These Are The Good Old Days

This one's for Mom...

Back when my mother was post-high school, pre-married, she spent many summers here in Dennis with friends from Norwood. Her friend Nancy figures prominently in these stories, and it's a side of my mother that is fascinating to us. A wild, carefree, barely getting out of scrapes mother. And she is having such a good time remembering these stories, and navigating these back roads, and my sisters and I are just drinking it in. My mother rarely, if ever, drinks anymore, but back in these days, homemade screech, card games, and dancing on tables were a standard part of the mix.

What's so enjoyable is seeing how joyful my mother is retelling these stories. Stories about Nancy running down Rt. 28 with her bikini top nearly flying off, stories about musical trivia at the Improper Bostonian, and proving the "one tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor" adage, stories about late night card games in a cul de sac where four out of six houses were rented by Norwood folks, and a trashcan of "screech" (whatever you had, it went in the barrel). But really, these stories are less about the booze (although the boozy bits are funny), and really about the friendships and the bonds, and, well, the joy.

So, Mom is really enjoying her time down here. And we're enjoying the memories, too.



Anticipation - Carly Simon