I could not believe my husband didn't know about how old his cousins were, what they were doing, that he'd sometimes not talked to them in years and had no idea how they were.

Oh, god, this is me. But I have an assload of first cousins, and second cousins are mostly like first cousins, so they make it a metric buttload.

I can tell you who's had kids, and what country most of them are in, but the ones I can give you precise ages on are the ones I've lived with, pretty much. And I'll be damned if I can keep up with even their lives.

Ten years old, let's see.

There were no other kids in my neighborhood because everyone was near my parents' age (most of them were my dad's brothers and sisters), and back then children born to 38-year-old mothers and 41-year-old fathers were unusual enough to remark upon. So I played by myself, which suited me fine.

I'd go outside in the morning before the summer heat got excessive and run barefoot around the yard. My feet loved the cool, dewy grass best but were strong and calloused enough to run across the gravel drive without hesitation. I had a bicycle that was a racehorse and a swingset that served as every spaceship imaginable.

Later I'd come inside and sit in front of the window air conditioner in the dining nook and let the cold air blow across my face while I read. I'd just fallen in love with the Chronicles of Narnia. I read them over and over again, along with National Geographics and every Time Life science book the local library had. Cave men and astronomy were my favorite topics. Sometimes I read whatever my mom brought from the library--lots of Catherine Cookson, Belva Plain, and Eugenia Price.

If Dad was on evening or night shift, he'd work in the garden in the morning, and bring in a big, ripe watermelon, still dusty from the red clay it grew in, and set it on the floor by the air conditioner. After lunch Dad would cut the watermelon into quarters and we'd go on the porch and eat it, spitting the seeds into the azalea bushes. I was never any good at distance seed-spitting, but I loved the sweet, bright flavor of the melons. Even now nothing tastes more like summer. And when we were done it was my privilege to get out the hose and rinse away the sticky juice, and no one cared how wet I got.

After supper when the sun sank and the heat waned, I'd go outside again, to ride more Triple Crown races on my bicycle or to pretend I was an Indian child as I ran through the field above the garden. Spare beanpoles made teepee frames, or, broken in half, light sabers or swords as my fantasy demanded. I looked with longing at the woods behind the house, but they were forbidden in the summer, when water moccasins might lurk in the slow, muddy creek. When it grew too dark, I came inside to rejoin my books until bedtime came.

I'm close to my first cousins, but I only know a few of the seconds.

the hard shell on ice cream! GOD I loved that about summer.

My summers were about the local swimming pool which was at the end of the block of my street. We'd get there at 12:45 when they opened for free swim and stay until 4:55 when they kicked us out. We'd race home, gobble dinner. If we could convince mom to go back with us, we'd go for family swim at 6:00, if not we'd go back for free swim at 7:00 and stay until they closed at 8:25.

That was my summer schedule for the most part.

When you were a member at the local pool, they'd give you a plastic or metal tag with a number on it. All the kids had theirs sewn onto their suits lest they lose them.

I miss that pool, the caltech pool is gorgeous and much fun. I just don't have the same wherewithal to do nothing all day.

I'm actually going to be staying with a third or so cousin, mmph times removed for the wedding. Great-greats were brothers or something.

But actually, she found us when she went to college 30 years ago and saw my mom's full name in a LWV thing (uncommon enough name.) Funny thing is, her branch of the family was settled not 100 miles from my mother's in MN. And yet it took leaving there and going all the way to NM to find lost family.

Close to your cousins? No. My family is estrang-o-matic. I'm closer to almost everyone here than most of my blood. I have tried to establish...something with some of them, but it didn't take.

the hard shell on ice cream! GOD I loved that about summer.

I KNOW!!

My funny story involves a dad's cousin's son, my dancing days and yelling "PEANUTHEAD!" at an inappropriate moment.

Make of that what you will.

Most of my cousins are so much older than me that we were never super close, and since my dad was one of 9 kids and my mom one of 6, I have a lot of them. If I think about it hard enough, I can name all my cousins, but not their spouses and kids.

I could not believe my husband didn't know about how old his cousins were, what they were doing, that he'd sometimes not talked to them in years and had no idea how they were.

Oh, god, this is me. But I have an assload of first cousins, and second cousins are mostly like first cousins, so they make it a metric buttload.

I have one cousin, and I couldn't tell you where she is or what she's doing. She's a year older than my sister, I know that much.

a night spent catching fireflies

I remember doing this (and smearing them on the patio if we didn't have a jar), even though we didn't get paid for it.

Shorewood was a relatively new village while I was growing up. Our subdivision was being carved out of the cornfield street by street (our street was the second of four that were put up at about the same time), and the whole town was about a mile from north (our end of town) to south (where the first strip mall went up when I was about 8 or so). That strip of stores had the quickie mart, liquor store, drug store (with post office inside), hardware store, and later a few restaurants, as well as the Tasty Freeze ice cream place (hardshell chocolate topping on a vanilla cone was always my favorite!) and library. For years, that was it for any retail in town--the McDonalds didn't open until I was in college, even though I-55 ran just east of town.

Now, it's a completely different story. Mom's family farm (established in 1862) a few miles west of town was sold off to the developers two years ago, and my uncle was the last one east of the railroad tracks to sell. Every time I drive through town, I have no clue where I am since there are no longer any familiar landmarks. The aunt and uncle who used to live next to the farm moved only four blocks from where I grew up, and when I went to their house the first time, I was blown away by how much everything had changed. Even our street had some houses that had been changed from the standard ranch to a 2-story, and all the trees that were brand new when I was growing up had, of course, gotten much bigger!