SISTERS

SISTERS:  

All three of my sisters spent the summer with me when my son, Charlie, was about 18 months old.  I am the oldest of seven children.  I must digress briefly at this point.  I was taught in school that children were not to be referred to as kids, because kids are baby goats.  So it is a pet peeve of mine when I hear kids used far too often on national news.  Back to the narrative.  My next youngest brother, Richard is a yearish younger, Phil is sevenish years and then a gap of ten years to Ellen, one year to Gale and Carla born the same year.  Next an EIGHTEEN year gap to the youngest brother, James.

The family had driven down for my younger brother's wedding to my husbands sister.  It was a lot of fun.  I begged my folks to let me keep the girls and I would fly them home in time for school.  I graduated from high school at age 17 and missed out a lot so this was a good time to get caught up. 

I was still working and the girls provided babysitting.  When I got home we would load up and go to parks, just driving and sight seeing, shoe shopping.  One time we drove to the south bay to attend a Sea World type park.  We had water splashed on us by the very large killer whale and multiple dolphin tricks.  We had a riverboat ride and saw greenery and the driver told jokes.  One jokes was, 
"How do you stop a rhinoceros from charging?"  
"You take away his credit card".  
Complete silence until Charlie started cackling wildly, then everyone giggled at him.

We went shopping, shoes were a big deal. We experimented with makeup and plucking eyebrows.  Everyone got their hair done.  Gale went blonder, Ellen went spicier brown and Carla went from curly black to fuzzy orange.  It was hideous.  Poor thing.  I made her stay in the car when I went back to get black dye to cover it up.  We took pictures and she has used it as blackmail ever since.

We went to the County Fair at Santa Rosa. The best building was sponsored by all of the gardening centers. The entire building was made to look like a mill with water wheels and water sluices and all sorts of stunning baskets of fuscia's hung all over the place.  The girls went to the race track to throw a few dollars away on the ponies. 

I am pretty sure we went to Stinson Beach and played in the sand and surf.  We also went to the San Francisco Zoo.  It was fabulous!! Nearby was the Fun House, a genuine, fun house and the girls had a ball. 

We went to The Golden Gate Park and the Japanese Gardens and walked over the moon bridge.  I always purchased candied coconut there at the gift shop.  Nearby was the Museum which had a very large pendulum and then we went to the sit in the dark and watch and listen to the story about the stars, wonderful.

Across the street from the museum was the art museum.  There was a huge collection of jade objects on display.  There was also an Andrew Wyeth exhibition there as well.  It was gorgeous.  There is one title I regret not learning.  It was a large canvas done in extreme close up straight down of a clear creek bottom.  There were minnows.  I wanted it but that would have never been possible.  I would be happy with a print but have never seen the picture again.  I may be mistaken that Wyeth painted the thing.

Of course we went to visit Grandma LaVann's ranch.  The men insisted on instructing the girls how to shoot either a rifle or a shotgun.  One of the shotguns came apart after being shot and that was the end of the shooting lesson.   

I did most of the cooking that summer. One experiment did not go over well.  I fried some chicken hearts and served them over a bed of rice with gravy.  Met with universal  refusal.  Oh well.  I should have marinated them in coke until tender, then fried them until crispy.

Two of the girls slept on a pull out in the living room. One morning husband left early and started a small fire in the fire place to burn some trash.   About 30 minutes later there was a loud bang, by the time the rest of us scrambled out of bed, there was still a one foot tongue of fire coming out of an exploded aerosol can.  Thanks for the wakeup.

The girls were ready to go back at the end of summer, Carla and Ellen went one week and Gale the next.  Gale was nauseous prior to the trip so I purchased some Benadryl and gave her a couple of pills.  Pretty sure she slept most of the way to Boise.