and you wait...and wait...and wait

It's a hot summer day in Utah. And what would any normal three or four year old want to do? Right! Play in the sprinklers on Grandma's big back lawn. I'd better back up a bit and give you a little background as to why I'm at Grandma's.

Right after my parents were married, they moved into my Grandma Knapp's basement apartment. But they soon outgrew that little apartment when my two older sisters were born. They purchased their first home where two years later I was born. It was soon after that that my mother had a massive heart attack. Unable to take care of her young family we moved back to the little apartment where my grandma and Mom's teenage sister could help out. That is where I lived for the first five years of my life.

Now back to those hot summer days in Salt Lake. Like all children we loved to play in the water. But for us, this was the process: go into the basement laundry room, drag out the large laundry tubs to the back yard, fill up the tubs with water from the hose, and wait...and wait... and wait for the sun to heat up the water. We would stick our toes into the water every few minutes and assure our mom that it was warm enough. But usually it was well into late afternoon before she was satisfied that we wouldn't get pneumonia by playing in too cold of water.

While we played in the WARM water, Mom would lay out and sunbathe in her super modest bathing suit which was more like a short dress. But even as well covered as she was, there was no way she would lay out on the lawn exposed to the view of the neighbors. So we had a "sun tent" which was like a four-sided tent with no roof. She would set her chair in there, prop open the "door" side of the tent so she could watch us, and enjoy the sun.

Such was a typical hot day in my young life. And I guess my mom was right about the necessity of playing only in warm water, because I never did get pneumonia.