Milk jugs n' rainbows
The sun peeked through the rain this morning. I was driving at the time but I looked for a rainbow anyway; there wasn't one. Too bad I guess.
I thought of something this morning when I was driving that I haven't thought about in, well, I guess you could say years. I feel old when I make a statement like that....."I haven't thought about that in years." I digress......Anyway, I'm not totally sure what triggered the nostalgia at such a wee time in the AM but I guess that's sort of irrelevant....I was reminded of a time when I was pretty young, I'm not totally sure what age (maybe 3...could be 4) My grandparents had a swimming pool and we (a family of 5) for some reason did not. I refused, and when I say refused I mean threw temper tantrums, if I didn't have my milk jugs. Now, let me explain my milk jugs for you.....actually they don't require that much explanation.....they were empty, plastic 1 gallon milk jugs that I used to hold on to as I swam to keep me afloat. You could perhaps call them ghetto swimmies. Go ahead, call me ghetto but those jugs worked and I'd used em' today if I ever left the shallow end.
I was pretty dependant on those jugs every summer for several years. My Grandpa kept them in his shed in the backyard so I always knew where to run as soon as my bathing suit was strapped on. I was like superhuman holding on to those milk jugs. I could swim, splash and go under water like all the big kids. Without them, I was like a bath without bubbles, Christmas without Santa, mac n' cheese without bits of hot dog cut up in it, or worse....Barbie without Ken.
One hot, sunny summer afternoon, I decided to go without the jugs. I said to my Grandpa...."not today." I slowly inched closer and closer to that circular swimming pool, climbed the ladder, dipped my toes in and begged my big brothers not to leave my side!!! They started to get bored with me because I think I might've sat there close to all afternoon. I had goosebumps crawling up and down my teeny legs (I so wish they were still teeny....once again tho, I digress) Anyway, finally I just did it......I jumped in....and when I say jumped, well, I mean it....I jumped.......with the milk jugs sitting like a trusting friend inside the locked up shed...I jumped in to that pool with nothing but my incessant ability to doggie paddle keeping me afloat. I was half crying, half laughing and half thought I was already dead.....sunk to the bottom quicker than a rock. I realized though that I was not dead.....my head was afloat and there were cheers coming from the crowd around me (well gimme a break....family counts as a crowd right??)
My dad picked me up and raised me high above his head to perform that ever-so-famous airplane move he did so well and I simply laughed......
that was the day I skipped the milk jugs.
So later on this afternoon, long after my reminiscent morning, the sun peeked through the rain again.....and finally... there was a rainbow.
I thought of something this morning when I was driving that I haven't thought about in, well, I guess you could say years. I feel old when I make a statement like that....."I haven't thought about that in years." I digress......Anyway, I'm not totally sure what triggered the nostalgia at such a wee time in the AM but I guess that's sort of irrelevant....I was reminded of a time when I was pretty young, I'm not totally sure what age (maybe 3...could be 4) My grandparents had a swimming pool and we (a family of 5) for some reason did not. I refused, and when I say refused I mean threw temper tantrums, if I didn't have my milk jugs. Now, let me explain my milk jugs for you.....actually they don't require that much explanation.....they were empty, plastic 1 gallon milk jugs that I used to hold on to as I swam to keep me afloat. You could perhaps call them ghetto swimmies. Go ahead, call me ghetto but those jugs worked and I'd used em' today if I ever left the shallow end.
I was pretty dependant on those jugs every summer for several years. My Grandpa kept them in his shed in the backyard so I always knew where to run as soon as my bathing suit was strapped on. I was like superhuman holding on to those milk jugs. I could swim, splash and go under water like all the big kids. Without them, I was like a bath without bubbles, Christmas without Santa, mac n' cheese without bits of hot dog cut up in it, or worse....Barbie without Ken.
One hot, sunny summer afternoon, I decided to go without the jugs. I said to my Grandpa...."not today." I slowly inched closer and closer to that circular swimming pool, climbed the ladder, dipped my toes in and begged my big brothers not to leave my side!!! They started to get bored with me because I think I might've sat there close to all afternoon. I had goosebumps crawling up and down my teeny legs (I so wish they were still teeny....once again tho, I digress) Anyway, finally I just did it......I jumped in....and when I say jumped, well, I mean it....I jumped.......with the milk jugs sitting like a trusting friend inside the locked up shed...I jumped in to that pool with nothing but my incessant ability to doggie paddle keeping me afloat. I was half crying, half laughing and half thought I was already dead.....sunk to the bottom quicker than a rock. I realized though that I was not dead.....my head was afloat and there were cheers coming from the crowd around me (well gimme a break....family counts as a crowd right??)
My dad picked me up and raised me high above his head to perform that ever-so-famous airplane move he did so well and I simply laughed......
that was the day I skipped the milk jugs.
So later on this afternoon, long after my reminiscent morning, the sun peeked through the rain again.....and finally... there was a rainbow.
posted by Beth @ Wednesday, May 09, 2007
1 Comments:
At Sunday, May 13, 2007,
S. K. L. said…
Loved that pool, that shed, that yard... we hardly ever played in it, but the field behind our grandparents yard seemed to extend the yard and added a depth to their "rural" Spencerport home that our "surburban" Greece home did not have. It was magical. Like rainbows.
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