Today's prompt is "Describe what the 4th of July was like for you as a child." Hmmm. Why don't I remember that? I guess we weren't big celebrators of holidays. I remember fireworks, and I remember ocean, so my guess is we went somewhere to watch the fireworks over the ocean. I do have the sense that fireworks lasted for several hours when I was a child, which means that 15 minutes starts to seem a lot different the older you get.
One thing I have been thinking about is how many "family parties" or gatherings we went to where I brought a book and kept my head in it the whole time. Lately Jarrah has been bringing a book--usually one of her graphic novels--when we go someplace she might be bored, and it really warms my heart to see this. Yesterday, I had a theater meeting in OB and she read Diary of a Wimpy Kid the whole time, nearly an hour. Love that!
I guess I was older (I hope I was) but I remember lots of parties where I was far too engrossed in a big, thick paperback from the Flowers in the Attic series (man, those make the Twilight books look like The Very Hungry Caterpillar) to interact with (sniff) PEOPLE. There was this one family my parents liked to spend holidays with, and they had a big, sprawling house with a pool and a games room but they had two sons and I certainly wasn't going to talk to BOYS. People would approach me timidly to say there was a game going on somewhere and I'd glare and say "I'M READING." That would be it for the night, usually. At some point, I'd eat a slightly weird-tasting hamburger and maybe some ice cream and then I was right back to the book, until someone would mercifully say it was time to go, many hours later.
My strongest memory of this family, though, comes from a time we hadn't seen them in a couple years and now I was in high school. We went back for one of those house parties but this time it was all different. Turned out the oldest son and I were the same age and liked the same music (probably something really edgy like Foreigner) and we went to his room to play records and gossip about school. I don't remember there being anything romantic afoot, more that we were finally on the same page and had lots to say, but I think his dad threw open the door we'd closed for privacy and saw us lounging on his bed and freaked out, saying the door had to stay open and why couldn't we turn off that infernal racket and come join the party. We were both a little puzzled, realizing we'd been told to interact for years but now that we were, it was suspicious. And I think we laughed about this a bit.
I don't remember seeing them after that, but I bet I'm wrong. But, of course, once all the kids were older, we weren't as likely to be all together at these parties.
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2 comments:
Hilarious. I was the same way, although my occasion of choice for putting my nose in a book was family vacations when we'd spend hours in the car driving all over the wilderness. My dad would always be telling me to "look at the beautiful scenery!" (which I did appreciate, but not so much that it kept me from returning right away to my V.C. Andrews book). ;-)
Maia is the tween with her nose buried in her book. Even if there are kids her age to hang out with, she'd rather lose herself to whatever book she's reading! Sorry I've not been keeping up w/your blog, but now will be back on following your writing!
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