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 guess I was “cramping” their “style”! Their “plan” was to simply “push” me off the end of the peer and let me “Swim/drown”. According to “unreliable sources” (the two miscreants), a “quick-witted lady” stepped in and told them not to do it. Hard to believe, isn’t it!

This is the “story” they told me over the years. I recently asked my other sister, Barb, the “sensible one”, if she knew the truth. She didn’t know, “she said”!

Both my sister and brother were “jokesters”, so I’m not sure if the “story” is “fact” or “fiction”. I betting that it wasn’t true, but…?


Fortunately, a short time after this “incident”, they both lost interest in “torturing” the BABY (me, BABY Gary). Also, shortly after that, I quickly learned how to “swim”!


Unhappily, my brother has since passed away, and my older sister has Alzheimer’s. As a result, I can’t confirm whether or not if the “story” is “fact or fiction” … perhaps, you can decide!


In the meantime, I miss their “tormenting” my “troubled” siblings very much. To the good side, I still have my “sensible” sister, Barb, to ask question to about my “chilling past”.

Here’s to the “good” (troubled) “olde days”!

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