Fifty Fridays #9

Summer is definitely sloping into fall here.  The tomatoes are ripening faster than we can pick them.  The apples will soon be ready to eat.  The squirrels are filching all the peanuts that the Stellars jays hide in the shrubbery.  But I thought maybe one last look at summer through the wrong end of the telescope.

Does anyone remember going for Sunday drives?  Our family used to do this almost every Sunday.  It was a way for my mother to get out of the house and see something of the countryside.  Because my dad was 'the telephone man' in the area, he knew so many interesting roads and places to visit. This photo was taken on one of those Sunday drives. 

I wonder who the spontaneous parent was?  Maybe both. I know that inherited those genes - as well as the 'lets go explore the backroads' ones.  Where is this?  It's called Stave Lake and it was formed by a hydro dam.  To me, it seemed way far away in the mountains.  But, really, it isn't.  Then, though, it wasn't well-known and Dad would have found it while driving his big truck around mending the telephone lines.  It was, I'm sure, a hot Sunday afternoon and the water would have been so inviting.  We just stripped down to our underpants and jumped in.  Of course, neither my brother nor I could swim and so Mom would have to get in and keep us afloat.  Although, I'm pretty sure that if she'd dared, she'd have been in the water with us.  She loved to swim.  But times being what they were, even with no one around, I doubt she'd have done it. 

Can you see that my brother has one of his toy vehicles in his hand?   It may have been a boat but was probably a car.  He loved them all and always had one ready to play.  To this day, he loves boats and cars.  I think this photo contains the essence of our lives then: always happy and sunny.

Update on last Friday's photo.  I did find out how much my Dad paid for that house in 1956:  $8,500.  Being a curious sort, I wanted to know what that was in today's money and was stunned to see that it calculated out to about $75,000.  Since this bears no relation to the asking price of the house today, I'm sure there are market forces at work here.