There was another really big park that we went to in New Hampshire. One of the owners was the famous cowboy from movie days, Gene Autrey. I can't remember the name of the park. It took about an hour to get there, maybe a little more - so we went about every other year. We always brought a picnic lunch: there was everything to do there; rides, wild animals - parrots, and an elephant that you could ride.

We went on picnics all the time, some of them were "winter picnics". Once we went to the top of Mt. Wachusett (on a clear day you could see five states), it was about 30 minutes away from us. Joe had been making beer, bottling it himself. I had been making root beer - Mr. Emmerling let us use his bottle-capper. I had wanted to do up some small bottles that we could take with us on picnics: I used the small beer bottles that Joe had. We packed the root beer up along with our lunch and headed for Mt. Wachusett.

When it was time to eat, we put everything out on one of the picnic tables. The children began to drink their root beer out of the regular beer bottles. I never gave it a thought, because I knew what was in them. People walking past us kept staring; I was use to them staring anyhow because there were so many "little ones". When we got home, it finally dawned on me that they were staring because all these little kids were drinking, what looked like beer to them!

Joe worked for the Mitre Corporation in Bedford, MA. They had a big company picnic every summer, it was at Whalom Park, real close to where we lived. We enjoyed that, as all the amusements were free, so was the food and beer. We had all settled down at a picnic table. Joe decided to move the car over into the shade, so it wouldn't be too hot when we decided to leave.

Peter didn't know about our plans, he saw the car leaving and panicked. He was about 4 years old and he began running after the car; to do it he got on the other side of the main road into the park. There was a lot of traffic; he came crying and running across the traffic - an equally panicky woman saw him; she started running towards him, which scared him even more - so he ran faster. It all ended well...we saw him (them), and "headed them off at the pass". A very tramatic thing, for such a little boy - I'm sure.