THE THREE MUSKETEERS

These three gorgeous chicks from the late 50's are my sister Betsy, my cousin LaVonne, and myself.  We thought we were so cool in our bandannas!  My cousin lived in that house in the background of the photo, right next door to my grandma, so summer vacations were great fun for the three of us.  We spent a lot of time pretending to be The McGuire Sisters, and argued who was Christine and who was Phillis,  none of us wanting to be Dorothy!  We also liked to roller skate with the clamp on skates that required a key to tighten the clamps.  Of course we wore the key on a shoe string around our necks.

But our very favorite thing to do was to walk to the end of the street, which was a dead end, and play in the creek. Most of the time, the depth was probably about three inches!  In spots, or if we dug holes in the sandy bottom, we would be lucky to have a few more inches, enough to actually sit in or pretend to float in!  We spent many happy hours in this creek, wading and splashing and just sitting in the water and day dreaming.

I remember so well this particular summer day.  We got permission to go to the creek, and the three of us set off, across the street, and past the house of the scary lady we either called The Witch or The Crazy Lady, and we probably skipped the remaining block to the creek.  Now this wasn't just any creek!  The bottom of this creek was covered in beautiful golden sand, clean and soft, seldom littered with rocks or weeds.  The water was crystal clean, and on this day the sun was creating sparkling diamonds all across the surface, and I think that's what got us into trouble!  We started walking down the creek, following the diamond studded flow of the water.  We went too far.  We went around a couple of curves in the path of the creek.  We lost track of time.  We were having the time of our lives.  And we ended up quite a distance from our starting point.

And then we looked up.  There, silhouetted in the bright sun, standing like a giant on the creek bank, was our grandpa.  And he was mad.  We had never seen him so mad.  He was a gentle man, a hard working, kind, very giving man.  And he was boiling mad!  And we were scared.  No, we were petrified! 

I don't remember the outcome other than he yelled at us.  Grandpa yelled at us!  It was awful.  Turns out that he was scared that we had been hurt, had drowned, had been kidnapped, or whatever other dangers went on in a grandpa's mind when his grandkids weren't in the creek at the end of the street where they were supposed to be. 

And every time my sister and I get together with our cousin, like we did this past week, we talk about the time we got in trouble in the creek.