I loved my childhood so much sometimes I wish I could go back to it, life was much less complicated then.
There were four great big sugar maple trees in front of my
grandmother's house. They were so tall it seemed like they touched the
sky. My cousin, Little Fred and I picked the one closest to my driveway
and built ourselves a shabby tree house which somehow seemed grander
than it really was. We nailed boards together to create a floor then
nailed our floor to the branches of the tree. It was crude looking, but
somehow it appeared grand to our young eyes. Grasping on to the lower
branches of the tree we would climb up in that tree house and play for
hours. When we decided to leave we would swing down to the ground on
ropes we had tied to the upper branches of the tree. Pretending to be
Tarzan we would give the Tarzan yell as we swung to the ground. One day
after I had been punished by my mother for whatever naughty thing I had
done at the time I climbed up in that tree house and gave my dolly a
good spanking.
One of our other favorite play spots was in the
woods. My mother had given us an old table and some chairs she no longer
used. We dragged them down in the woods and placed them by a little
stream. Being the female meant I had to play the role of the wife and my
cousin was my husband. We picked wild pink lady slippers and decorated
our table with them. The memories of those happy carefree days live on
in my heart.
There were days of catching fireflies and putting
them in jars. The jar covers had small holes poked in them so the
fireflies would not die. We would excitedly climb under the bed covers
and watch the fireflies light up. when we were done watching them we
would go outside and open the jars to allow the lightning bugs to go
free.
Childhood had its own problems, most especially when I was
naughty, which I had a tendency to be at times. O.K., it was alot, like
the time I rode five miles on my bicycle to my cousin's house. My
sister was babysitting me at the time. I just got on my bike and rode
into the sunset, as it were, since it wasn't really sunset, but you get
the picture. My mother was none too pleased when she came to pick me up,
of course I had to add on to my crime. My mother was having a great
visit with my aunt. My cousin, Beverly, and I climbed into my aunt's car
and decided to try smoking. We opened the ashtray and there to our
wondering eyes were cigarette butts. You guessed it, we pulled out two,
one for her and one for me. We each put one in our mouth, using the car
lighter we lit up and puffed. After all what harm could there be,
grownups did it so it must be o.k.. I'll tell you what harm, getting
caught smoking, needless to say I got grounded and lost the privilege to
ride my bike for a month. Did I learn my lesson, hell no, I was caught
lighting up again. I decided I wanted to try a real cigarette that had
never been smoked by anyone. I took one of my father's cigarettes from
his pack. It must have been magic because I had just started puffing
when my parents walked in on me. This time I wasn't stopped, I was made
to smoke the whole thing. As my parents looked on I puffed away. I began
feeling rather sickly, then I felt a strange urge to vomit, I puked my
guts out. I always maintain this is why I could never get addicted to
smoking. As an adult I gave social smoking a whirl, that would be
smoking OP AKA other people's cigarettes. No matter how much I smoked in
the presence of my friends I never had the urge to light up solo. I
finally gave up and left off smoking.
I wasn't all bad though, I
used to lay on my grandmother's lawn and look at the clouds in the sky.
Imagining all of the people in the world I would envision them holding
hands and loving one another. I didn't realize at that time how big the
world was. My world was the one around me, the happy world of my
childhood.
Every childhood is fraught with some pain, the bully
at school, the rejection of a friend, but all in all I like to hold onto
the good memories, the ones where I skipped up the road and rode my
bicycle. The days of playing down by the stream under the trees,
where I enjoyed the coolness on a hot summer day.
Childhood is a
place I hold onto, where I lived in a world I created, where everyone
loved one another, a hope I still hold in my heart today.
