A Memory of Childhood Wonder

I don't know what got me thinking of this but I thought I would do a little post on it anyway.

Today, I was walking home from church and the Teenager and I were swinging Touchdown high into the air and she was thoroughly ecstatic. She couldn't have been having any more fun. She was in her element; an element where the world is good and just being in it is sufficient. It got me thinking of things that used to be good enough to waste away a day doing. These are some of them.

1. Making a blanket fort. My brother and I loved this, and who doesn't? There is nothing as totally carefree as a good blanket fort. We love draping the blankets over the card table and the ping-pong table in our basement in Heyburn.

2. Having Dad throw the nerf football over the side of the house and diving to make the catch. If my brother or I succeeded in making the catch, it was imperative to emerge from behind the house with the ball held high like a trophy.

3. Jumping out of the Swings. It could get dangerous, as the swings at the elementary school were exceedingly high, but even if you plunged to your death trying to break the record, there would be glory and admiration from all of my buddies.

4. Jigsaw puzzles by candlelight. Often in the middle of the winter when the snow was drifting over the houses and school was cancelled and the power would go out, we would all sit down at the dining table and do a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle by candlelight. It was a good enough way to spend the evening.

5. Throwing rocks to our dog, Sally. Yep, Sally was a rock dog. She would chase the rock down or catch it in her mouth and then bring it back to us so we could throw it again. She was quite the dog.

6. Burning the ditchbank. Since we lived on the farm and burning the ditchbank was required, we became quite the little pyromaniacs. I still enjoy a good flamethrower.

7. Collecting aluminum cans from the side of the road. My brother and I would walk about six miles or so to Norland collecting all the cans from the side of the road. It was a long and dirty chore but we made like 2 cents a pound.

8. Bologna sandwiches. I used to love to bend them in half and take a bite out of the middle so it looked like a hole in the middle of the sandwich. I still like doing it to be truthful.

9. Listening to Karen Carpenter, Neil Diamond, Ray Coniff, and Burt Bacharach 8-tracks in the basement of our house in Heyburn. This was usually combined with the blanket forts and the bologna sandwiches. "Hey, won't ya sing, another somebody done somebody wrong song?" I don't really remember how it went.

10. Getting grounded and sent to my room only to play catch with my imprisoned brother who was also grounded in his room across the hall. The reason for the grounding was usually that we were fighting, so it made sense that we would then play catch with each other.