Summer Memories (In the Beginning) - Southampton
The newspaper headlines read, “ Quick-witted lady saves baby from drowning! ” That’s how the headline could have read, but it didn’t. In fact, there was no such headline, only a figment of my imagination! Here’s the rest of the story… When I was a baby, my parents’ family had a cottage in Southampton . We used to go there every summer. My older sister, Marion , who is 12 years older than me, was assigned the “ delicate ” task, by my mother, of looking after “ Baby Gary ”. A task that she wasn’t particularly fond of. It cramped her style with the “ boys” on the peer. There was a long peer in Southampton that cottage dwellers used to “ promenade ” on. My sister was one of them ( remember, the boys ). The peer is where Marion used to take me, to “ show me off ”? My brother, Chuck , 10 years older than me, used to “ tag ” along with her. Perhaps it was just to annoy her. Anyway, on one of these trips along the peer, they hatched plan to “ get rid of the BABY ” ( me ). I gu...