Florida and I grew up in a very special neighborhood in Fort Lauderdale.  We lived next door as young children and did everything together.  Our parents were best friends so we became best friends at birth.  Or at her birth, when I was all of 10 months old.  She is the mother of my Godchildren.  She is my sister.  Even today, nearly 35 years later.

Around age four, her our aunt invited us down for a special lunch.  She lived at the end of the block and our parents let us walk there on our own (times were different and they could see us the entire walk).  It was a big deal for us.  I very vividly remember feeling very grown up and adult!

Aunt SuSu is over the top and lives a very different lifestyle than the one we knew.  So when we got to her house, she lead us to the table on the porch outfitted to the nines.  Fine china and sterling silver.  Her son, who was a young teen at the time, was our waiter.  White towel over the arm and whatnot.  Very formal.  Especially given our age.

I have no memory of the meal but I'm sure I enjoyed it.  I've always loved food.  What I do remember is that it included champagne.  Our first taste of champagne...unbeknownst to our parents.




But we were kids at the end of the day, despite the formal lunch with a champagne toast.  So after lunch, when it was low tide, we climbed down off the dock to look for treasures (and crabs) brought in from the sea via the Intercoastal waterways.  We were into trash to treasure decades before it was a catch phrase!

This is one of my favorite childhood memories for several reasons but the older I get, I love it most for it's absurdity.  What were any of these adults thinking letting babies walk down the street on their own, eat lunch with a loved but crazy Aunt SuSu, drink alcohol and then play under a dock in the water?  I think it's all quite hilarious because as precious as the memory is, I would never allow my fictional children to do that!