Old and new memories

Hi neighbors. I am really excited this week because my cousin and her husband and sons are coming to visit from Ohio.

Karen is the youngest of a family of five girls, daughters of my mother's sister. They have lived in Ohio all their lives.

The last time Karen and her family came to visit was two years ago. Things have changed since then for both of us.

Her oldest son is starting college this fall and her youngest son is going to be attending high school as a junior.

She went through the trauma of two teenage sons with driving licenses last year, now she will have to adapt to one living away from home.

I know how she will feel. It's not easy to see a child go out on their own, particularly to a stressful place with many challenges and little spending money.

In most families it's the first time the son or daughter gets to have friends their parents know nothing about. Unfortunately, they often don't really have a choice of who their friends are either. Freshmen may find themselves "bunking" with someone they would never choose to spend time with.

Parents are told that it's all part of the learning experience. Of course, as parents there are some things we don't want our children to learn.

Karen, like me, has sensible children and I know they will be just fine as they each go out on their own.

Over the years I haven't had many opportunities to get to know my cousins in Ohio. We lived in Kansas for 10 years, and I remember one trip to Ohio, made when I was a child. Dad had seen a car on television and he had to have it. It had air conditioning, which was a new "gadget" at the time.

It also had long tail fins and a push-button automatic transmission. The radio worked OK, but the stations had short range and we had to keep changing the stations by pushing buttons as one by one they would fade out.

My brother and I, as all children in those days, were in the back seat. No one wore seat belts because there were not any in the car. We had taken books and games and cards to play as the ride would be a long one.

The most I remember about that ride was always being too cold or too hot depending on which button Dad would push on the air conditioning control. Apparently everything on this car involved pushing a button. Even the door handles were the type where you had to push the button then pull out on the handle to get them to open.

There was a commercial that was playing as we crossed into Ohio. "Skeet-O Go, Skeet-O Go, Skeetos won't bite you no mo!" It seemed really silly to me, but very enlightening. I had no idea there were mosquitoes in the "holy homeland" of Ohio! The idea just seemed unthinkable to me as my mother, born and raised in Ohio, had told me many times what a perfect place it was.

After we got to Ohio, visiting the cousins was fun for me. My brother was a bit bored since all the cousins were girls at the home of Mom's sister where we stayed.

My other aunt had only boys so my brother was happy when they came over.

There are a few other things I remember about that trip. Dad and Uncle Marvin getting one of the cars sideways on a railroad crossing for instance.

They had a flat and parked the car sideways so it would fit between two sets of tracks. For we girls all crowded together in the other car and watching, it was more than just a little scary when a train came by so close the windows rattled in the car.

We were on our way to Aunt Peg's house for a big spaghetti supper. I can remember she actually had made meat balls instead of just crumbling the meat up as Mom always did.

One day we all journeyed to see a huge dam and to visit an elderly relative. I only know that because there are pictures of all of us standing in front of the sign of the dam.

Odd the things we remember from our childhood. I suppose it's a wonder we remember anything at all.

Obviously we all survived our childhoods and went out on our own. It makes comforting sense that our children can survive being on their own too.