3/20/2008 Me and My Cousin

I just swiped these images off my cousins profile. She and I were together all summer long when we were kids. She turned 27 yesterday!

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Stephanie and I were content playing together, with or without toys for hours on end. When the weather was warm we spent most of the day outside, and if it was rainy we made the garage into a cat theater. Nothing like the Broadway production of Cats; more like a torture chamber for the population of ferrell cats which reproduced without reserve in my parents garage and sheds. I can’t remember ever being bored during the summer, and I spent the entire year long looking forward to meeting my Uncle Steve and Stephanie in Berea, Kentucky to bring her back to Asheville.

Our meeting point was approx. halfway between Asheville and Muncie, Indiana in the small town of Berea at a motor lodge called THE HOLIDAY MOTEL, not to be confused with the HOLIDAY INN. The only place to eat supper was at a place called the DINNER BELL, and we didn’t like it. It was a lot like a CRACKER BARREL, but more country. Imagine a wagon wheel motif with lots of gingham. Our step grandfather, Boyd would order fried liver and onions and shove his cornbread into his cold glass of buttermilk.

Stephanie and I would have been content if they had served breakfast at night, but they didn’t so we ordered heaps of mashed potatoes and butter instead of piles of pancakes with butter. As a child I was suspicious of anything with more than three ingredients, and anything fried. Most children’s menus have something fried with the word "fingers" in the name which I have always thought unwise. Heaven only knew what was inside the golden brown shell. Probably fingers.

Our Nanny (mom’s mom) let Stephanie and I run the show most of the time but when we screwed up it was bad. Nanny’s anger was the kind that made you wish you were born into life as an otter or a hawk. That kind of anger was rare and reserved to bad behavior resulting in fires, floods or trips to the emergency room. My brother has coined the term "Nannitude" for describing the severity of her extremes. Nanny was considered by others as impatient, but she taught Stephanie and I how to make frilly dresses for our Barbies, (everyone knows what a test that is) let us help her make fudge and even she even sat through our longest theatric productions.

Neither Steph nor I were bequeathed a sister so our relationship was as close as it got for us. Whenever we get together we have so many things to catch up on; I wish we could stop time and have our summers back.