So Many Great Memories

Thursday May 7, 1992

Up feeling a wee bit better but my belly is still tender with lots of gas. Frank and I have lunch at Carl's Jr. He gives me a list and I'm off to 1000 Oaks to buy tile for the bathrooms of the rental house. I'm not able to get everything I need so off to Van Nuys for the rest. I would love to stop and see Joan but am pressed for time. I do some shopping and make a great meatloaf dinner.

We relax at home tonight. I call Joan Larson. We have a good talk. She wants to get together and hold hands and talk about how lucky we are even though we have cancer. I agree! We are very lucky. We have had really great lives. So many great memories.

One of the reasons I enjoy publishing this blog is that it stirs up memories. I have great memories too, just like Mom and Joan. My life growing up in the Lemona house (pictured above) which was across the street from Joan and Hal Larson was of a simpler time, where we would play outside with our friends, ride bikes, roller skate, play handball against the garage door, play hide-and-go-seek or play a board game. We didn't have much money for stuff. We couldn't afford a Barbie doll or many toys, but I did love to read and Mom took Gary and I to the library to check out 10 books every week. We dug a fort in the backyard one summer, and climbed the huge birch tree in our front yard. I spent most summers swimming next door in the Gangl's pool, and once a week Mom and her friend Donna would load up the kids in our Pontiac station wagon and take us to Santa Monica Beach where we swam in the surf and went body-surfing. We got sunburned and came home covered in sand. I enjoy reading about Mom's childhood which was much poorer than mine. In the summertime we also spent a week camping at Leo Carrillo Beach in Ventura County, while our dads stayed home and worked. On the weekend they joined us at the campground.

My boys have a much different childhood with every electronic gadget, hundreds of video games, and access to any movie they want to watch. There is very little playing outside with friends. I hope when they look back on their childhood it with fond memories. We have tried to give them adventures as they have grown, camping, boating, jetskiing, riding ATVs in the sand dunes or the mountains, and travels all over Canada and the United States, including Alaska.