Our son and DIL and grandson were in Alabama last week for the baptism of our DIL’s niece. I was glad our grandson got to spend time with his only cousin. It was really hot there, though, and between the weather and the politics, Son said he could never live there. I wish our grandson had cousins who lived closer.
I remember summers as the best times to hang out with my cousins. We all lived within 30 miles of each other. As an only child, my cousins were the closest people I had to siblings, and I got to spend weeks in the summers at their various farms. They all lived on farms. They were mainly boys, and I learned how to set gopher traps and set off fire works and play rough and tumble football and baseball. We played and messed around and had a great time. When I was in Middle School and High School I spent summers with a married cousin and she taught me to sew for 4-H.
The other day, Son was filling up his car with gas in Pipestone, MN where many of my cousins lived, and saw a really tall, thin, older blond man filling up his car. He looked like one of my relatives, and after Son introduced himself, it turned out he was one of my cousins, who asked when I was moving back to Minnesota! He lives in Norfolk, NE, and he is going to move back, too, when he retires. I don’t think he still traps gophers.
Where in the US wouldn’t you want to live? If you had cousins, what did you like to do with them? What are some of your favorite summer memories from childhood?
Trail Baboon 
Of all the places I have visited, I think I’d pick Marin County in the San Francisco Bay area as the place I’d like to live. I know there’s no way I could afford to live there, but why let a minor detail like that get in the way?
Happy Birthday, Sherrilee. Hope you have plans for a grand celebration.
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Early dog walk, sale at the hardware store, coupons at Caribou and Bruegger’s, chalk party with the neighborhood kids, lunch with a friend in St. Paul. Glorious day planned!
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Man, you know how to party. Live it up!
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Yes, HB, VS!
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Pink shoe update. Just walking by that house on the parkway and the pink she was still there. So now the mystery is becoming why is the pink shoe still there. Are the owners of the house trying to make a statement? Some kind of performance art?
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Maybe you should write a personals ad for a SPS (single pink shoe) and post it next to the shoe.
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My folks came from families of 5 and 7 children, so I had lots of cousins. Most of them lived fairly near the grandmas, so I saw them whenever visiting. On dad’s side, 3-4 were about my age, all boys, and I got to be Nurse whenever we played army. Mom’s side, they were mostly older, and the ones my age were from far away and rarely visited. I loved those older ones, though, and I remember skating with them, and listening to Elvis and Pat Boone 45s on a little record player on their living room rug.
I’m still in touch by email and FB with some of them, and have visited them in Seattle, panhandle Florida, Box Elder SD (near Black Hills), and of course, Ames IA.
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Wouldn’t mind living back in Half Moon Bay, CA, area, if we could time travel back to the 70s.
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Rise and Shine, Baboons,
Anyone with as many cousins as I have has stories, both wonderful to remember and some painful. At my Mother’s Memorial Service a cousin I had not seen in 30 years reported having 10 grandchildren. She says it is hard to balance all their personalities and antics. Then we looked at each other and said at the same time “How did Grandma do it with 39?” The fun memories were about rnning wild on the farm, peeing anywhere I wanted, bottle-feeding lambs, playing in the hay mow, playing house in the grove, and on and on. My sister and one cousin have a story about fighting with each other.. My sister was babysitting and the cousin went to the cupboard, pulled out a can of mandarin oranges which she opened and started eating them. My sister panicked. Such a thing was forbidden at our house but not at Aunt Donna’s. She tried to take away the oranges. Cousin pulled her long hair. Sister pulled back. It was a scene that brings us to tears of laughter now.
I want to live where I live here. I love it here. After living part time in Arizona where there is no water and unlimited heat I don’t want to be there except for a vacation. The perfect climate of California is ruined by over population. My home state of Iowa is now a third world country politically. Maybe Tuscany, but it is hot there in the summertime.
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Here is the paragraph from The Trailer Court that best answers the Summer question:
“Turned out the original trailer court was full, and the “overflow court” where we landed was a gravel parking lot between CSC’s football and baseball fields. This was Kid Heaven, as the football grandstand was our castle, the baseball dugouts were low enough on one side to be climbed on, and the ticket booths were unlocked – available for a play house, hide-out, and selling stuff. We kids created our own newspaper, played hearts at Doug M.’s converted school bus in the evening, got books from the bi-weekly bookmobile that stopped at the end of the Court. By the third summer I was 12, and had my first jobs: babysitting (heck, my mom was right across the lot), and some ironing in the washhouse.”
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I wouldn’t want to live in Florida. Too hot and muggy. Heck, even XXXpresident Donny can’t live here (just now visiting) year ’round.
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I wouldn’t want to live anywhere it is warmer than where I live now. When I lived in Leadville, Colorado, I loved the temperatures there. Also when I lived in Port Angeles, Seattle and Bellingham Washington, though I did tire of the cloudy months, but I mostly liked the cool temperatures. I was born before WWII, my cousins and sister were born after so I didn’t grow up with them, though I did grow up with my uncle who was only seven years older. I used to spend most of my summers with him and my grandparents, all of them lived on farms where I loved to be and have lots of good memories of. Now I am good friends with three of my cousins, especially the one who lives in Rochester.
Cynthia “Life is a shifting carpet…learn to dance.”
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I agree- I like cool places. Tend to vacation there too ie mountains, sea, northern Europe, Canada, Alaska. Thank goodness I had a lot of cousins (Italian family)who lived close by so they were my playmates and am still close to them tho they live out east. Lots of good memories of barbecues, badminton and family gatherings. Sorry for repeats but word press is driving me crazy, I have to keep changing my password but sometimes it posts after it seemingly denied I existed.
