Honeymoon Memories

When Andrew & I went on our Honeymoon, long ago (11+ years!) for part of the trip, we came to San Antonio for my first visit here on the way up to Seattle where we would live for four years. We did the requisite "family dinner"-- friends and family came to my mother-in-law's house where we had a fajita dinner with margaritas etc. It was the first time in my life I'd really been a part of the big, raucous family that is Andrew's group. At dinner, as I shyly sat back, Andrew said "grab some food. There are no shy family members-- they all died off of starvation." As the daughter of a single mom who had moved far away from all of her extended family, this was very new to me but the family was loudly welcoming.

We spent a day prowling around downtown San Antonio, Andrew taking me by all the tourist spots. I saw the Alamo for the first time and was sort of disappointed-- you expect it to be out in the middle of nowhere, like it is in the movies (and I don't know why you expect that, but you do). We went up in the Tower of the Americas, which is a little taller than Seattle's Space Needle and looked out over the sprawling city, hazy in the distance with heat. We went down on the green and bluely cool Riverwalk, wet Texas limestone everywhere and fish and ducks. We wandered around La Villita and the plaza of the Americas, which was built for a World's Fair back in 1968 (I think). This is where my story goes today.

There are a lot of fountains in the Riverwalk area. The River tries for a sort of "Texas' Venice" feel-- with lots of green draping ferns and plants and ivy and the sound of cool running water everywhere. There were these big spouting fountains that we saw in the plaza, and there were about four or maybe five little boys playing in the fountain. Andrew took a couple of pictures of them cause they were so cute. Probably the oldest was about 10, and the rest ranged a few years under that. Maybe they were brothers and best buddies of brothers. They were summer-sun-brown-- water glistening off their little skinny legs like they were otters, in and out of the water, laughing happily. It was really hot late May, so you could not blame them for being enticed into the coolness of clean fountain water. Their black wet hair plastered to their heads, oh so white laughing teeth and their blue jean and khaki shorts dripping wet as they ran around the fountain's edges. They were the image of summer childhood--innocent yet indulging in the forbidden fun of fountain diving.

About the time Andrew snapped a first photo of their happy fun, a donut-eating type park-ranger/police officer sauntered over and told the kids to get out of the fountains. Andrew got a shot of that too-- chubby officer clad in the blue uniform waggling his fingers at the boys, their heads sort of drooping and feet akimbo, ranged around him in an awkward sad circle, like a puppy caught chewing the wrong "toy." The security guy did not give them a really hard time, but you could tell that he knew that, for safety reasons, a fountain-- complete with wires and lights and sharp bits all over--is not the place for a lot of kids to swim. There was a reluctance in the officer's stance-- as if he understood how great the fountain diving was, and would have, if he were a 10 year old boy, been right in there too. But the grown up responsible part had to say "get outa there."

But the boys fun was ruined. They had to go somewhere else. We wandered off and did not see if they were good and obeyed the officer. But that image-- the sleek wet water fountain playing kids, brown with summer, laughing and running like little otters-- has stuck with me all these years. For a long time and several seasons of severe drought in Texas, the fountains were always turned off. No water wasting when there's shortages! But lately, the fountains have been on, and every time I see them, I look for brown berry boys to be jumping in. It's a memory of San Antonio which will forever be part of that new married feeling--getting used to the way the world has changed but still stays the same.