Connie's Parking Lot

(Originally written August 19, 1999. I always thought this was somewhat amusing. Everyone has their quirks.)

When my youngest daughter Connie was born, we lived in Grand Forks, North Dakota. As she was learning to talk and asking the name of everything, I began to realize that when she went to the park to play in the sand, she would form the sand into a big pile, and say, "How do you like my parking lot." In fact, every hill or mountain that she saw was called a "parking lot."

After pondering why this would be, I became aware of the cause. Grand Forks has snow on the ground for roughly six months out of the year. One day during the long winter when we were driving past a parking lot, she had said, "What is that," and pointed to the pile of snow that was next to each parking lot we passed. Obviously, I had thought she was pointing at the parking lot, and replied accordingly, and the name stuck.