On the Road Again and Tales from Childhood

We're hitting the pavement again. The sky is blue and the air is warm. It's a great day for travelling.

We woke EARLY this morning. My sleep was pretty broken. That makes two nights in a row. I hope that I sleep well tonight. At least I know that I don't have to wake up early for anything tomorrow. Yippee!

I jumped in the shower right away, so as not to disturb anyone else. Verne woke shortly after, and so the bathroom procession began. Amazing. We don't even get ready that quick at home, and we have multiple bathrooms!

We had looked online and found a church to worship at before we left home. We attended Providence OPC at 1o AM this morning. Everyone was warm and welcoming. The residing pastor was in Haiti, and so we heard a man from Greenville Theological Seminary in SC. Mr. Craig Beaton. Is he familiar to you, Patrick? It's wonderful to travel far from home and still be able to worship with other believers. Can you imagine what heaven will be like?

Grandma stayed back with Aunt Janet and Uncle Dink and continued visiting. After worship, we made our way back to the house, and Verne once again loaded the van. We were back on the road within half an hour. We've a long drive ahead of us yet. About 300 miles.

Okay, so last night I told you that I would share some stories with you. Here goes:

Sheila and I are only six months apart, as I already said. This was wonderful and awful. She moved from PA to Houston, TX in about 3rd grade. Every summer, she flew back to PA. We spent the entire summer together. We would go to my grandparents house, stay for about a week, and then we'd go to my house for a few days. When we left Grandma's, we'd pretend that we were going on a trip. My house was the hotel. We had an in-ground swimming pool, and a pool table. It seemed like an easy thing to pretend.

We got into a fight one time. Okay, there was much more than ONE time, but there was this one time in particular. We really got into it. I told her that she couldn't be my cousin anymore. She said that she didn't care, because I couldn't be hers either. This escalated into a cat fight. Yes, you read it right. We scratched each other very badly! We eventually made up, and wandered into the house. My Aunt Janet gasped, "What happened?" We said, "Oh, we had a fight, but we're friends now!"

One time we had been to the beach at Conneaut Lake. We went back to Grandma's house, and went to the basement to shower. Being little(4 or 5) we got in together. After the shower, I hung my towel on the rack. Shelia flung hers up over. I proceeded to tell her that she needed to be neater, and hang it up properly. (My kids say that I haven't changed.) Well, Sheila got mad, grabbed the towel, flung it up in the air, and said, "Fine. YOU do it!" Let me tell you that when she flung that towel upwards, the WHOLE towel rack fell off the wall! She looked at me, I looked at her, and scolded, "You're going to be in sooooo..... much trouble!" She pleaded, "Please don't tell. I can fix it!" Needless to say, she couldn't fix it and we BOTH got into trouble.

We used to camp out in my backyard, and slept in a tent for days. We had everything that we needed. Snacks, drinks, a small battery powered lamp. We used to take the Sears catalog out with us and make lists of everything that we needed to make our tent more homey. Oh the fun.

By this time, we had moved from the house with the pool. Now we lived on a small farm. We could swim in the creek, but we often opted to cool off in an old cast iron tub that was used to water the animals.

We played in the neighbor's barn. There was a rope swing tied to a beam. You could grab the
rope and jump from the hayloft and land in a huge pile of hay. It was so much fun. Well, Grandma decided that Sheila shouldn't do this because she was so far away from home. She might get hurt. I admit that I taunted as Sheila watched me swinging and jumping. She couldn't stand the temptation any longer and climbed into the loft, grabbed hold of the rope, and jumped. Giggles of glee escaped her until she landed. On a rusty old nail. Right through the bottom of her shoe. "Don't tell! I'll get in big trouble!" I promised. Well, by this time I was about 12, and I wasn't stupid. Later that night,Sheila started to get a red line going up her leg from the puncture site. I immediately told my mom, and we had to take her to the ER for a tetanus shot. Yes, we both got in trouble again.

As I got older I flew to Houston for the weekend several times. (My dad worked for US AIRWAYS and we flew for free.) Sheila continued to arrive back in PA each summer. The last time she came to stay was the summer after our sophomore year of high school. We grew apart after that. We can still talk, but we have different interests, life views, etc. Oh, but the memories are good!