#childhhod

Taken From: milwaukeecommunityjournal.net

You’re killing me, Smalls…

Watched The Sandlot the other night and it reminded me so much of my childhood. Not the baseball or the fact that the main characters were boys, but just the overall feel of it.

My sisters and I adore this movie and have said the lines over and over in conversations with other people, some who knew what were were talking about, and others having no clue. At which point…

We crossed VanBuren Street the other day. We were momentarily in the town I lived in as a small child, just passing thru. On our way to more important events, more salubrious climes. When I was a little kid VanBuren was the busy street a block away from the back water of 13th street, where we lived. 13th was an odd street. It went halfway through town, but only in fits and starts. No stretch of…

For fear of sounding cliche and like every other "when I was your age" story, I will preface this by stating "when I was young". 

When I was young the world was not perfect. There were wars and battles, people were dying, a volcano was about to erupt and there was general worldwide discord. One might say that it was not much different from today's standards.

The internet had just been invented and computers had been around a while, but were nothing compared to those of today. In my childhood, you were considered lucky if you had dial-up access, and ICQ would be just about to come into existence.

There were video games. We had Segas and Playstations and SNES and Gameboys. And the technology then was just as amusing and entertaining as the technology now. Perhaps moreso. But you know what I remember most of all? Not the hours spent playing a really great level, not the satisfaction of finally beating Super Mario Bros. I remember the vast "beyond" that was outside.

I had a dear friend named Amanda and we would spend as much time as we could possibly manage absorbing every facet of the outdoors. Amanda's house backed onto the edge of a ravine, and that was just paradise for our young hearts. A stream trickled through, there were grassy patches and brambly patches and flower patches, many small trees and a smattering of bushes and shrubs.

One summer in particular, we found a strange multitude of sturdy branches of relatively the same shape and size. We managed to smuggle some string outside and tied the branches together to create a full-fledged hut, even adding on a few extra rooms. Once, we smuggled a pocket knife outside and fashioned spears to throw at fish in the creek, though we never did catch any. Another time, Amanda and I both came out of the creek with leeches attached to our feet, which caused us to run home screaming blue murder. I remember the smell of the dirt and the grass and the sun-soaked earth, the rustle of the wind and the feel of the sticky-grass and the gentle burbling of the stream, and it reminds me what it was like to be young.