The Simple Life

Remember when life was simple? For many of us, it was a long, long time ago, in a faraway land when we were knee high to a grasshopper. Pleasures were simple: blowing bubbles, playing in a sandbox, trying to swing as high as the trees, playing in a wading pool.

Childhood memories are something that we never forget. We may not always remember everything, but there are always a few things that stand out in our minds, no matter how old we get.

For example, I remember when my brother and his friends climbed up on the top of the playhouse and slid down into the wading pool. The pool was only 15" deep, and they were probably lucky they didn't break their necks!

Then there was the time that my brother and his friend missed the school bus, so they decided to walk to school. It was 10 miles to the school, in another town, and the school called our mother and said her son was missing from school. You can imagine how well that was received!

When I was little, I remember playing in our wading pool in our backyard. (This was before my brother's escapade of jumping off of the playhouse roof!) Back in the days before plastic was commonplace, toys were made out of whatever we could find around the house. I was using an old one-pound Folger's coffee can to scoop water out of the pool. Unfortunately, I cut my hand on the rim of the can, and I still bear the scar to this day.

One time, one of my girlfriends and I had gone for a drive in my brand-new-to-me 1967 Ford Mustang. We were parked on the side of the road in the mountains taking photos when a huge boulder about half the size of a Volkswagen Beetle rolled down the side of the mountain. It bounced onto the road and off to the shoulder, where it landed about 50 feet in front of my car. Whew! That was close!

Memories: Some are happy, some are sad, but they are all a part of who we are. I wouldn't trade my memories for anything.