When I was about 7 or 8, my mother got a call from my grandmother one morning. Seems Grandmother had been invited by a friend to visit, and needed a ride. Now, in those days, Mom didn’t work, so technically, there was no stopping her from being Grandmother’s chauffeur. But it was summer and there was no school; and what would she do about my younger sister and I?
“Bring the children along,” said Grandmother. “My friend lives on a horse farm. They’ll love it.”
Naturally, I was quite excited. A horse farm! Maybe we could go riding! Better than a hot day in the city, that’s for sure. So, we piled in the car, and picked up Grandmother, and off we went.
When we got there, we found that it was indeed a horse farm, but Grandmother’s friend had no intention of letting children into the barn or near the paddocks. In fact, she had no intention of doing anything other than having a nice, ladylike, tea party in the farmhouse. My sister didn’t seem to mind; finally, instead of with her dolls, she was a guest at a real, live tea party with other ladies. But it got boring for me real fast. Mom noticed.
“Come on,” Mom said to me. She excused herself and me from the tea party, and we went outside. Mom took me over to the horse paddocks, and we leaned over the fence to meet the horses. We gathered the nice green grass from outside the fence, and the horses ate it from our hands.
When we tired of that, we went wandering around the property. There was a small creek that meandered its way through part of it, and Mom and I went to investigate. There were little fish in the creek, and water bugs scooting around on the surface. “How many can you catch?” asked Mom. “Bet I can catch more than you.” So, off with shoes and socks, and Mom hiked her skirt and we waded in. I don’t remember who caught more bugs, but I do remember a lot of laughter as we tried.
One of the nicest memories I have of my Mom–the long-ago day when she rescued me from a boring tea party and and we met the horses and tried to catch water bugs.