Heartthoughts: Sisters

In a blog the other day, I mentioned something that jogged the memory of a niece, reading it in another state.  In a response to her comment I said I recollected the incident she was referring to about her mom, several years older than me, and her then boyfriend, my niece's future dad. I remembered that he had a car and loved to do "donuts" to impress her and us kids.

I didn't tell her about the time on the hot summer day when they and some of the older kids decided to go swimming at the COAL  PITS! A popular, but daring, swimming place with deep, blue water and decidedly more adventurous than the Salty Dog, our more mundane swimming hole, which had a shallow, sandy bottom slanting to deeper water below an embankment great for jumping from.

Being only six years old, I was excluded from the swimming venture, but I begged to go anyway. Finally, when they weren't looking, I got into her boyfriend's car and hid down in the floor of the back seat.  Things were going "swimmingly," me listening to their chatter from the front seat and thinking maybe I should make my presence known.  I popped up, to their surprise and annoyance, and I think it was a half-donut he did to take me home!

My niece also recalled a story my sister had told her of her teen years.  I didn't remember this story, but I could relate.  It seems our mother had made a big supper and invited my future brother-in-law to eat with them.  As I noted in my blog, drinking glasses were scarce in our household, and my sister was embarrassed when she saw that  each place was set with a tin can!  He didn't mind, but she wouldn't come to the table.

I thought of the time when I was a teenager and my brothers invited Howard over to spend the night at our house.  They knew him from school before I met him, but I liked him and had admired him from a distance at church.  I was highly uncomfortable and embarrassed that he was there, and I stayed in my room, not even going to breakfast the next morning because of my curlers!  (He said he kept looking for me and wondering where I was.)  

Howard loved my family dearly, with its houseful of boys and activity,  and I finally got used to his presence.  We've been married nearly 57 years, and my sister was married at least 50 years.  When they were first married and even after her babies came along, she would often take me home with her, cut my hair and give me a perm, buy a pattern and material and make me a dress, or just take me shopping or to a movie. I looked up to my beautiful, talented big sister, and I cherish her memory.