Childhood

Lately I have found my self reminiscing about my childhood. I’d like to think my childhood, outside of school, was enchanted. I have fun just remembering the fun I had as a child growing up in the heart of the “boondocks”, where we had freedom to roam through acres of land without worry that someone would come and snatch us up. Peace of mind is hard to come by these days, but in the central hills of Mississippi the remnants of it are still there.

As a little girl with an older sister, I found myself being the “son” of the family. I was the one that ended up with the blue room and teddy bears instead of a pink room and baby dolls. I was daddy’s little girl. I would help him around the yard and the house. Also, being the youngest, I found myself getting out of punishment when my older sister was involved. “She should have known better.” Being the youngest had its benefits, but it also had its down sides. Hand-me-downs are not just clothes. You get the clothes, toys, and even the car that your older sibling had there hands all over. It wasn’t that bad; my sister was a pretty clean kid.

The country life as a kid was great. There is no way I would ever want to raise a kid in town because I know my childhood was that much better. I was not able to sneak out at night, because where would I go. We had a quarter mile drive way, and anytime my dad could hear something other that frogs and crickets, he would be up and ready to defend. Also, we had a big enough front yard to have all the nearby kids ride over on their four wheelers for a fun afternoon of softball. Those were great days.

Being young and having that child like imagination, my sister, the boy next door, and I found ourselves in the deep gullies surrounding our land. The gullies were amazing to us as children. There were peninsula-like pieces of land that protruded out into the gully; these were our houses. It was as if we were on peninsulas that protruded into the ocean, but our ocean didn’t have water. It was empty. So we could move down from our peninsulas down into the gully which was our downstairs. We each had our own forest names, I was Twig. My sister was Stream, and the boy next door was Bear. We made up names for our “houses” like “Bear’s Den”. My gully house was the greatest. My peninsula was like a “Y”; it protruded into two directions. One side of the Y was connected to the outer land by a fallen tree. I would go into my downstairs and under the tree into my “other room” which had and island in it. This island was so great to me because had a tree growing out of it. I would go into my “other room” climb up onto the island, sit down under the tree, and ponder away about plans for sprucing up my little gully house. Another cool thing we had in our houses was vine swings. The great big vines hanging from the trees would loop back up making perfect little swings for little bottoms. My sister had a nice little grouping of vines that made a sweet little conversation area for us to sit down have and afternoon chat. Those were great times.

I wish I had the leisure time to right a book about my childhood. I have many stories to tell my children and grandchildren about my childhood, and I pray that my kids will have a childhood as enchanted and as blessed as mine was. I guess my reminiscing must end, just as childhood must end.