Memories.

A buddy of mine just sent me a series of pictures
in an email, and while they were all fun to see, a few
of them in particular really hit me in my gut. I guess
it's a sign of age, but things like this easily trigger
sentimental memories from a time that seems
more and more idyllic as we march boldly into the
wonders of the 21st century (see previous post
to get the irony there).

As a few of you may already know, I was once, I
guess am and always will be an Air Force brat. For
a time in the early 1970s, after an earlier 3 year stint
in England, dad and the rest of us were transferred to
Richards-Gabauer AFB in Kansas City Missouri.

After a short search, we moved into a split-level house
in the Southern Hills section of town. I tell ya, after
the place where we lived in England, which was the
equivalent of public housing, this place and the wooded
neighborhood it sat in were a paradise. I found out
later that my folks had chosen that house specifically
because of the crap that I had been through in England.
More on that later, maybe.

It was an awesome place. If you looked at it from the

street it looked just like a plantation house. White paint

with tall wooden columns lining the front porch. Thing is,

it wasn't really much of a porch. Just a facade, but it

looked classy as hell anyway. I later found out that white

paint was a huge pain in the ass to take care of, but the

rest of the place was well worth the time and trouble.

The house was built on a slope going down to a
constantly flowing wild creek that ran along everyone's
back yard. When you went in the front door you
were basically on a landing between the two floors
of the house. On entering you were directed ether
up a short flight of stairs to the formal living room,
kitchen, bed rooms, and a huge, cool deck with stairs
going down to the back yard, or you were directed
down stairs to the basement and den that led through
sliding glass doors to the huge back yard lot with 12
hawthorn trees in it. More on those fuckin' trees later.

Beyond the house and further up where the street
ended was an undeveloped wilderness of woods and a
creek where I was to spend most of the next 3 years
of my life. If you made a right turn at the end of our
street you went up a steep hill to a cul-de-sac, from
which there were more trails into even more interesting
woods and farm land. Most of my memories of that
place, those streets, and those woods are some of the
best memories of my childhood. If there is a heaven,
and I seriously doubt it, but if there is such a place, I
want to be 10 or 11 years old again, go back to Southern
Hills and run through that creek again with our old
dogs and never leave. So, back to these pictures.

There's one that could almost be me in the summer of
about 1972. In the middle of that first summer one of our
neighbors hired a few guys and set about cleaning out
his lot all the way down to the creek. They chopped
down a few trees and a large amount of underbrush.
One day they grabbed all our adolescent imaginations
when they found a huge blue backed crawdad (cray fish
for you Yankees) in the creek and a few big snakes.
That thing was as big as a lobster, I swear to God.
Totally amazing, and totally eye opening. I had never
seen such a thing in my life. I think that was when my
mom first realized what trouble she was in, and when
I first realized the potential that creek had for discovery
and adventure. Mom worried about me getting bit by
something, and always tells people now how I'd walk
out of the house in clean clothes and wade waist deep
into that creek and disappear until sunset, returning
home mud splattered, wet, and happy as a clam.

That creek would actually freeze over in the winter (God, I
miss those winters now). My best friend and I would
bundle up for the snow and walk out onto that Ice to
see if it would hold our weight. The fun of course was
when it didn't. You'd sank down and have to be pulled
back out by yer buddy. We'd go home long enough to
dry off and then head right back out again. I tell ya,
that creek was an endless adventure, and It's the reason
why I love the woods to this day.

The workers that summer also drove a lot of other
critters out of their holes and briefly into the open where
we kids could discover them. At a shallow bend in the
creek down stream from all the chopping, in the back
of another neighbors yard, my buddies and I found
a huge frog one day, just like this one.

I brought it home and put it in a pond that mom had in the
back yard under the sun deck, but it didn't make it. Dad
said it probably died of shock or something. Disappointed
the hell out of me at the time. Anyway, it was only one of
many critters that we shocked or tortured to death out of
childhood curiosity and/or ignorance during the years
we were there. So long as we didn't bring them into the
house, the folks were cool with it.

Once, secretly, I caught a jar full of lightning bugs and
then let them go in my room at night. I wanted to see them
flash on and off all night as I went to sleep. Mom was not
happy. She didn't punish me or anything. I don't even
know if she noticed till I told her about it later. They flashed
a little, but not like I was hoping they would. They just
died and I had to go around and pick them up the next
morning.

In a since, we had no choice but to play in the creek.
The back yards all up and down the creek and the
woods beyond were filled with hawthorn trees. These
mother fuckers are the state tree of Missouri, or
something. They have huge ugly thorns that shed off
into the grass and go deep into your foot if you make
the mistake of going barefoot anywhere. This was
after living in England where we could go barefoot
almost all the time in the summer. In fact, our folks used
to hate to see us do that. They associated it with
poverty, having grown up in the depression. We, of
course, associated it with freedom, and eventually
rebellion as our folks went on and on about it. One
tiny aspect of the generation gap that we had to deal
with. The picture that really got me going though
was this one.

The steep hill at the end of the street was also an endless
source of fun. We used to ride down it at full blast in
the summer, ether on bikes of skateboards, trying
to push the envelope of danger back a bit to see what
we were capable of.

In my memories, that hill was as steep as the one in the
picture, but in stead of ending in the ocean, it ended in
someone's yard. When we rode down that thing as fast
as we could, we faced the possibility of on-coming cars
or the curb at the intersection at the end of the road. I was
always a pretty cautious kid when it came to this sort of thing.
I think that's why my mom was never too worried about me
getting seriously hurt. I remember skateboards being a LOT
smaller back then than the one in this picture, and you couldn't
get me to stand on one and ride it down that hill. I did sit on
them though, and that was enough of a blast enough for me.

In the winter when the snow would cover everything in a
blanket, we'd go down the hill on sleds. My folks got
me an awesome sled for Christmas in about '72. It was
long enough for me to lay on and you could steer it with
handles on the sides. It had red metal blades. Jesus, I
wonder where that thing is now? Saw one just like it in a
Canadian Tire store last time my cousin and I went fishing
in Gann. Could have knocked me over with a feather.

We'd start out at the top of the hill, get a running start, and
slide down that puppy as fast as we could go. We'd pack
snow against the curb to make a sort of ramp, and the
winner would be the guy who jumped the curb and went
the farthest into the back yard. I used to win that contest
a lot; one of the benefits of being freakishly large my
whole life. I weighed more, so I went faster and farther.
It's another reason I didn't like skateboards. I fell farther
and harder too. Goes with the territory.

When I think of the assholes that I have around here for
neighbors today, I appreciate the adults of the old
neighborhood. Who knew how lucky we were to grow
up at that time, in that place? These dried up old fuckers
now call animal control whenever someone's cat wanders
through their yard. They huddle in the street in a panic
whenever they see a kid walk down the road towards
the grocery store that they don't know. When I think of how
those folks in Southern Hills put up with us, allowed us to
have fun, and to be kids, I realize the debt of gratitude we
owe to those people. I wish I could see them now, hug
them and thank them for that gift.

Anyway, these pictures really got the juices going this
morning, but now I've got to head out. Goin' to Mom and
Dads to eat Pizza and do a few chores. I'm still lucky as
hell to have 'em, and still spend a lot of time with them
whenever I can. Whatever issues we had back in the old
adolescent days are long since water over the bridge.
Everybody grows up eventually, and if you're lucky you
get to see things from their side, and you see what a
shit you were from time to time, and everything takes on
a new tone. Anyway, enough is enough. I'm spent.
Later, FHB.