A post without pictures. My favorite Barry stories...

Okay...I just wanted to show that a post doesn't have to have pics although we have some excellent ones to share.

My friend Donna and her sibs get together once a year and share stories about their childhood. They started doing this first to remember their mom or dad. I was lucky enough to be an honorary Collingwood allowing me to sit in on some of these gatherings. In recent years, it's sort of morphed from rememberances of their parents to funny stories about each other. I love the idea, so thought that would be fun to do for the blog. Nothing hurtful here, only fun and/or fond memories. 

So, today, I want to relate two stories about Barry that I love to tell. It sorta shows how his mind works...

MUDDIN' BEFORE IT WAS A THING
So when Barry was about four, one Sunday afternoon, a neighborhood girl* knocks at the door. My mom answers the door, and the girl says, "I just thought you should know Barry and Neil ** are up at my house sitting in a mud puddle!"

So my mom goes up there and sure enough there's Barry and Neil sitting in the mud having a good ol' time. My mom reams both of them, though, for getting their Sunday best clothes all covered in mud. (yes, back then we went to church Sunday mornings). She drags Barry home and cleans him up, puts some play clothes on him and sends him back out.

About a half hour later, there's another knock at the door. The girl is there once more and says, "They're doing it again!" So my mom goes up there again and, yes, there is Barry and Neil whopping it up, covered in mud — but this time they are butt-naked. My mom scolds Barry who looks at her very perplexed.  He didn't understand what the problem was.

"We didn't get our clothes dirty! We took them off!"

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
Although we've never been a deeply religious family, we did go to Episcopal (aka Anglican, aka Church of England) church when we were kids. In fact, Barry went to Episcopal private school at Zion Episcopal. As I recall, they started the school after I was already in public school at Fishkill but Barry was there a year or maybe two?

One day he comes home for lunch and my mom asks him, "So, did you learn anything today? What did you do?"

Barry says, yes, we got to go upstairs to the church to see the Father (I can't recall his name). Then, he proceeds to tell her what he saw.

"Well, there were all these grownups there up front. First Father took this cup. And he was talking to the cup. But...the cup didn't answer. So, everybody took a pill."

So went Barry's first communion. :)


*It was Nancy Meyers if I recall. The Meyers ran a day care center in their house that I think Barry attended.
** Neil Ruger, Barry's BFF in New York. They were great pals!