Too Curious?

This is the final installment of THE SLICE OF LIFE CHALLENGE 2015.  Each year during the month of March teachers and students are invited to write daily, post and comment on at least three other participants offerings.  Every year, I am inspired and motivated to write.  I wouldn't miss it.  Here is my SOL 2015, #31:

Holding my mother's hand, I watched my brother and sister dash for the car, leaving us behind.  In no hurry my mother walking a slow pace along the manicured lawn, remarked about the colors and beauty of the flower beds. We arrived at the car, my brother and sister hunched in the back seat urging, "Hurry Ma, let's get outta here!"

Before that,  my mother shading her eyes from the sun, pressed her nose into the window pane of a large building. There was something going on in there.  Adults in fancy dress milled in and out of the ornate threshold.

Before that, my mother stopped the car in the parking lot and announced that, "We are going to see how the other half lives."

Before that, we saw the bell boys who stood outside The Shawmut Inn in their  long pants and jackets adorned with gold braids and brass.  My mother slowed down under the portico.  We all thought she was stopping the car, but instead sped ahead once a young man stepped toward our car.  She opted for another place to park the car.

Before that, my teen-aged sister tried to rub the melted ice cream that dribbled down my front.  The napkin stuck leaving behind little puffs of white on my shorts and shirt. It was a hot day my legs were even sticky.

Before that, we stopped at Garside's Ice Cream and my mother paid for four cones from the change jingling in her small purse.  Through the week she stuck stray coins in there. She used it only on weekend excursions to places like the beach.  She always brought a little money, just in case...

Before that, we drove along the river with the windows rolled down singing.

Before that, we piled into the car in our rubber flip flops, shorts and the coolest shirts we could find because it was much too hot to be stuck in the house and even hotter outside.

Before that, my mother said we were going for a drive. A long summer drive meant all four windows were rolled way down as the cool air chased the heat away. Long summer drives were always a series of expected, yet unexpected events orchestrated by an adventurous, daring woman who was at times a bit too curious for her less adventurous teenagers.  As the story goes, me (the youngest at the time) did not know any better.