My brother Randy passed two years ago on June 6th. 2009. Last year I told about what happened and how God took care of Randy and I during that time. Now I would like to share some parts of our childhood that were a little different from probably your childhood. But, I look at them as experiences that made us who and what we are inside.
Our Dad, was unusual in some ways. He decided to take me out of school for one year and travel. He said I would learn more in that year than I would learn at school. It is true, I remember very vividly things that happened that year and I can't tell you my high school teacher's names. He sold two houses he had bought in La Mesa, California and decided we would travel. His first idea was he had seen a sail boat in the harbor and wanted to buy it. He was a seaman, he had been in the Navy. We went to see this boat. This was not a little boat. It was big. We went inside and saw the living quarters. They were very nice and everyone would have their own sleeping quarters. The kitchen and front part were beautiful. Did I mention it was a very big boat. My parents came home, driving in the car my mother started getting funny about it and asked questions like, where are we going with this boat?? and why are we going with this boat?? the questions got worse like are you going to kill us in this boat?? It was not going well. Women are like that. They see another side of it. Dad, we will go places we have never seen before. Mom, yeah, if we get there in one piece. What about storms at sea?? Dad, no answer. Mom, what if something happened to the children.?? Dad, no answer. Needless to say you can see the way it was going, we did not buy the boat. I was kind of glad because frankly, it was scary on the boat, it moved sideways and up and down. I wasn't happy about that either.
A few days latter, a camping trailer pulled up into the yard. It was a fairly nice trailer. It had a bathroom, kitchen and could sleep six, and it did not move up and down and sideways. I could handle this. I went into the house and brought my beautiful tea set from my aunt Kay and put it in the trailer. That was something that was definitely going. It took several days to pack up and Mom bought a lot of can goods and such. The refrigerator even had a freezer, so we filled that up. The reason we had so much food is we were going into Mexico first and we would not drink their water or eat their food. We had gone into Mexico on several day trips and had bad experiences. Actually, to this day that is what I do if I go there. It's instilled.
This is the first time we traveled further into Mexico. We followed the highway that went down the Pacific Ocean. Sometimes we could see the ocean and sometime we couldn't. Dad had at first thought of traveling all the way down Mexico, but had changed, or had his mind changed by my mother, I don't know which.
I remember after traveling for several days we finally stopped and stayed near the ocean. There was no one around us. Actually, Dad became a little nervous, because he realized we looked pretty rich compared to Mexico standards and stated worrying that we might be robbed or something. We stayed here for a while and I made friends with a little Mexican boy, but we could hardly say anything to each other. We didn't understand each other. but we had fun swimming in the ocean. I look back at how much freedom we had as kids compared to others. But I would play in or near the ocean all day long. I learned to get on a board or inner tube and come in on a wave. I didn't know you call it surfing. When I think about how I would go into the high waves and swim back it makes me shutter even today. I would have never let my kids do that at my age. I was somewhere near eight. I still enjoy swimming and try to swim different places, just so I can say I swam there. I have driven my husband nuts over this.
We finally left there and stayed somewhere near a bay, I could not tell you the name of the bay. In the center of the bay was a platform, and of course the idea was to swim to the platform. I never thought about I was swimming in deep water. I still like to swim in deep water, if it is fairly clean. It really is amazing they let me do this day after day. The thing I remember most was one day there was something swimming in the water with me. It was large with two eyes, it was flat with two large flaps on each side. It did not harm me and swam with me quite a way. My Dad, did see it and started calling me to come in. I came in wondering what he was all upset about. He said it was a large sting ray and we left the next day. I really had no concept of this until one day a few years ago we went to Florida and saw one in a sea show. Then I realized what I had been near. They can sting you severely and even kill.
We were done with Mexico and went on with the next leg of the journey.
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