Saturday, August 27, 2011

One time...

... my sister and I, outraged over some perceived injustice from our parents, decided to run away from home. We drew a map of the route to our cousins' house, convinced they would hide us from the grownups and we'd conspire together to get "Out West". We stuffed the map and various and sundry necessary items (probably some pilfered snacks) into the denim knapsacks Mom had made us. The ones with the metal snaps Pop-pop installed at his Shop. Then we set off down the road.

Our house was situated across the street from my grandparents' house. You could look out our front door and into theirs-- although it was a decent distance away. Across a very busy road. A major highway, actually. Loud, fast and busy. Very loud.

And yet, we were still able to clearly hear...

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING???"

Grandmom, standing on her porch, phone in hand already calling Mom, the long curly, old-fashioned cord wrapped around her legs and trailing into the house behind her,

"YOU GET BACK IN THAT HOUSE RIGHT NOW! WHAT WEREYOUTHINKING!!??"

And we skedaddled, hightailed it, skat-skit-lickety-splitfastasyoucan into the back yard and hid in the pine trees by the chicken house.

I will draw a veil over the rest of the afternoon for the sake of my adult dignity.

In retrospect, Grandmom probably saved our lives that day. If that's not to dramatic to say out loud....

8 comments:

Crystal Graydon said...

Wow. I remember planning to run away with Karen a long, long time ago. Apparently, everyone in the house except for me had mistreated her one day, so she asked if I wanted to run away with her. I happily agreed, thinking what a fun adventure it would be to camp out underneath big trees in our neighborhood and color all day. So, naturally, I brought the necessities: crayons and a coloring book in my red "Going to Grandma's" suitcase. Later that day, Karen's plan was discovered by our parents. Obviously, I was too young to comprehend the danger of such an idea--and so it was that Karen got in trouble that night, while I happily got off "scott free." :)

Rebecca Walsh said...

How funny! I never knew this story. Now, would we be the cousins to whom you were intending to go for sanctuary?!

lislynn said...

Awesome story, Crystal :) I cannot imagine Karen pulling something like that, but it's a fun image :)

Rebecca, you know it! Funny thing was, our "map" (we discovered later) left out at least 3/4 of the distance between our two houses :D

Rebecca Walsh said...

That is just too funny! I can only imagine the adventure we would have had if you had managed to show up at our house. :)

Hosanna said...

Lol! I never tried to run away from home, but I know mom tells a story about getting mad at her Grandmother for getting rid of a dog or cat or something; so she decided to run away down the beach a few miles. (When they lived on Cocoa beach.)
I guess walking for a while on the beach made her change her mind.

Susannah Forshey said...

Lis, Rebecca: It was a hot day, and we had begged to go swimming in your pool, but Aunt Marilyn had other plans for the day, so she'd said no. We were so mad....we decided to go on our own. I am pretty sure we wouldn't even have made it past the Cherry Top. :) I have a VIVID image of Gramma on the phone at the door, just as Lisi described, with an angry, incredulous scowl......phoning Mom at the same time she was whipping her hand back and forth, motioning for us to get BACK from the road!

Susannah Forshey said...

P.S. This was TOTALLY Lis' idea. I thought, WOW, this sounds AWESOME. We must be allowed, because LISI said we could go....I don't think I was at all guilty. Just majorly stoked. ;)

lislynn said...

My idea? Huh. I don't remember that part... And weren't you and Sam the ones who were always trying to run away "Out West"? I bet it was YOUR idea...