There were no popsicles, water basketball or other games at Aunt Jean\u2019s, so I don\u2019t think our swims ever lasted that long.\u00a0 The appeal was to momentarily soak up the glamour and extravagant privilege.\u00a0 Once I spotted an opened Architectural Digest in the pool house and realized the magazine featured a spread of Aunt Jean\u2019s pool.\u00a0 I leaned over to read it, careful not to let a stray drip of pool water pucker the glossy pages.\u00a0 There was a picture of a young girl sitting on the edge of the gently arcing diving board with her slim legs dangling below.\u00a0 She looked like she was just my age.<\/p>\n
After returning from Aunt Jean\u2019s I would try to discretely hop back into our pool and hope my father would forget that I had bolted earlier in the afternoon.\u00a0\u00a0 Often our backyard had filled up with another wave of people, so perhaps he had forgotten, but my betrayal lingered.<\/p>\n
Our swimming pool was Dad\u2019s greatest splurge.\u00a0 After all, despite his implicit competition with Uncle Bill, he was a modest man who hated ostentation.\u00a0 I think he reasoned that the pool was not immediately visible from the driveway, and besides the pool was for the enjoyment of others, an effective \u00a0bait to bring people together.\u00a0 His only true source of self-indulgence was his passion for antique cars; he even owned a few when we were kids.\u00a0 Based on old family movies, an antique Ford with a rumble seat was the perfect winter vehicle to pull toboggans filled with neighborhood kids around our circular driveway.\u00a0 After our family outgrew tobogganing he sold his antique car.\u00a0 Dad felt that it was just too showy to joy ride around town where people would gawk at him in his open-air car, or ask him to toot his horn, in his mind a sign of an exhibitionist.\u00a0 Instead he turned to collecting very realistic cast iron models ordered from specialty catalogs.\u00a0 The cars overflowed the shelves in his bedroom, family room and office; there were probably several hundred of them.\u00a0 After he died, my four brothers and I randomly split up the cars so that we would each have a representative sample.<\/p>\n
Only later when I sorted them out at home did I realize I had acquired an anatomically correct Good Humor ice cream truck, including tiny latches on the freezer compartments and little bells on the windshield. \u200b<\/p>\n
This car puzzled me since an ice cream truck was not really an antique and Dad would never have driven one anyway.\u00a0 Then I remembered standing next to him on our driveway looking across the way to the Reed\u2019s house.\u00a0 It was a warm summer evening; freshly mown grass scented the air.\u00a0 The Reed\u2019s had a nubbly gravel driveway which made a homey crunching noise as cars drove in.\u00a0 We looked up as we heard the crunch followed by the tell-tale bells of a Good Humor truck.<\/p>\n Of all the cars in Dad\u2019s collection, the Good Humor truck was probably the only one I had any direct connection to \u2013 I had no knowledge of the classic Dusenbergs, Reos, Packards and Bentleys that so excited him.\u00a0 Don Dumont was the name of the local Good Humor man.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know what he did all winter, but every summer he would reappear wearing a cap that said he was running for president in addition to dispensing ice cream.\u00a0 In our household, Good Humor bars were considered the height of indulgence.\u00a0 We might have a swimming pool, but in Dad\u2019s odd rationalization a Good Humor man who made house calls, well that was ostentatious, pure and simple.\u00a0 A single Good Humor bar would only be acceptable if you stumbled upon the truck at the beach or park, but house calls to stockpile a freezer-full, absolutely not.\u00a0 Someone might see the Good Humor truck in our driveway, and then what would people think, that we were too good for store-bought ice cream?\u00a0 My father and I stood quietly at the edge of our lawn as Mrs. Reed took boxes and boxes into her basement.<\/p>\n I really wanted to say something to him then, to try to apologize or explain about going to Aunt Jean\u2019s pool.\u00a0 Sure, Aunt Jean\u2019s was all about the stunning pool, but I wanted to tell him that our backyard was all about the people\u00a0in<\/em>\u00a0the pool, drawn there by my parents\u2019 generosity and charisma.\u00a0 I also wanted to tell him that I didn\u2019t care about Good Humors; store-bought ice cream was just fine with me.\u00a0 Besides the Reeds always got the inferior flavors of strawberry shortcake or toasted almond rather then the chocolate fudge cake I preferred.\u00a0 Mrs. Reed waved as the Good Humor man drove out the driveway and turned left.\u00a0 Don Dumont knew better than to take a right turn into our driveway.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n No matter how hard I tried<\/p>\n A chance to swim in Aunt Jean\u2019s pool could not be ******.<\/p>\n ****** when the Reeds came by with the coveted invitation<\/p>\n We all hopped out of Dad\u2019s pool without a moment\u2019s hesitation.<\/p>\n As we left, I remember Dad\u2019s look of surprise and dismay<\/p>\n And * ***** up filled with remorse and betrayal to this very day.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Answers:\u00a0 denied, indeed, I ended<\/p>\nFollow Liza Blue on: In 1969, when my father was at the peak of his career as a printing salesman, he decided to put an in-ground swimming pool in our back yard.\u00a0 It seemed like an odd decision since neither of my parents were … Continue reading ![\"IMG_0012\"](\"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/IMG_0012-e1399672859954.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe missing words in the following poem are anagrams (i.e. share the same letters like spot, post, stop) and the number of asterisks indicates the number of letters.\u00a0\u00a0Your job is to solve the missing words based on the above rules and the context of the poem.\u00a0\u00a0Scroll down for answers.<\/em><\/h6>\n
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