So yesterday, my sister Michelle posted some old high school pictures on her FB page. I looked at them, laughed, posted a few comments, and have been reading lots of comments left by other people...mostly old friends that we grew up with. People who drifted in and out of our house when we were younger. It got me thinking about growing up...how it happened, where it happened...but mostly, how it seemed to happen when I wasn't looking.
We had a great, GREAT childhood. We were not wealthy...not even close. In fact, we were probably living in poverty. My mom was a "secretary" for the government working on a military base (she was probably much more than this, and I know she did move up the ranks through the years, but in my eyes as a child, she was always a secretary). I can remember her taking shorthand classes when I was very little, and bringing home binders full of notes. I'm still amazed by shorthand and the ability that she had to process it. Anyway, my dad worked for years in a feed mill, and then worked in the coal mines with his own father and one of his brothers. I can still remember the smell of coal dust on his clothes at night. I can also remember the scared excitement when he would take us out to the mine with him and we saw all that huge equipment moving around. It was a very surreal feeling to be in that world..almost like a different world that we wound around those man made mud roads to get to the bottom of those "pits" where my dad conducted his business. Growing up, and still to this day, I am, in the words of Loretta Lynn, Proud to be a Coal Miner's Daughter. My dad still works in the mines...night shift...at the ripe old age of sixty-something. Smoking like a chimney, living on bolgna sandwiches. His doctor swears he's a science experiment just waiting to happen..I digress...
My childhood...
We didn't have much, and didn't have money to buy much more. So we made due with what we had and what the outdoors gave us when it came to playing. We had a big red wagon that hitched to the back of our lawn mower. We would load up everything we could...blankets, dishes that mom would give us for play, toys, dolls, even an old Flintstones car that we could sit in and drive. We'd drive the lawn mower around (we were country kids...dad let us drive that thing when we were like five!) and pretend we were traveling the world. We'd find places to "live", set up camp, and open our own Nature Store. Spices, grasses, special rocks, whatever we could find and mix up...we made it, zipped it up in ziploc bags and hung it on the clothesline for potential customers. We could play that for hours and hours in the summer. Well after dark, we would still be playing Nature Store until mom would make us come in.
Rainy days weren't an excuse to stay inside...rainy days were an opportunity to play water factory! We would gather rain water in bottles, coolers, pitchers, bowls...and pretend to run a factory where we were filling bajillions of orders for water in these fancy bottles. Lucky for us, our babysitter "Kate" was an Avon lady and gave us all her old perfume bottles. Once the water had been "purified" (dumped into a big Kohlman coller and pumped out the side through the spicket) we would put it in the fance bottles and sell it to our customers. I laugh now with Michelle and tell her we missed our fortune...that water in a fancy bottle business is one of the richest in the world...and we were doing it when we were 5 and 7! Totally missed the boat on that one!
I remember as we got a little older lots of evenings and weekend spent at the "Ball Park" which was the Odon Softball Diamonds. We were all involved on a team, so someone was always playing. As we got older and into our "tween" years, it became a social outlet. An opportunity during the summer to catch up with our friends, see our boyfriends (maybe sit by them, but rarely actually SPEAK to them), and get involved in a rousing game of cupball. If you don't know what that is...story for another time. There was always some sort of construction going on, so there was usually a huge mound of dirt somewhere awaiting a game of King of the Mountain. I had short sturdy legs...so I was great at this game...and could usually even beat most of the boys. I lived for those warm summer nights at the ball park. The end of those meant the start of school was close...a time of year that we pretended to dread, but secretly couldn't wait for!
And getting older still, I remember sleepovers, and cheering at football and basketball games, cruising around town...but even those memories aren't as fond to me as the memories that I have of just being at home....just being kids...just being.
But somewhere along the way, we grew up. I remember the feeling of almost sheer panic when I realized Chelle was going to college. I remember crying...no, sobbing...when Johnathan played his last high school basketball game. I remember the softball size lump in my throat the day we sold the house, the home, where we had all made those memories, and somewhere in those rooms...grown up. I remember bunk beds, and Barbie houses, and an ornate office set up in the unfinished basement, and a full court Nerf basketball court across the length of the family room, and new pink carpet in the bedroom I shared with Michelle...but I don't remember the moment when we all grew up. It just happened, and then one day we were all gone...on our own.
And the thing that scares me the most...it's happening again...in a different house...with different kids....and this time...I'm the parent.
If you have a few minutes, you should watch the video of Katrina Kenison "An Ordinary Day" on youtube. Amazing...AMAZING.
