![Fishing with the family](http://www.kathleenrowell.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Fishing-1024x857-1024x857.jpg)
![Me and my sisters in Iowa in 1966](http://www.kathleenrowell.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Me-and-my-sisters-in-Iowa-in-1966.jpg)
My sisters and I loved these bi-annual trips to Iowa to see our relatives – we loved everything about it, except the. heat, humidity and mosquitos. We spent most of our time in the coolest part of everyone’s house – always, the basement. Even there, you could break a sweat lying still and reading in bed. In the sixties, everybody had fans but nobody had air-conditioning.
![Family, then - I can't begin to accurately tag!](http://www.kathleenrowell.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Family-then-I-cant-begin-to-accurately-tag-1024x848.jpg)
My grandfather wasn’t a man to disagree with. My sister Joyce didn’t like candy corn. On one of our Iowa visits, I noticed her eating it. “I thought you didn’t like candy corn,” I said. “If Grandpa says you like candy corn, you like candy corn,” she replied.
![Three generations together in 1966](http://www.kathleenrowell.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Three-generations-together-in-1966-1024x851.jpg)
Grandpa said we’d like fishing, so there we were – not liking it, which he didn’t like. He didn’t like our queasiness about worms or how we squealed at the sight of a hooked fish flopping around the bottom of the boat. We might have been born Midwesterners, but by 1966 all three of us were California city girls, through and through.
![I'm the sullen Iowa girl at right - I've never been to California - By 1966, I'm a sophisticated California girl!](http://www.kathleenrowell.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Im-the-sullen-Iowa-girl-at-right-Ive-never-been-to-California-By-1966-Im-a-sophisticated-California-girl-1024x488.jpg)