Flashback Friday — All Washed Up

Flashback to 1988 and the first time some members of the family went to Hawaii.

Here are Mom and Dad on Maui. My father won the trip through work and they had a blast. I remember at the time thinking I’d not seen photos of my parents looking quite as happy as they did on this trip.

Mom and Dad — Ginger and Mike Salvatore — upright for a minute anyway! Notice that Mom is taking no changes, however.

The pictures caught my eye this morning as I was flipping through an album Mom created for Catherine. On the section containing photos from their trip, she wrote: “I hope you get to go to Hawaii someday. It is truly paradise.”

Funny how things work out!

When we visited them recently to celebrate my birthday and Dad’s, Catherine and Basil recounted tales from their February trip to Honolulu, and Mom and Dad talked about the things they saw and did, including this day at that the beach.

You should know Mom cannot swim.

What she was doing in 20-foot swells is beyond me. In fact, the caption for this photo says “Grandma drowning.”

But she’s smiling!

(Dad is suspiciously absent from the photo. Was he taking the photo rather than rescuing her?!)

Mom — Ginger Salvatore — October 1988, Maui.

By the way, while they were having the time of their lives, Basil and I were up to our elbows in tomato juice. You see, Sam and Tillie, our dogs, introduced themselves to a skunk in the back yard.

Turned out to be a memorable week for us all.