Binocular Love

Someone LOVES our new binoculars. He loves taking them to the beach and looking for exciting things. He thinks playing “Binocular War” with my camera lens is hilarious. I don’t blame him. I have very, very fond memories of playing with Gramma Jan’s binoculars when I was about his size. I remember many afternoons perched on her kitchen counter criss-cross-applesauce style, peering out the kitchen window with the binoculars glued to my face. I’d spy on the neighbors across the lake, on my dad next to the barn, and look for birds and squirrels. I’d take the binoculars to the picture window on the other side of the house and watch the cars on the highway zoom closer to our farm from town. Even when I was a teenager, in the spring I was prone to slipping into my grandparents’ new house after school, the new house that was closer yet to the road, and using the binoculars to spy on a certain blue-eyed member of the track team as he ran the obligatory three miles from the school past our farm to the main highway and back again.