By Lorry Myers
I could tell when my city cousin climbed into our station wagon that she didn’t want to come. All the way home Colleen complained about the crowded car and our “dinky” little town. When we arrived at our rambling two-story house, my cousin whined about me sharing a room with my sister and the fact that my bedroom didn’t have a door. “Who doesn’t have a door on their bedroom?” this snarky, pre-teen girl declared.
“Nobody, that’s who.”
Across the street from my childhood home that had the bedroom without a door, was a drainage ditch that nature had turned into the Grand Canyon. The deep ravine was full of crevices and gullies, snake holes and mud holes.
It was our favorite place to play.
Colleen protested when she found out we were going outside and not sitting inside watching TV. When Mom told us to put on a coat, Colleen stomped back to her suitcase and pulled out a white sweater. I told her that a white sweater wasn’t a good idea, but she just looked me up and down and said, “I don’t care about white after Labor Day.”
What did that have to do with anything?
Across the street my brother, Greg, nimbly climbed down the well-worn path to the bottom of the drainage ditch. I’d changed into an old pair of my brother’s canvas shoes, worn and faded from washing and wearing. Colleen was appalled, telling me that nobody wore hand me down shoes.
Nobody.
It was then that I looked down at my shoes that weren’t mine. My coat was my sister’s and my brother was wearing pants that showed his ankles. I turned back to that old two-story house, the house with the bedroom without a door, and began to feel the weight of my cousin’s words changing me into someone I didn’t know I was. That’s when Colleen’s city shoes skated out from underneath her and she ungracefully slid down to the bottom of the ditch. She wasn’t hurt but started crying anyway, and when she tried to stand, her foot stuck in the muck and Colleen fell forward, face down in the mud.
So much for that white sweater.
My brother and I had to pull her out of that ditch, screaming and sputtering unkindness. By the time we got her back to the house, Greg and I were over it. My mother looked at us and promptly told Colleen that she needed a bath, and it was a shame about her white sweater.
That started the crying all over again.
For the complete column, see this week’s edition of the Centralia Fireside Guard
