09 February, 2008

Reflecting on childhood stuff

Lots of things going through my head this morning.

My oldest is finally getting past the loss of her cat. It takes some time. We all get attached so easily. Once upon a time I tried to count how many pets and their offspring we had growing up. We had dogs first, Dad had to keep a birddog, even though he only went hunting a handful of time that I can remember. We had cats (of which I was allergic) oh so many cats! Sis had one named Puss'nBoots. She was a sweetie. Had a litter of kittens on Sis's pillow one day. LOL My first dog (that I could call mine) was a mutt beagle I named Candy. I learned about sex when I saw Candy one day with another dog. She had a litter and sis kept a female we name Cookie. I had a tough lesson on death when we got home one day and Candie's body was at the edge of the highway near our driveway. Oh dear, we also had mice and rats a hamster, gerbil, and now I won't be able to remember what all.

A friend's youngest is sick. It is so hard when children are feeling bad. You want to make the sickness/pain/yuckiness to go away.

I started thinking about my childhood and some memories come back so fast and other's popup catching me off guard. I remember not getting to enjoy winter much at all. It seems everytime it snowed I had sore throats or nasty colds or something. There was a hillside behind our house. Several houses down from us there was a road (think it was gravel back then) that went from the highway back alongside one of the houses up the hill into the woods. Each time it snowed, Dads in the neighborhood would get out and build a slope for sledding. They would all get together with their snow shovels and build up the path and pack it down to make a really fast hillside. The Moms would get together and pull out hundreds of coffee cans, fill them with sand, place them into oiled down paper bags and create candles/lanterns out of them. They would line each side of the manmade slope and light them at dusk so the kids could continue to sled into the evening. I would stand at the back door, listen and watch and imagine how much fun it was to be out there sledding with everyone else. I would cry and beg to please let me go and slide down just one time. Honestly I do not remember if I ever did get to do it. Seemed as soon as I was well enough to go, the snow would be gone. I wish it had been different. I wish I'd had the chance to experience and love snow sports. It's not too late, but with the asthma I just have to take extra steps. Maybe I'll find a way to get to a ski slope one of these days and try it out.

Of course this then caused me to remember all the times I was sick growning up. I must have one of the strongest (or weakest) constitutions ever. I had every childhood disease out there: mumps of course, then there were the measles and rubella, and of course you can't forget chicken pox. I had 3 different kinds of measles if memory serves. I had chicken pox twice, though they say you can't have it more than once. (oh yeah, had shingles in the last 5 years). I had strep throat and/or tonsillitus every winter that I was growing up. I still have my tonsils, too! In the third grade I contracted hepititus from contaminated drinking water.

I love to ride my bike now. I think about riding it as a kid. I had to wait until I was about 12 before I could ride it on the highway. Before that I had to walk it across the tall grass filled empty lot next door to the elementary school and ride it in the parking lot. Finally, I gained freedom and could ride anywhere and did! I grew up in a rural town, very small place where everyone knew everyone (still do I think). I was so happy riding. I'd go across town, out to Cindy or Beckys', then we'd ride past Camp Crescendo (band camp) hoping to catch a glimpse of those high schools boys playing their instruments. Sometimes a big group of us would ride up to Old Baldy and then hike up the knob. Old Baldy had suffered from a landslide after one of the bad floods we had and left a gaping bare spot on it's side thus it's nickname. One spring/summer, when I was 13 or 14, it rained and rained. We had floods and the highway just north of our house was submerged in about 2-3 feet of water. Rene' and I would ride our bikes for hours back and forth through the water, leading cars along the way so they could get across the water and wouldn't leave the pavement. There were several times that I rode my bike to the high school in either early fall or late spring. High School was in a different town about 15 miles or so up the road.

Funny how the mind works and wanders. It's good to think back and reminisce. Now to think about getting outside, in the sunshine today on my bike!

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