Terry Gilliam

In the summer of 1948, my father (Dean, age 9) and his two brothers Dale (11) and Daryl (7) were playing at Cedar Lake’s hidden beach on the western edge of Minneapolis (not too far from Medicine Lake). They spent a couple of hours digging a hole and making a sand castle next to it. They were very busy digging and building, and had their castle about 2 feet tall, with 4 walls and 4 turrets at each corner. Late in the afternoon as the sun passed its apex, they noticed that their castle was being covered by shade. 15 feet away, Terry Gilliam (age 7-3/4) had been busy constructing his own sand castle. It was 8 feet tall, and had a 4 foot wide moat around it. Terry Gilliam was up on top, digging out the interior, making staircases up and down the inner walls. The 3 Severson brothers came up to the edge of the moat and began complaining that Terry Gilliam’s castle was casting a shadow on their own castle down below. Terry popped his head up (yellow construction helmet and green goggles), and insulted them in a upper-crusty British accent. They boys were flabbergasted, and started to throw their plastic shovels and a pail up at him. The boys ended up running away when all of a sudden dozens (hundreds it seemed) of plastic farm animals came raining down on them from inside Terry’s castle. The Severson brothers abandoned their castle, shovels and pails, but were able to return home with several plastic animal souvenirs that they collected as they left the beach. On through the woods they went, back home into the arms of Virginia.