“Sailing the Deep Blue Sea” By Bobbi McKenna. (Photo: Bobbi McKenna) I come from a family that loves to have fun. Every birthday is a good excuse for the whole family (dozens of people spanning four generations) to gather at a local restaurant.  Every sunny day is a good excuse to drop everything and go to the Sportsman’s Club on the Columbia River (a collection of charming, rustic cabins) armed with buckets of fried chicken, pans of blackberry cobbler, and tubs of Cool Whip.

I live on those memories even though I don't live close enough to the Pacific Northwest to join in the festivities of my extended family, and I made sure that my children got to experience the closeness of my fun-loving family so that they would all know how to make special memories.  As Mother’s Day approached  this year, my oldest son (the only one of our four children who lives nearby) called to invite me to a Mother’s Day brunch featuring an Elvis impersonator (which would certainly have created a vivid memory).  Instead, I convinced him to go to see the new Star Trek movie with my husband and me.   All three of us loved the movie, but I am the first to admit that as time goes by, I will likely “have no meaningful memory” of the plot.   The memory that I will carry with me is the sight of my son coming back to his seat from the snack bar with a very large container of popcorn, the biggest possible container of Coke, and maybe a box of candy. There are differing memories as to the presence or absence of candy in his hand, which just goes to prove how tricky memories are!!! Thankfully we don’t need to rely on the firing of our fragile, and sometimes feeble, human neurons to “remember” what we did. We live in an age when our mobile phones are cameras!  Just as memories tell us who we are, pictures tell us what to remember. It’s all about the story.  Memories don’t just happen.

(Photo: Christopher and Hilary McKenna) Recently, my husband (also known in our family as Dad) and I set sail with two of our children, Christopher and Hilary, a little brown Chihuahua, and Cap’n Rob, a rock drummer and the owner of the sail boat for a little harbor cruise in Marina del Rey.

(Photo: Bobbi and Christopher McKenna) I took the helm briefly (as did Hilary) while Christopher provided manly comfort to the little dog who had apparently heard the Samuel Johnson quote:“Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned." I say “heard” because I doubt the pup could actually read. Whether he heard it, or whether it was merely instinct, he appeared to be contemplating his own demise in the cold Pacific water.  Blue sky, sunshine, balmy breezes, people you love, and a little dog. It doesn’t get much better than that.  So go make some memories with your family, and don't forget to take your camera with you!  Copyright 2009 Bobbi McKenna All Rights Reserved