This week I'm starting a new feature titled Two Cent Tuesdays. It's a section where I ramble on and on--sometimes coherently, sometimes not so much--about a random topic. Come on! It's bound to be interesting...
What are some of your memories of “the good old days?” Ever go exploring? I’d love to hear your stories!
Last night my husband and I went to bed late, and stayed up later lying in the dark conversing about “the good ol’ days.” We talked about how different it was when we grew up. Even things as seemingly unimportant as people’s yards. As we see it, lawns back then were meant for playing on. Houses were set much closer to property lines, leaving bigger yards with more natural vegetation. Now, for the most part, houses are erected more squarely in the middle of lots. Lawns appear more decorative, and aren’t used as much. There wasn’t a bunch of
fancy
landscaping when we were growing up either. Maybe some bushes here and there, maybe a flower bed… Even there, flower beds have changed. What happened to the good, old-fashioned marigold? Not
that I’m a huge marigold fan or anything, but it seemed like those and petunias were the only things we planted in the seventies!
We also discussed how we both used to wander along the creek when we were young. I remember it as being such a huge adventure! I believed I journeyed for miles and miles, but I’m sure it was only about five or six blocks. He described a cobblestone bridge over his creek; I spoke about these two cement walls lining the creek that we used to dare each other to jump from. I remember it being perilously high as I stood on the edge and looked down, the bank of the creek swimming into and out of focus as my heart pounded in my chest. I’d lick my lips, my palms sweating as I stood transfixed, waiting for the courage to take that leap. (I went back to my old neighborhood years later, and to my shock the drop was hardly anything!) I recall one section of the creek that snaked through one of those humongous cement pipes. We thought that was SO cool! The way the more stagnant water smelt in there, the way our voices echoed off of the walls. The dark, secretive nature of our discovery. Heck, we could hang out in there all afternoon and no one would even know!
That led to chatting about the myriad of trees along our creeks. Remember those brown, spiky balls about the size of golf balls we used to find? (Hey! I just looked those up on the Internet. Those are from the American sweet gum tree. You learn something new every day!) And how about those trees my siblings and I called “cigar trees?” You remember those, don’t you? Well, according to Wikipedia those are called catalpa trees. (“The name derives from the Catawba Native American catawba for these trees (the tribal totem), with the spelling catalpa being due to a transcription error on the part of the describing botanist (Scopoli) making the first formal scientific description of the genus.”) Or maybe you are old enough to recall the things we called, “Stick-to-Ems” or “Badges of Courage.” Our socks would be covered with them when we returned home after hours of surveying the land. I wonder if my kids have ever seen them? We’ve taken them hiking, of course, but usually on trails, not venturing off path, tramping through the woods like we did as kids. What a plethora of tree fruits God gave us--from the hedge apple to the buckeye to the milkweed pod!
We also discussed how we both used to wander along the creek when we were young. I remember it as being such a huge adventure! I believed I journeyed for miles and miles, but I’m sure it was only about five or six blocks. He described a cobblestone bridge over his creek; I spoke about these two cement walls lining the creek that we used to dare each other to jump from. I remember it being perilously high as I stood on the edge and looked down, the bank of the creek swimming into and out of focus as my heart pounded in my chest. I’d lick my lips, my palms sweating as I stood transfixed, waiting for the courage to take that leap. (I went back to my old neighborhood years later, and to my shock the drop was hardly anything!) I recall one section of the creek that snaked through one of those humongous cement pipes. We thought that was SO cool! The way the more stagnant water smelt in there, the way our voices echoed off of the walls. The dark, secretive nature of our discovery. Heck, we could hang out in there all afternoon and no one would even know!
That led to chatting about the myriad of trees along our creeks. Remember those brown, spiky balls about the size of golf balls we used to find? (Hey! I just looked those up on the Internet. Those are from the American sweet gum tree. You learn something new every day!) And how about those trees my siblings and I called “cigar trees?” You remember those, don’t you? Well, according to Wikipedia those are called catalpa trees. (“The name derives from the Catawba Native American catawba for these trees (the tribal totem), with the spelling catalpa being due to a transcription error on the part of the describing botanist (Scopoli) making the first formal scientific description of the genus.”) Or maybe you are old enough to recall the things we called, “Stick-to-Ems” or “Badges of Courage.” Our socks would be covered with them when we returned home after hours of surveying the land. I wonder if my kids have ever seen them? We’ve taken them hiking, of course, but usually on trails, not venturing off path, tramping through the woods like we did as kids. What a plethora of tree fruits God gave us--from the hedge apple to the buckeye to the milkweed pod!
Now children tend to spend more time indoors. They have video games, Netflix, and computers. We had wiffle ball, kick the can, and books, (with real pages!) From time to time I find some of these thoughts and images popping up in my writing. Like in ABANDON ALL HOPE when Chase and Hope play hide and seek in a corn maze, rubbing husks in their hands to smell the sticky sweetness, and tripping over dead stalks and tree roots. In an upcoming book, HOMETOWN HEARTACHE, the hero and heroine meet as ten-year-olds and traverse the creek meandering through their adjoining properties. They discover a tree house (what happened to those?) which sounds eerily like one my siblings and I found during our ramblings. Nash even tries to jump the creek on his bike like my brother Pat did.
What are some of your memories of “the good old days?” Ever go exploring? I’d love to hear your stories!
