a block away.

The second challenge of the evening for me is that my hearing is not as good as it once was. A few hundred excited children in an elementary school gymnasium make conversation impossible for me. Fortunately, most of the games were in classrooms that are smaller and have less echo. Some of the rooms were so crowded that it worked for me to wait outside while the granddaughters went in to play a game.

The games were typical school carnival fare. There was a ring toss, a couple of fish ponds, and a bean bag toss. The prizes were inexpensive trinkets. Most of the participants won a prize at every game. A box maze was set up in a hallway. They had face painting, raffles, and a couple of places set up for family pictures. One of the most popular games is a variation on a cake walk called the Junk Food Walk. Prizes are just what the game suggests. Our granddaughters stayed in the game long enough for each of them to win a couple of times. Among the grandparent duties for the evening was carrying around a box of Hostess cupcakes and a bag of chocolate pretzels. Each girl also had a small bag to carry the other prizes they won.

One of the games was a word search. There were letters displayed at various places around the school. The game involved collecting all seven letters and then unscrambling them to reveal the hidden word. Our granddaughters collected six letters: S, T, H, R, E, and V. I was sitting in the corner of the gym, waiting for the girls to traverse the box maze, and used the time to try to solve the word scramble. I was sure that the missing letter would be a vowel. I even thought that A was the most likely possibility. The hint for the word scramble was “What do we celebrate in the fall?”

My mind started to search for autumn holidays. Thanksgiving was too long. Labor Day didn’t work. I began to question whether the H might be a mistake. If it were a D, the answer might be “VETS DAY.” That didn’t make sense, however. Elementary school children might know Veterans’ Day, but the shortened version seemed unlikely.
Furthermore, the lines to write the letters didn’t have any spaces. I was pretty sure the answer would be a single word. I got a bit distracted by the letters because REV is a tile I’ve had for most of my life, my initials are TH, and my wife’s name begins with S.

While I was pondering this, our fifth-grade granddaughter came and sat beside me. I asked her what she thought the answer might be. After realizing Thanksgiving was too long, she immediately came up with HARVEST, which, of course, was the correct answer. It's a good thing we had our granddaughters with us. Otherwise, I might still be pondering the letters, convinced that I could come up with the solution.

As it turned out, excited children waiting in line to claim the prize for the scramble were all talking. I noticed that other children who had not solved the puzzle overheard the solution and joined the line. They got a sticker prize alongside those who had actually worked out the solution.

When I was considering retirement and what it might mean for me, one of my goals was to find a place to live close enough to the homes of our grandchildren that would allow me to attend their recitals, games, concerts, and other events in their lives. School carnivals didn’t come to my mind at the time. I had gotten my fill of school carnivals when our children were in elementary school and we were active in the PTA.

We were fortunate to find a home a couple of miles from four of our grandchildren, which is terrific for us. We do, however, have a fifth grandchild, and he lives in South Carolina. We only have two children, and they live 3,000 miles apart. Our grandson in South Carolina is in the first grade. We did make it to Grandparents' Day at his school last year, but we missed many of the events in his life. It is a challenge many grandparents face.

Last night, however, I was feeling grateful for the way our retirement has worked out. We’ve been fortunate. Some retired pastors have to play golf or pickleball. Some have to empty their bank accounts to go on cruises and bus tours. Some go on tours of the churches they once served, trying to sell a few copies of their self-published collection of sermons. Some go back to work as hospice or care center chaplains. A few retired pastors make it their business to prolong clergy meetings unnecessarily. Some drive working pastors up the wall with their stories and advice.

I, on the other hand, get to go to school carnivals, provide rides to birthday parties, do farm chores when our son’s family travels, watch the bees in the farm hives, play trucks, collect eggs with a 3-year-old, and read books to children. I also get to go to the school carnival.

I don’t think I’d be very good at golf.