Chapter XX - EDUCATING DAVID

You don't need much if you live on the beach, it's sunny every day, the sunshine makes you happy and makes life way less complicated, you dress simply in shorts and a T-shirt and some flip-flops to walk on, for dinner, you light up the bbq to grill fish or meat, put some corn on the grill and you make a salad or potato salad, nothing complicated.

We lived in a nice rental house in a community of like forty houses with a shared garden, minigolf for the kids, a gazebo, and a swimming pool, the beach was just within walking distance.

The girls were happy in their schools, Patricia babysat two adorable neighbor girls during weekdays, four-year-old Cassie and her little sister Margot. Their mother brought them over every morning before breakfast, Cassie talked a lot and the four-year-old David didn't like that, he told her that

"WE-DON'T-TALK-BEFORE-BREAKFAST-CASSIE !".

After breakfast, David's friend Leigh, also a four-year-old, came every day to get David. Those two were like peas and carrots, they were all day on their little trikes or in Leigh's house playing Donkey Kong on the computer. Leigh was a cheerful little guy and he walked like a bodybuilder, his arms bend on both sides of his body as if his muscles were in the way, and his upper body danced from left to right when he walked. Little Hulk Hogan!

Patricia made friends with the neighbors and kept herself busy with all the kids and she also did the baking for the restaurant. In the afternoon she brought over the freshly made cakes of the day, passing the neighbors sitting on their back porches, and they all wanted her to show them the cakes so they could say oh and ah, so delicious, and we will be over tonight!

I worked around the corner, 6 days lunch and dinner, Sundays we were closed.

I woke up early every morning to beat the heat of the day, I had coffee and smokes on the porch and started working at 7 am so I could go home after lunch and take a break until dinner time, hiding from the heat at the pool or in the house.

My mother came over from the Netherlands to visit us for a month.

She bought David a plastic box to put insects in and a small net to catch them, ik looked like a tiny aquarium. We had a big grass field in between our house and the swimming pool, and it was filled with toads, not hundreds but thousands of them, RIBBIT, RIBBIT, RIBBIT, we heard all night long, together with the crickets it was a true evening concert.

"David, I have a great idea, go inside and get your insect box and net".

"You see these frogs, we are going to put them in your box to show them to Oma and Mama"

David and I scooped up a little bit more than 20 frogs and when the box was really full, no place for one more frog to squeeze in there, we put the lid on it. So imagine this transparent plastic box loaded with frogs, after a couple of minutes it looked like a box of slime, so gross.

"Now go bring it to Oma and give it to her, I will hold on to your net, because you need both hands to carry it." I stayed wisely outside and it took a couple of minutes before the screaming started.

David came outside again with his box, I think he understood we were making a joke.

"Come on David, we better put them back in the grass". We emptied this slimy glob of frogs on the grass and they all went their way like nothing had happened.

"That was fun David, wasn't it?

"Yes, shall we do it again?"

"Haha, no we better not, let's go for a walk and see if we can find a turtle or alligator".