Mom's memory, written in 1995

The silly, 4 legged girl is me at 20. I am legally an adult but have yet to grow up. The second set of legs belongs to my older sister, Barbara. We are spending a week at my folk's summer place on Cape Cod.

Barb and I are like kids let out of school. Her moody husband is at work in the city and will be down on the weekend. He doesn't approve of me; I make Barbara laugh too much. Our eldest sister, the serious one, is here also, being sensitive and pensive, floating around the edges of our hilarity, just one beat behind. Were we wicked to be so slam-bang fast with the comeback or were we pushng away her persistent melancholy?

A heavenly 5 days without the complications of men ( they do change the equation, don't they) and then the 3 guys show up on Friday night: Barb's husband and Beverly's beau and my beau.

The sleeping arrangements were that we 3 girls would share one bedroom and, on the other side of a wall that went up almost to the ceiling, the three guys. I sat on my bed and slid my feet under the covers and my foot touched something cool and smooth. I screamed and jumped out of that bed like my feet were on fire. My sister Barbara was falling down laughing. She had put a lightbulb under the covers. I thought it was a snake.

After a long laughing while, we quieted down and the house breathed in silence. Someone on the other side of the wall broke wind. This awful noise was referred to, in our family, as a pardon - me noise and was not done by ladies. Barbara and I grabbed each other and covered our mouths in gleeful shock. Then another explosion, different tone, different timbre, rolled over the top of the wall.

Now a third report, small and high pitched, tooted out, Barb and I were hysterical.The contest became a concert in three parts. It was like the end of the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, when the spaceship communicates with earthlings in musical blasts. All the while not a word was spoken. By the time the guys ran out of gas, we were literally worn out with laughter.

I'm glad I was silly and carefree and heedless of time's passing. I'm glad Barb and I wrung every bit of good out of every moment we had together. If she were alive now, we would still be driving our husbands crazy with our laughter.