The China Poodle and the Rich Cousin

She was the moneyed one, this cousin who was a friend as well as a relative. We were partners-in-crime on many adventures and -- misadventures. Oh, the stories I could tell on her (and me)! But......this special memory has pushed itself to the forefront of my mind. Maybe because I learned a couple of things that day.

We were meandering through downtown Pratt City that sultry summer day, my cousin and I, trying to stifle the boredom threatening to break through. And.....most probably hoping for a breeze to wash over our sweaty glistening bodies and produce that glorious evaporation effect -- if only for a moment.

You see, since none of us cousins actually lived at the house on Avenue Z, our frequent stays demanded that we be creative in how our time there was spent. In my younger days, I spent many long hours playing cowgirls and Indians with my brother and his friends, galloping on my stick horse . (Did anyone else have one of those?) Many long afternoons were also spent playing with my dolls under the huge trees in the side yard. I remember setting up *house* -- with doll- sized dishes, bassinette, highchair -- under those huge sheltering branches. The sidewalk that ran along the side of the house was used for the doll stroller....with diaper bag hanging from the handle. Just like my mom when she strolled my baby brother. When we felt lazy we would lie on the grass in the side yard, looking up at the clouds, defining shapes which we would bring to life by attaching stories to them. After supper, the front porch insisted we grace it with our presence until dark when we would head for the side yard and the fire flies until our mom hustled us in to wash up before the trip to the land of nod.

Unfortunately, these time consuming activities didn't endure into our preteen years. Those years saw us extending our boundaries, wandering farther from the house on Avenue Z. There were two directions we cold have wandered -- to the park or downtown. I never remember much happening at the park (except for the summer ceramics classes) so we headed downtown. A short-ish walk provided us with access to grocery stores, a drug store, a library, a cafe, and......air conditioning. There was also a gift shop, and that's where we found ourselves on this particular day.

"Oh! Look at the little china poodle in the window," my cousin said. I looked and saw it there in the midst of various and sundry froo-froo. "Mom would just love that," she said. Now she had my attention. I realized she was thinking about her mom while we were idling away the time, not the drug store with its jewelry display and its cherry cokes, or the cafe with its juicy hamburgers -- as I had been. She wasn't even thinking about the library where (because our moms knew *people*) we could check out as many books as we wanted.

Nope! She wasn't thinking about any of these things. She had someone other than herself on her mind. Even at that early age, I remember being wow-ed by that fact. And......by the fact that she had enough money of her own to just decide she wanted something and go in and buy it.

Even though I don't personally own any, I still get sentimental when I see china poodles.

And....every time my own daughter brings me a gift out-of-the-blue or a memento from a trip she's taken (as she always has -- since a wee lassie), I have second thoughts about my long-held belief in nurture over nature.