Carol Brady's diary:
September 26, 1968
Yes, it's strange to be back here, in some ways more of an adjustment after being gone all summer than our original settlement was. Then it was simply a tropical island that I lived on with my daughters and a baker's dozen of strangers. (Well, and three or four hidden residents.) Now there are about 150 people besides my blended family, and I don't know all their names yet, although I know generally the population of the island. And back home, this would qualify as a village, while Blenford would be a small town, but now "Brady's Island" offers "civilization" compared to what it had before, and Blenford feels like the big city the few times I've gone over, mostly for date nights with Mike.
Mostly, I stay here, marveling at the changes, including going from a primitive hut to Mike's imperfect dream house. Not that his design was flawed, but Mr. Dittmeyer misinterpreted some of it while Mike was away, going to and from L.A. to get married, and they weren't in touch because there wouldn't really have been time for letters to go back and forth by the Blenford ship. And there won't be phones on this island for at least another year, not that the Skipper's ferry was equipped with one either. Anyway, the house is a lovely two-story with an attic, but unfortunately the attic ceiling is only two and a half feet from the floor, so it's hard to store anything.
More importantly, the children have no toilet of their own! Mike and I agreed that they could share a bathroom, since they're still so young and it's not like a half dozen teenagers fighting over the mirror. And after all, they were used to outhouses and simple showers and tubs before our rescue, so this was a step up. Now they have to use the half-bathroom under the stairs, just a sink and a toilet, which Mike intended for guests. Mike and I have a full bathroom off the master bedroom, so sometimes the children use that, although it doesn't do much for our privacy. Alice has a small bathroom of her own and we've let the children know that they are not to use it. Alice works hard for us and she deserves her own place to get away from it all.
She also has a small bedroom, next to the laundry room, which is next to the kitchen. There's a little kitchen table, which just seats three of us, but it's good for things like after-school snacks, or staggered breakfasts. The dining area is off of the kitchen and seats all of us, although Alice prefers to dine alone. On the other side of the kitchen is the family room. There are sliding glass doors on the family room, kitchen, and dining area that lead out to the spacious backyard. We ended up with the swingset, seesaw, and sandbox from the old playground, since our children were the only island children before, and now there's a bigger playground at the school. (I'll tell you about the school in a bit.)
The living room is not separated from the dining area but just flows into it. The ceiling of this combined area is the highest in the house, and the stairs are at the opposite end of the area from the front door. Mike's den is separated by a half-wall and blinds from the living room, and you get to it by a little hallway. It offers Mike relative privacy to do his work, while still being approachable when some family matter comes up that he needs to deal with.
There's a longer hallway upstairs, where the three bedrooms and two bathrooms are. There's also a linen closet. And there are stairs leading up to the little attic. All in all, it's the biggest residence on the island, other than the Howell mansion of course, but we are the biggest family, nine counting Alice.
Well, ten counting Tiger. Yes, Mike gave in on the dog, who loves island life, with so much to smell and dig, and plenty of kids around, not to mention no cars to worry about avoiding. He is so far afraid of water though, which made the voyage here a challenge, but at least it means we don't have to worry about him drowning in the lagoon. I'm growing fond of the big mutt and Mike is, too, although he does complain about him. Still, Mike and the boys built a little doghouse out back and Tiger sleeps out there, although he'd rather sleep in the boys' bedroom. The girls are warier of Tiger, since they prefer cats and still think it's unfair that they didn't get to take Fluffy.
It's one of many things the children fight about, but I don't think they argue any more than biological siblings do, than my brother and I for instance. Mike is an only child and he's not used to this, and six kids does feel like a lot at times, especially in a small community where no one else has more than three children living at home.
There are thirty-six other children on the island, although one is a sixteen-year-old who lives in a hut on his own, the somewhat civilized but sort of hippie-ish "jungle boy" Kurt. The smallest two are the Feldman children, a baby and a toddler by Wrongway's native wife, and, yes, he's about 70 years old but still vital.
The second oldest boy is Thurston Howell IV, Mrs. Howell's orphaned nephew, who used to be a Wentworth. T.H. is a "preppie" who is understandably having much more trouble adjusting to island life than Kurt is, but Mrs. Howell wants him to grow up here, in this "unspoiled paradise," which it still is, even with a few small businesses and services.
The other thirty-two children belong to thirty-two parents, one to three kids in each family. Our next-door neighbors happen to have two or three daughters each, which is great for my daughters, although it's not as if the other boys on the island live far away. (There are only three blocks of houses, across the street from the "business district.")
Despite their disagreements, Mike mostly gets along with Larry Dittmeyer and they learned to work together this summer, especially when they were sharing Mike's old hut. Carla Dittmeyer is thirteen, so she's friends but not close to eleven-year-old Marcia, but Nancy Dittmeyer is only a year older than Jan, although Jan's best friend is Gloria Jamison, who's on the next block but in the third grade like Jan. And six-year-old Mary Dittmeyer plays with Cindy, but Cindy's best friend is the other kindergarten girl, Millicent Anderson.
The Sherwoods live on our other side, and their two daughters, twelve-year-old Rachel and eleven-year-old Jenny, are good friends with Marcia. Mr. Sherwood is a shoemaker, which we really need on the island. Well, all the new workers are welcome of course, so that we're not mostly dependent on the Skipper, Gilligan, Alice, and Mary Ann anymore.
The boys' friends aren't as obvious, although Millicent's older brother Eddie is the other fourth-grade boy besides Peter. Mostly our children play with the kids who are close to their ages, with less of boys and girls playing together when it was just the six of them. Perhaps that's another factor in the six of them not getting along as well as they did before they were step-siblings, that they had to get along then, because they had no one but each other and the ten adults. But not having enough toilets at home doesn't help.
The little schoolhouse has two restrooms, boys' and girls'. There's a classroom each for the younger and older kids, plus a gymnasium with enough folding chairs for all the students to gather. Mrs. Whitfield, a kind but firm widowed lady with white hair, teaches the fifth-graders and older, while Mrs. Engstrom, the mailman's wife, teaches her 7-year-old son Mark and the other younger students. I know Mike and I both taught a class of only six, but it's not as if that was all we did, and those weren't full class days anyway. More teachers will be hired as the island population grows, but for now it's amazing to have such a big school on Brady's Island.
I must admit that I sometimes find myself at loose ends on weekdays, with even little Cindy off at school. I help Alice but she's an old hand at housework and cooking and I really do feel like her assistant, like Mary Ann was. On the other hand, I don't really feel like a honeymooner, not with six kids, although I adore Mike and am grateful for the time we have alone. He's very busy these days, drawing up plans for when the population will go up to 500 next summer and we'll have to have enough buildings to support that.
Maybe I should take up a hobby, like knitting or sculpture, but Garst's General Store doesn't have much in the way of hobby supplies. I know, I could probably find natural materials on the island, but it feels like we're in this sort of weird limbo, where we want what civilization has to offer, yet at this time and place it doesn't offer much. Maybe I'll take boating lessons from the Skipper, like Mrs. Dittmeyer and Mrs. Bernstein the tailor's wife (who also has three daughters) are.