Go Fatty Go!

To some, the title of this story may seem offensive, crude, and just downright rude…but I assure you it’s not – in fact the title could be nothing else. You may doubt me now, but once you finish reading, I’m sure you too will be cheering, “Go Fatty go!” But before we can get to that, we must get to this: the perfect of all perfect parking spaces. How does one relate to the other? Well, Dear Reader they are indeed inseparable and intertwined throughout the entire story below.  

The Saturday afternoon game was slated to start at 5:30 pm, but the coach wanted all team members to report an hour earlier for a pre-game meeting and warmups. We pulled into the soccer complex just before 4:00 p.m. knowing there was ample time to do the forever circling, searching like a hawk for a parking space. Perhaps I could find that holy grail of parking, a space more valuable than gold, one near to the fieldhouse and food trucks.

No circling needed to be done this day. No dodging that one guy who thinks preforming diagonal parking is an art form. Not believing what I was seeing, I stopped my car in the middle of the road just as the clouds parted sending a golden sunbeam down to the hallowed ground below – illuminating the perfect of all perfect parking spaces. 

The empty space was not only at the end of a row, but on the left side was a vacant handicap space, and on the right was a massive tree providing the only shade in the otherwise desert of a blacktop parking lot. The space bathed in golden sunlight looked like the final scene of a Hallmark movie.  

The tree wasn’t a pine tree. Pine trees are as plentiful in Georgia as sand is to the state of Florida. Besides, no native-born Georgian would ever park under a pine when the sap is running, and trust me, the steamy month of August is the fastest sap running month there is.

 Pine sap is kinda like glitter – once you’ve gotten it on you it never, ever comes off. The sap really only slows down a bit during all the other months so you still wouldn’t park under a pine then either. The only time you can be sure the sap isn’t running inside a pine is when it’s covered in ice. And you certainly wouldn’t park under an ice-covered pine ever. But the tree being a giant oak, I joyfully backed into the best of all the best parking spaces. Just when I thought things couldn’t get better…they did.

Walk right this way.

Looking in the side mirror, I saw the huge sign of field five. Ours. Fifty yards away. Fifty! That’s practically valet service at a soccer complex. We were still celebrating our luck as her coach walk by with a scowl on his face. Sweet Caroline thought it was because her team had lost the first game at noon, but I knew better. The scowl was because he had missed out on the greatest of the great parking spaces ever. 

A life talk.

With half and hour to fill, I thought this would be a good time to fill the air with another episode of “Big Papa’s Words of Wisdom.” Her having turned eleven recently, she’s on the cusp of “Sure, I’ll listen” and “I know everything about everything,” so I asked. 

The response from the backseat was an enthusiastic, “Go!”

I started talking about her life, the career in engineering she wanted to pursue, and the best way I thought for her to accomplish that life goal. After a couple of minutes with no sound from the backseat, I was thinking perhaps I’d gotten a little wordy. “Want me to continue?”

This time she said, “Go! Go!”

I continued with my description of life as I know it – bestowing my wisdom upon the young redhead, “Eventually find a job you love doing. That makes work not seem like work. And always give back to the community by volunteering your money, time, or both. Find someone you love for being who they are, not who you think they should be.” 

A few more minutes passed and still no comments or even a “uh-huh” so again I paused to ask one last time if she wanted me to stop. Her response took me by surprise.

She said, “No, fatty no!

Now I know I’ve gained twenty pounds over the wintertime, and I was gonna lose it over the summertime, but it now being almost the end of the summer it’s proven to be a little bit more difficult than I originally thought. I may be a little chunky, but to call me fatty? Well, I got to admit, that kinda hurt my feelings. 

Still, I know how fleeting these one-on-one times are, so setting my bruised self-image aside, I was going to continue my talk of wisdom until she shouted…

“No! Stop, stop, go back! It’s not safe!”

This gave me grave concern. Turning around I asked what she was talking about. She pointed to the entrance road directly in front of us. And there, ten feet off to our right, scurrying across as fast as it’s fuzzy body could, was a wooly bear caterpillar (a.k.a. Fatty). Black, red and determined, as large as my thumb, he was trying to cross the two lanes of traffic!

Now I understood. 

As another car passed over, I found myself cheering along with my granddaughter, “Go Fatty go! Go Fatty go!”

After ten additional cars passed, our new fuzzy friend finally made it safely, reaching the other side of the road before disappearing out of our view next to the curb. Our fists pumped the air and cheers erupted inside the car as if he had just won the World Cup. We laughed until we cried. It was truly a special moment. Who knew bonding over a caterpillar was possible?

Her laughter was eventually replaced by her concern voice, “Papa, we should go out and check on him, make sure he’s OK.”

And that’s how her coach found us – crouched over a storm drain on the side of the road, me using my phone flashlight and Sweet Caroline looking for the champion woolly bear caterpillar called Fatty – ten feet away from the greatest parking space in the entire world. 

Coach said, “Caroline, it’s time to warm up.”

Following him, she turned and waved back at me saying, “Bye, Fatty.”

Giving up on our search, I pocketed my phone and watched as they both walked towards field number five, her Coach’s voice trailing behind them, “You know it’s not nice to call your grandfather that.”

I smiled as Sweet Caroline started to explain, “No… Coach… I would never. You don’t understand. See, here’s what happened…”

Reaching for my phone again, I paused for a moment before dictating this story. Like my parking space at the end of the row under the shade from a monster oak tree, I received another unexpected gift. Out of nowhere came the perfect ending for this story. 

After the game we drove almost two hours to get back home, all the way talking about the game and laughing about the heroic caterpillar who defied death crossing two lanes of traffic against all odds. As she got out of the car back at our house, Sweet Caroline said, “Papa, I’ll remember this day the rest of my life.”

She may not have heard any of the “Big Papa Life Lesson” talk in the car that day, but what she did learn was perhaps more important: The smallest of things in this world can bring you the biggest joy.

Sometimes what we say isn’t what we mean, but in this story, what we meant is exactly what we have said.

Go Fatty Go!