Monday, June 12, 2023
What a privilege and blessing it was for my sister and I to grow up next door to my Aunt Bette, Uncle Joe, and our cousins Kathy, Joanne, and Chris. We were fully involved in each other's day-to-day lives. No matter what was going on, looking back it seems like we were always laughing.
In effect, all of the five cousins had two sets of parents.
Uncle Joe and I shared a love of fishing, and Aunt Bette and I shared a love of the beach. They always asked me to go down the shore with them for the weekend and I always said, yes. After they came home from work on summer Fridays, I would be anxiously waiting for Uncle Joe to yell my name across the backyard. I would be packed and ready in 10 minutes. Maybe sometimes I was packed ahead of time. :)
On the weekends that it was just the three of us, Uncle Joe and I would go fishing very early on Saturday morning. And Uncle Joe would play golf with his golfing buddies on Sunday mornings. So it was me and Aunt Bette on the beach on Saturdays and Sundays. We had a great time. She taught me to look for seaglass which I still do to this day. We'd try to find the blue or red pieces.
We didn't want Sunday night to come. Sometimes we'd even wait and come home on Monday mornings. Uncle Joe would say it was because of traffic, but all three of us just wanted to stay. On the way home they would tease me and say that they weren't going to invite me anymore because I seemed bored. But they knew I wasn't. Then we'd get home and another week would go by. But by the next Friday, I'd be sure to be watching for them to get home from work.
So many great memories. Thank you, Aunt Bette for treating me so well and sharing the shore and so many other things with me. I will continue to try and mimic the things that I learned from you and Uncle Joe about the shore and about life.
