So it’s not Friday…. Oh well. I don’t really have time to write a blog post because we just got the internet up and running. I have a billion emails to answer. But in my inbox, I found a ready made blog post written for me by my mom, knowing that I’d need something to post. Go Mom!! P.S. No baby yet. Sigh. Hopefully soon… And thank you everyone for continuing to vote for me while I didn’t have the internet. You guys rock, I’m number 2 now!!!!! Please continue voting 🙂
A post from my Mom:
People don’t tend to remember much from very early childhood. If something traumatic happens though, memories tend to stick from a very early age. My first memory comes from an ill-fated boat ride about age two.
Since Sheri has no internet for a bit due to her recent move, I thought I might help out a bit and give her something to post. She has her flashback Fridays, so this is a flash way, way back Friday post. Long before Sheri ever existed, her mother was once a little girl. And since I now have a cruise blog it does seem fitting that my earliest memory involves a boat.
One day we set out for a ride in my father’s boat. He had a fairly small one, about 16 feet long or so. We had quite a few people in that little boat. In addition to my parents and I, we had my sisters, one a couple years older than me, and the other just a baby. Also an aunt with baby cousin came along on that trip.
Apparently, this boat previously had a hole in it, which had been patched. My mother envisioned a tiny hole, my father later said it had actually been about the size of a dinner plate. Had my mother known that in advance, probably none of us would have set out in that boat that day.
Somewhere along the line the patch broke free. The boat flipped over and dumped everyone into the water. My mother lost her purse. It sank to the bottom of the lake. A tragedy we heard about many times throughout childhood. As a child I did not see a lost purse as that awful, but as an adult, I realize a woman’s purse is pretty much her lifeline. Everything is in that purse, her identity, keys to everything she ever needs to open, her money and credit cards. It contains stuff of everyday life which one cannot do without.
My mother, aunt, and the babies floated away from the boat. I only know they were there from other people’s stories. My personal memory involves only my father and older sister. We stayed with the boat. My sister climbed out of the water and sat top of what was once the bottom of the overturned boat. My father and I clung to the side of the boat, still in the water.
My sister and I wore dresses that matched in style, but not in color. I think mine was blue and hers lavender. Over that we wore bright orange life jackets, the only color life jackets came in way back then. Probably a good thing we all had them on that day.
I tried to climb up on top of the bottom of the boat. I wanted to sit up there with my sister. My little 2-year-old arms and legs just could not manage it though, so in the water I stayed clinging to the side of the boat with my dad. I think I even asked him to put me up there, but he didn’t, probably afraid I would just fall off. Later my sister said she had not felt any happier up there than I did in the water. She was wet and cold.
Eventually a coast guard boat came to rescue us. They wrapped me in a scratchy wool blanket and stuffed me in a dark bunk below deck, so all I remember about that boat is lying in a dark room for what seemed like a very long time, but probably really wasn’t.
My sister got to go up on deck and see everything that went on. Once again she got to be on top of things, while I stayed down below. They scooped my mother, aunt and the babies out of the water too, probably before rescuing us. I don’t know where they all went on the Coast Guard boat though. Probably up on deck. Sigh.
Mommy Adventures 