No More Pencils, No More Books...

No more shoes, either. Memories of living close to the water in the summertime.

We never got infections. The people “on the mainland” did; cut themselves on a piece of driftwood or something, swallow too much salt water, get a scrape on a rock, it was all over. Call a priest, run to a hospital, get an ambulance; little Bobby, precious Muffy has been hurt. We’d sit there laughing at the sissies.

That’s cuz we took our shoes off at the end of school and didn’t put them back on until the start of school in the fall. Except for church, of course.

We got cuts, scrapes, we slipped on rocks when we didn’t see the seaweed (but far less than the outsiders). When we swam underwater, we got a lot of salt water in us. But we not only survived, but we built up an immunity the others (“them”) didn’t have. They were too busy keeping clean. Sissies.

When the beach is only slightly more than a block away, and private to boot, you have all the space you want to do anything you want. Including cooking marshmallows over a fire at Thanksgiving and/or Christmas. Just a sort of tradition we had, not unlike burning Christmas trees on July 4th.

Now you can’t even eat without washing your hands with Purell. That’s why we all get the flu. Well, everyone except those who lived near the water.