she saw some guy from california tell johnny carson about his great idea and she liked it / actually she loved it / she had that sense of humor / that whimsy / but she would whoop me good for calling her whimsical / she was too practical for that nonsense / she definitely wouldn’t go out and buy a pet rock at the store / she would probably have to go all the way to Lexington even to get it / and they’d probably be sold out anyway / and she’d have to wait / you know they wouldn’t have it right away down at the Magic Mart / she could just get one out of the yard / there were plenty good choices to adopt in that little stretch of gravel by the driveway out back / between the street and the yard / she did pick her one out / let me help with the selection / i even got my own / we stood in the backyard for hours / picking up rocks and stones / dusting them off / rolling them around in our hands / exchanging some / grasping them in our palms / completely encasing them under fleshy fingers / she chose a more muted grey somewhat flat stone / it had a rough edge with a chip / but smooth everywhere else / i went with a darker one almost black with flecks and lines of red running through it / it was bumpy / but it felt good in my almost 8-year-old hands / i named mine geronimo / he was my favorite of the chiefs / mother called hers hudson / said it was for a man in the movies / she kept hudson in her purse / said i could keep geronimo in my pocket / even take him to school if i wanted / we took them to myrtle beach with us the next few years / i even remember sometime in the early 80s / had to be before 85 / we were on the beach for our annual family pilgrimage with the campbells / and she pulled hudson from her purse / not the same purse as before / she would change purses with he seasons / but it was the same hudson / she had embellished him with a smiley face at some point over the last six or seven years / but still the same / when she passed a few years ago / i found hudson still in her purse / his smiley face a little faded / almost gone if i were honest / but i still saw it