i reckon i grew up the same as most kids in my generation and location. i spent most of my time in this huge house located in downtown Geraldine. please don't get confused about living downtown, because it's probably not what your thinkin'.
even though it was downtown it was still country. out next door neighbor had a small farm, and raised chickens for a major cooperation. they always shared their goodie's from their garden with us. this man loved to fish, and would always come by and show the bounty that he caught. sometime he would clean the fish, and just bring us a mess of them..............what ever happened to having real neighbors?
my yard was full of wonder and excitement for me. we had two very old oak tree's in the front. they were so big that they shaded the entire front yard. i had a chain with a car tire attacked to it for a swing in one of them. i used to sit in that swing for hours on end, caught up in a world of thought, and imagination. that swing was my ticket to space, flying jets, and time travel.
there was another large tree in the yard towards the side. it was a Formosa tree. it had beautiful blooms on it every spring. it was fairly large also, and the best tree for climbing. i spent a lot of time up in that tree. i could climb really high in it, and i would set there for hours drifting back and forth to places that i could only imagine in my mind. anytime mom would get to looking for me, she usually just went to the bottom of that tree, and looked up. i never drifted away from my yard, but sometimes you would have to take a good look for me.
growing up poor people i grew up in the best place possible. my yard was nothing but a wonderland. my favorite toy ever must have been a table spoon. i would sit out under one of the oak trees, and dig with that spoon. i have a huge area dug out where i would excavate the ground, and build things like forts, on a small scale.
I'm thinking maybe to an adult the back yard might have been more impressive, but not to me. the back yard was filled with fruit trees. we had apples, peach's, plums, and a large grape vine that supplied grapes for us, and several of our neighbors. if your heart desired blackberries, there were plenty to be found in the back corner.
when it rained i still could go out, and sit on one of the three porches that we had. the back porch was enclosed, so it wasn't much fun. we had a porch on the side that ran half the length of the house, and the front porch ran the entire width of the house. our house had no gutters, and a roof made of tin. when it rained hard water shot off from every direction. have you ever lived in a house with a tin roof? if you have you know that when it rains it makes such a racket that it drowns out the t.v., but it can make for a peaceful nights sleep, at the same time.
i grew up in very simple times, and my life was not complicated at all. i used to have this vivid imagination, and often wonder what happened to it? i remember laying out in the field on my back watching the clouds form shapes before my eyes in total wonderment. like was much better before somebody told me that i had to grow up.
No comments:
Post a Comment