Sepia Saturday #234: Wading

Here we are, my Dad and I -  up to our ankles in water! I guess that's a good enough match for the prompt this week. My Dad was not exactly in his milieu at the beach.  More comfortable in a suit and tie than bathing trunks, he'd have been far happier with a glass of whiskey in his hand than with the inner tube we're carrying here. From his determined look,  it must have been close to cocktail hour.

Dad never drank before 5 o'clock; that was a hard and fast rule. I have memories of sitting around with him in the kitchen on a Saturday waiting for the hands of the clock to reach 5 so that cocktail hour was ON. I would assist by getting the ice cube tray out of the freezer and putting a few cubes in a glass for him. We didn't just sit and watch the clock in silence; he talked and talked and talked while waiting. Dad was never at a loss for words which I'm sure was a blessing for all of us. He served in both World Wars and if he'd been the silent type and bottled up his emotions,  he might have ended up in the "nut house" as we used to call it. How politically incorrect can you get? The alcohol was palliative (I think in retrospect) and he controlled his consumption.

Most of our old family pictures have my Dad's white ink writing on the front with the date recorded and sometimes the place. Nothing noted on this one, but I'll guess about 1950 from the size of me. Oddly I have few memories of "playing" with my Dad at the beach so this is a very special photo. My beach day memories are of my mother, my sister and myself, who are the main players in the summertime stage play in my head. Mosquitos, fish flies and horse flies are the secondary characters. The whole memory is overlaid with snippets recalled of sun burns slathered with butter or lard to ease the pain; baking powder paste plastered on our bites; skinned knees with scabs we weren't to pick; slivers in our hands from swinging on the wooden fences; wet wool bathing suits scratchy, stretched to the limit by entrapped sand and the ambrosial smell of vintage cooking oil wafting over the "fish and chips" counter while we waited for our weekly treat of skinny french fries, limp with grease, soaked with white vinegar, loaded with salt and served in a newspaper cone. Such happy days!

Jill, Eilleen, Helen

Wade on over to Sepia Saturday for more stories.