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| Clubhouse pool where sunshine abounds |
I'm having too much fun at the pool this summer, meeting new neighbors, splashing with the kids, but most of the time I mind my own business...swim my laps, then quietly drive away in
Gracie the Golf Cart. But the day my Aunt Eunice joined me poolside was a day to be reckoned with. I didn't have any choice; she just showed up at my front door.
"Hey, Sha-ren! I just got back from Florida and thought I'd stop by before I drive home to Sumter," she announced as she dropped her large satchel on my freshly swiffered floor.
"Wow, Auntie, you look so--tan!" I said.
"Thanks, darlin'. I went on a long cruise with
Betty White," she said, then looked me up and down. "What are ya doin' in that bathing suit?"
"Oh, I'm a
swimmer now! Every day. An hour of laps," I bragged.
Eunice picked up her satchel that looked at least fifty years old. "I'll go change in the bedroom; I want to swim too!"
What could I say? She zumba-ed with me,
once. So why couldn't she swim with me,
once?
I think I looked quite matronly in my pink flowered one-piece, but
I've become fearless in my sixties, not allowing a slight overgrown belly keep me from splashing my summer away. But Aunt Eunice was downright challenging. I didn't know they made swim suits that...well...
flowing.
We arrived at the pool at eleven o'clock, early enough to pick my favorite spot in the corner next to the ladder where I can easily slide in the pool unnoticed and begin my routine. But that wasn't good enough for Eunice. "Let's sit right in the middle of the action. I love making new friends," she said as she threw her towel over the lounge, then strutted her stuff over to the deep end.
I started to warn Eunice that she was going in the deep end, but it was too late. She jumped in, curling her plumpy body into a cannon ball. The kids didn't see her coming, but their mothers did. As she hit the water with the largest splash the clubhouse pool has ever witnessed, the mother of three yelled as Eunice came up for air, "Lady! What do you think you are doing? No diving allowed! And you got my new summer reading book wet!"
"Darlin', that's no dive...that's a
cannon-ball!" Eunice corrected as she dog-paddled to the other end of the pool where the kids were splashing.
"Don't worry," I apologized to the mother whom I had just met a few days before, "she'll be out of the pool in no time; she's too old to last more than ten minutes." The mother turned and gave me a dirty look after Aunt Eunice's third cannon-ball. In the meantime, her kids were laughing and carrying on while Eunice taught them how to cannon-ball.
An hour later, still waiting for Aunt Eunice to slow down,
I learned a few things about getting older. One, you can still swim, dog-paddle, and cannon ball non-stop for an hour or more. Two, after you teach the mother's children how to maneuver a mean cannon-ball, she will be your friend forever. Why? Because perfectly coiffed mom didn't have to get in the pool and get her hair wet.
Too soon, Aunt Eunice was on her way home to Sumter, but promised to return for another day of cannon-balling with her new friends. Guess there will be a
second time after all. *smile*
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Aunt Eunice
Miss South Carolina 1946
(notice the resemblance) |
Aunt Eunice has a blog at:
www.sharonleaf.com
