Gould Old Days

Dear Mom,

I'm so glad I scanned all of those old pics at Thanksgiving! It's making the blog so much fun. I know you were amazed at how fast I was able to do it too.

Anyway, the new year always makes me think about Uncle Tom, Aunt Connie and Tasha. The tradition of them staying with us when they made their annual "return to Greensboro" went back to when we lived at the farm, when we called the guest bedroom "Aunt Connie's room." I think the story was that Uncle Tom tried to make her camp or stay somewhere that was just uncomfortable, so he brought her to the house, and you put her up.

Tasha was really kind of like a cousin to us. I'd need Aunt Connie or Aunt Carole to verify, but I am pretty sure this pic is (left to right) Tasha, Patrick, Lynsley, Hal and Leigh Ann.

I love this photo of you two couples having a great time together.

And here's the Greensboro gang headed for a boys' night out. 

Uncle Tom always amused himself by getting back to his "redneck roots," since he was what you would have called an FSU School of Business "grad made good," serving as CEO of several large department stores and retiring from Younkers, which had led them to Des Moines and was their last of many moves. 

Here he is with a can of Spam and a bottle of Dom, a study in contrasts! 

 
Tasha would play dress-up and other games with us, and we'd all sleep in Leigh Ann's room, with one of us on that crappy roll-away bed, which always collapsed.


Once or twice, they came in the summer, and she joined us one year for Centenary Camp. (Wish we still had these vintage t-shirts!)

But mostly they'd come between Christmas and New Year's, and y'all would have a party with fireworks in the back yard around the pool...then Dad would to bleach the concrete to get rid of the marks.

Aunt Connie was a little stricter than you were in some ways. I remember she wouldn't let Tasha eat candy when we went to the movies at the Northwood Mall...but Tasha had a broken arm, so she just hid the candy in her sling! I also remember going to the bathroom at Kittrell's (now the West End) and asking Tasha what in the world she was doing to the toilet seat. She was covering it with paper before she sat down. I'd never seen such a thing!

You and Aunt Connie continued to be "soul sisters" after your divorces. (And of course Dad has stayed in touch with Tom, as we did go with him to the house in Montana in 2005.) But the best was in 2006, when Aunt Tillie let us use Seabrook, her beach house outside of Charleston, for a weekend with Connie and Tasha.

I hate it that we didn't make it to Tasha and Walter's wedding a couple of years ago. It seems like Leigh Ann was already taking you somewhere the weekend before. But it would have been extra-special to see them.

Maybe Leigh Annie and I will get together again with them. You would like that, wouldn't you? You'd be proud that we had Aunt Connie on our "must call immediately" list when you died, and I know you were both glad to have such two real quality visits while you were sick -- with Chef Lyns waiting on you two hand and foot for the first one!

Saudade,

Lynsley