His few strands of hair he had left stretched across the other side of his head. Very impressive I always thought. He had a paper underneath his arm and the other arm held the fold up chair that he had bought many years ago. He always thought it had been a fantastic buy. The faded yellow weaved material though slightly thinned still held together. Plastic weave was the best made ones I thought.
Uncle Walt sat down and tipped his hat up and down. Sat down on his chair and proceeded to read to read his paper. I never could figure out how he was going to save us with all his garb he wore.
Uncle Walt’s face gave a funny squint as he noticed we were looking at him. He yawned again and put the newspaper high up to his face. We never knew what he was up to next. Every time he turned a page a smile came from his face. I was convinced he new what he was doing.
Five kids, 1 dad, 1 mom, 1 uncle, 1 aunt. What a gang!
I always thought how my mom was going to help us in the water as we knew her coffee, romance novel and knitting was very important to her. She was crocheting blankets for our beds to match the room colours.
Oh, I forgot mom had brought the 2 dogs to the beach too. What an experience that was.
To dive off the top of the diving board on the top of the dock was the ultimate achievement in learning to swim. I was scared to death to jump. I knew we would be asked to jump to get our passing badge. David had a lot of guts. He just closed his eyes. Held his nose and jumped. He did it. Wow!!!
My mom started talking to people walking along the sidewalk on the beach.
Boy I wish I could hear what she was saying. I so wanted all the people there to see us in the water. All of us yelled out “hey look at us” and we all tried to do tricks in the water.
My Aunt Winnie with iron curlers walked back to her house. My mom suddenly looked up from her book and announced that we were going to my Aunt Winnie’s after swimming. We all hollered “yahoo.” She had the best soup ever. Extra milk and sugar in the soup and very important STIR.
I always wanted to know how she made such things. Perhaps the recipes might be in the recipe book she gave me. I could not wait to look it up when I got home.
My father had decided after several swims back and forth from the floating dock to the beach that he might start the barbecue pit he brought.
He did not know that Aunt Winnie had showed up with better stuff.
Uncle Walt had finished reading the newspaper. Folding up his lawn chair. Gave his hat another tug on his head. His eyes looked very curiously at us. He gave a laugh. We dare not ask him where he was now going.
I was excited because I noticed my dad had brought my barbecue box, I had made in metal shop. This would have been the third time he put coals in it. I was so proud.
We yelled “OUCH! OUCH! OUCH!” as we came out of the water. The rocks were painful and hard on our bare feet as all five of us attempted to make it to the top of the beachfront and to the hot pavement to the blue car.
Chills like we never felt before wracked our tiny bodies as the thickly designed orange towels were supposed to keep us warm. They were always the same kind of towels for swimming. We thought they were very fancy with the thick flower design on them.
