At any rate, we ended up on the U.S. side of Niagara Falls one way or another. There is a boat there called The Maid of the Mist (or maybe it was The Maid in the Mist?) that gave tourists up-close tours of the falls.
We took one of those tours during that long-ago summer. The clerk who sold us our tickets asked how old I was. Children younger than 11 or 12 weren't charged as much as those who were older. Mom and Dad could have easily rounded down my age by just a few months and saved some money.
I would have vehemently protested later on, of course. When you're so close to being a teenager, every month, every day counts. ;) They didn't. We paid the adult fare for me.
I don't even remember talking about it very much with them, other than Mom saying something about how some families would have claimed that I was just a little younger in order to save a few dollars. Other parents could run their families in whatever way they saw fit (barring abuse or neglect, of course.) It didn't mean that we would join them.
That's just the way it was for us.
Even now, I think of us as the norm and am a little surprised to hear stories of those who grew up with other rules. But I wouldn't be surprised to learn that everyone else is thinking the same thing . I'm sure more than a few acquaintances have wondered about our home-schooling, or why we didn't have processed food or white sugar in the house for so many years, or how Mom and Dad could allow Jeni to move in us with back when she and Jesse were still dating and she became abruptly homeless.
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5 comments:
People always think my 16 year old brother is younger than he really is. Lots of times he could have gotten into places like the fair for less; but he didn't!:):)
"abruptly homeless."
once again, what a great use of words. it adds so much to the idea of homelessness.
i think that trip to Niagara was at the end of a week of vacation, where while we took in a few church services, we mostly did fun things, like go to the top of the CN Tower, and watch a baseball game at the Bluejays stadium, and see the falls at Niagara. i'm thinking that was the vacation where we explored the touristy parts of Toronto, after many trips there just for church stuff.
if my memory is holding true ... they say, in research i read recently, that we re-form our memories each time we remember them, and in the end we are convinced of things that never happened. :D wow! that would make for some great fiction writing ...
I'd love to hear more stories about your family, Laura. Have you ever thought about starting a new blog about them?
"once again, what a great use of words. it adds so much to the idea of homelessness."
Thank you.
And I think you're right about that trip, Mom. I now vaguely remember the baseball game and exploring the underground mall in the business district of Toronto.
I like this story. It's so easy to teach our kids about being honest and then when we're faced with a situation like that, we push the limits to suit us and don't even realize that those lessons teach our kids more than all the words we say. It's about integrity.
So funny that you guys had limited sugar in your childhood. We didn't let our first child have much either and people thought we were on crack. They just couldn't stand a little child who wasn't allowed to eat a cookie but could eat a cracker!!??
I love Tammy's comment about memories being re-formed each time we remember them. That's very interesting and I think we can all see the truth in that.
"We didn't let our first child have much either and people thought we were on crack. "
Did you let your younger kids have more sugar?
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