The Vintage Series: My Second Cousin Scott

This is my second cousin Scott and me! I’m holding Big Bird, and Scott (always known to me as Scottie) is holding Cookie Monster. Some of my very first memories of life that I can clearly remember involve Scottie, who as a child was one of my very favorite people in life. I was always terribly excited when we would get to visit his house or he would come to my house to play. Our parents lived on farms that were about a half hour drive apart.

I vividly remember Scottie coming over to my house to play one day and bringing his stuffed Big Bird. The stuffed Cookie Monster was mine, and we were “trading” who got to play with each stuffed Sesame Street character. Sesame Street was one of my favorite things as a child, and I loved Big Bird , so I was really happy to have a chance to play with that Big Bird stuffy. You could even pull a string and it would make sounds and talk. Scottie’s mom set a timer and every ten minutes we had to trade animals again. It was hard to wait for those ten minutes when I didn’t have Big Bird in my hands, but you could not argue with the fairness of a timer.

And I also remember this day when both of our families and my Grandma Edna were visiting my grandma’s sister, my Great Aunt Emma at her house in Jamestown. They sent us to the backyard to play, and we were very excited about splashing in the water in this white bird bath. Both my grandma and Scottie’s Grandma Emma had lawn ornaments: plastic ducks and geese with metal sticks that poked into the ground, and I thought they were so fun.

Additionally, and I know there are pictures of this too somewhere (I should look for them), my very, very first memory is when Scottie’s family and my family took a trip to Bismarck to visit the zoo. We had fun walking across a little bridge that curved over some water on the pathway, and there were ducks swimming in the water. We also visited a tiny little amusement park next to the zoo, and I vividly remember sliding down a big slide on a gunnysack with my dad when we were racing Scottie who was riding down with his dad.