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WP is a problem that is probably influencing the willingness of readers to comment. It certainly does that to me. It is so frstrating. Sometimes I think we should move to Substanck which many newsletter/blogs are doing because of the persistant problems.
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We have a very small family which was saved from going completely extinct by my brothers and my one male cousin. My mom’s sister and her husband had no kids, so I only had cousins on my dad’s side. Neither my youngest cousin nor I had any kids. My cousin Mark, the oncologist beloved by many, had three kids. His middle sister had one relatively late (he’s still a teen). My youngest brother had one and my middle brother had two. We were friendly with our cousins but didn’t see them very often. They lived in Rochester. I don’t see them at all anymore but I would like to. They did come to my mom’s memorial celebration and it was great to see them.
It has to be cool where I live. I can’t stand this heat and humidity. It feels like it’s bearing down on me and I can’t breathe right. My heart really starts to pound. I just can’t take it. So anywhere south of Northfield, MN is out. I think I’d like the northern edge of the northern tier of states, especially Washington or the UP of Michigan, but I’m from Minnesota and I don’t plan to leave. Grand Marais is a little too expensive for me to look at seriously. Duluth or Two Harbors would be ideal and I continue to look at real estate listings in Duluth. I’m getting pretty fussy about what I will live in too, so the search hasn’t been easy. I do have a buyer’s agent in Duluth that is sometimes helpful, other times not so much.
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My Grandfather Boomgaarden had 12 brothers and sisters. My dad had tons of cousins.
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11 cousins for me. Spent time with them growing up, but was never seriously close to any of them. A couple have passed away so now I’m down to nine. I’m really only in contact with three cousins — two simply trading holiday newsletters every year. My cousin Stephen and I are fairly close. He lives in St. Louis.
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I haven’t had a whole lot of contact with the cousins recently and rarely in the past. Quite a few are deceased especially on Dad’s side. He was the youngest of 11. He had a nephew that was only one year younger than he was. I worked with Cousin Jack for a summer but didn’t like it. He was handsome and full of himself. Took the Rolling Stones’ Jumpin’ Jack Flash as his theme song.
Summer activities in Woodlawn Park Moorhead and Island Park Fargo were great.
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alabama may top the list of where i wouldn’t want to live but the south in general could be plugged in
they talk slow for a reason
also indiana, nebraska, oklahoma south dakota and tiajuana
that might be it
i’ll try anywhere else
cousins
dads side fun fargo detroit lakes in the summer with the two brothers that had fun kids my age
had a sister who married into a family who were kind of full of themselves and a family in new mexico who were cool but absent
moms family all questionable kind of weird families but my moms dad raised kids poorly a ego inflated self made north dakota moved to minnesota and started a bridge and road construction company and bought a new cadillac every year kind of guy
not my friend once i turned hippy
favorite memories at detroit lakes with the cousins for weeks on end
leach lake visits were weekends and glad to get away
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Farmers: “we need rain bad”
Same Farmer baling straw and combing oats: “Well don’t rain now!”
My dad had four brothers, but we never had much to do with that side of the family. I really only know two of those cousins.
Mom had four siblings, and that side of the family was always getting together. And that was always a big deal for mom. She grew up with lots of cousins and aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews around and our family did the same thing. But it seems to be a generational thing as the younger ones don’t do it as much. Maybe it’s just because it’s harder as everyone is scattered. My immediate family gets together a lot and those cousins have a good time and just arranged a cousins get together this summer. But they are all over the USA so it’s hard to do.
Being on the home farm, some of the distant cousins talk about how much fun they had out here.
Honestly, I think some of them are making it up.
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PS , we heard some sand hill cranes a couple days ago, and today I saw two of them in flight. They haven’t been around most of the summer. I hope these two stick around a while.
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One of my coworkers is at a family reunion. Her grandmother came from a ND family of 21 children. Imagine how many cousins!
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Late entry – my youngest niece is getting married tomorrow and I spent part of the day helping set up the reception and the evening at a rehearsal dinner.
I only have 2 cousins on Dad’s side. While growing up we lived only 3 blocks apart so we saw them a bunch. One still lives in our hometown but the other one is here in the Cities and my sister and I get together with her every month for lunch/walks.
I had 15 cousins on Mom’s side – over half of them within easy driving distance here in MN. We had big family gatherings for Thanksgiving and Christmas plus many other smaller get togethers. But as many of them married, moved away, and had children & grandchildren, we drifted apart. I still keep in touch with several of them via Facebook. Unfortunately, a couple of local ones have pretty much separated themselves from the rest of us – very little to no contact. And 5 of them have died – 3 of them in their 60s.
There are a whole bunch of places I wouldn’t want to live – the Deep South, Florida, California, Arizona – some because they are too hot, too dry (no lakes, not many trees), or don’t care for their politics. I have lived my whole life in MN and despite hot, muggy summers, I can’t imagine living anywhere else.
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I remember one summer we went on a road trip to South Dakota to visit my mother’s parents. My aunt and cousin came too. My grandparents’ house was not big, so it was a pretty full house. No indoor plumbing, unless you count the pump next to the kitchen sink. It was a fun trip overall, though my sister had to go to an ER after falling and impaling her knee on something sharp – a piece of wood, I think. We all had scars from those kinds of mishaps.
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