Love Will Keep Us Together

I HATED THAT SONG FOR YEARS, not because it is a bad song but because I spent my 7th. grade summer at the pool and they played it about 1000 times a day. Other than that it was a great summer.

Our babysitter, Susan, had a new job there and she used to let us in for free. So we basically spent all day everyday there the entire summer. We had a ball. Her boyfriend Richard was the head lifeguard.

You would think that getting in for free would be enough for us, but unfortunately we were an obnoxious bunch of kids. My brother was so bad that one day when he refused to get out of the pool for pool check, Richard jumped in and very nearly drowned him on purpose. At the time it was funny, but looking back on it now it was a really awful thing to do to a kid. (Billy was in the 5th. grade then.) In Richard's defense this was the seventies and people handled things differently then.

I think Billy was one of the original ADHD kids but back then nobody "handled" them - they just whipped them. He got whipped by adults and beat up by other kids everywhere he went. (including at home) I spent my first 5 years of grade school building a terrific reputation as a fighter because I was always defending Billy.

One day I ran up to defend him on the playground as usual when Todd Killen and George Donaldson grabbed me and held me back. They said "Why are you always defending him, don't you think he deserves this?"

I looked at them and I finally was fed up and I said, "Yes." I turned around and walked away and I never defended Billy in a fight again. I was still known as the best girl fighter on the playground though. If I challenged somebody - boy or girl - they backed down!