The Winding Down of Summer

The summer pretty much began in Caroline Gill’s garden, and thus it appropriately played host to a little gathering last night as the season of leisure winds down. The Gills held a splendid little dinner al fresco including Mr. and Mrs. Gill, Caro, Michelle Carroll, yours truly, Mr. and Mrs. Kellogg and their son Doug, who I believe was Caro’s escort when she debuted. (I was unavailable since I was in Scotland at the time, which has been the cause of perennial complaints by Caro). Young Lizzie was absent for the meal but showed up later on in the evening.

Making fun of Caroline is an honored pasttime of mine, and one in which I revel. The Gill household is one in which friendly banter thrives. Last night I also got a chance to inform Mr. Gill that there are innumerable young men in Westchester who consider him something of an icon, and seek to imitate his leisurely lifestyle. Caro complains that I talk to her dad more than to her, which is only half true of course.

Speaking of dads, the aforementioned Michelle Carroll’s pop took her, Helen Clarke, and I out to dinner the night before ‘Hell’s Bells’ (as we sometimes call Helen) fled back to college in Ohio. He took us to a little gem of a place on the New York side of the Byram river in Portchester. Between dinner and dessert, Helen and I walked over the bridge to Connecticut just so I could say as we went back in “sorry we took so long, we went to Connecticut to have a cigarette.”

Doug eyes Lizzie’s match-fiddling with suspicion.

Smiling young Elizabeth about to set her hair alight.

Caroline Gill, brought to you by Poland Spring (“what it means to be from Maine”).