Fun Monday - Childhood Reverie

When I first saw this assignment at Return of the White Robin; "for your assignment, I would like you to describe a happy memory from your childhood. If possible, include pictures with your reminiscing. Perhaps, for some us remembering the past may bring back some unhappy times too. But, for today, let us remember the good times", I was immediately on board. I mean, how hard can it be to remember something happy, nice, warm and fuzzy from your childhood? Turns out it was harder than I thought. Shorty says that it's because my whole childhood was so "nice" that it all just blurs together. Maybe. The only memories that sprang to mind were not pleasant. Funny, some of them, but not happy. After all, how happy would you be if you were gullible enough to believe your brother when he told you that you could fly if you held on to the feather, ala Dumbo? Yep, walked right off the roof of that garage.

I had an average childhood for the time. I took swimming lessons, played tennis, had a couple of really close friends that I spent every day, all day with - bicycling, skateboarding, playing Barbies, etc. But I was also very fortunate. My parents had the foresight to build their house just 4 houses down from Deer Park. There was a long and winding road, a few picnic tables, a little creek, and a grade school (kindergarten through 6th). I went to kindergarten there but then went to the local Catholic school for the rest of my education.

But - on long and lazy weekends and on a whole lot of summer afternoons- my friends and I would gather up a couple of pillows, a few tons of comic books (raiding my girlfriend's brother's stash), some food and drink (raiding our parents' pantries) and go to the "park". We would ride our bikes up past the school and past the playing fields to where the trails started. This was delineated by a chain link fence. Next to the fence were trees, tons of glorious trees, all protected by poison ivy. We would climb up the fence to our favorite branch on our favorite tree, an old oak. We would haul the loot up and then stash our bikes out of sight.

We would spend the day there, nestled in the crotch of that hundreds of years old tree, reading and eating apples and sharing comic books and dreams and secrets. I miss that tree and my friends and the slow, lovely, easy pace of summers past.