This isn't me, but it looks awfully familiar. Needs more mud, though.
Jumping off my last post, I was thinking about that infamous day in 1983 when I spent hours playing in the mud, delighting in the cold wet muck of it all. It’s really one of my fondest childhood memories that doesn’t involve, say, getting a great Christmas present, or winning a spelling bee or something. (Yes, I’ve been a Dork for a long time.)
Other bright spots, some of which are just flashes of memory: running around the backyard in the heat of summer, late at night, with my shirt off; waging bottle rocket wars and playing flashlight tag with all the kids in the neighborhood (most of whom were, like my brother, older and male), crushing my brother’s foot in a sledding accident, learning that you can rock a chicken to sleep like a baby.
I wasn’t really a hellion, but I had my moments. So this week, throw in one or two of your deepest memories. Good times, risky stunts you pulled and got away with–or didn’t–the funnest summer EVAR, whatever you got. I say childhood so as to save “Adolescent Shenanigans” for another Friday, but I’m not going to be picky. Tell me about it, you little monkeys.
Out for a walk with my sister—I was about 7, she was about 9. I was holding our dog’s leash and she got angry that I was “hogging the dog”. Yes, she said that—we both really loved the dog, and vied for his affection. I would not let go of the leash. She ripped it out of my hand. I bent down, unclipped the leash, picked up the dog (he was a 25-lb terrier mix) and ran off down the street with him, huffing and puffing, while he licked my face.
We stayed out all afternoon and went to the local 7-11 for Slurpees. My sister stormed home and announced to my mom that “Becky kidnapped Tuffy!”
I went to a park with my cousin. There were squirrels all around and people were feeding them peanuts. He was teasing a squirrel by offering a peanut and then pulling it away. But squirrels are pretty smart.
This one really wound up and jumped high – enough to bite my cousin’s finger. So he whipped his arm around to fling the squirrel off. It flew through the air and bounced off of a women with very large breasts.
I couldn’t breath from laughing for maybe a week. I’m laughing again now.
My early childhood was spent in a small Ohio town, and we were regularly allowed to roam freely without adult supervision. I remember hiking through a ravine in the winter with my brother and his friends to a good sledding hill. Since we didn’t bring a sled, we were just sliding down on our bottoms. On one run I hit a bump that launched me up onto my feet such that I was more or less involuntarily running down the hill. I fell awkwardly back onto my bottom with my leg sticking out to the side. My leg caught a tree trunk, and I spun a full 360 around the tree before being launched the rest of the way down the hill.
There was also the time I took an unfortunate fall into a large oil slick behind the local Dairy Queen because, instead of staying away like mom asked, I just had to investigate. Three-plus decades later, and I still haven’t lived that one down in my family.
I don’t remember this (although, oddly enough, my younger sister, who couldn’t have been older than 2 at the time, does), but I once decided that I wanted all the toys to have breakfast, so I turned our playroom into a “cereal bowl” by dumping all the cereal in the house on the floor and then pouring water all over it. I will probably never hear the end of that.
My family lived in Laramie, Wyoming for several years while I was growing up.
In the summer we’d drive up into the Rocky Mountains for day trips. Sometimes we’d go hiking or stop to visit the general stores in the small towns up in the mountains. At other times we’d go to the Saratoga Hot Springs.
They were really, really hot so mom only let us stay in for a little while. After a visit or two, though, we discovered a place where the hot water runoff mixed in with the cool water of a stream. It was about a warm and a bathtub and we were allowed to spend all the time we wanted in there.
I loved sitting in the bottom of that pool playing with stones in the warm water. It was the best of having a bath and playing outside (plus, I didn’t need a bath when we’d go home on those days!
)
I grew up in an old two-story house. The outside corners of said house were decorated with these little two inch ledges where the brick jutted out. When I was about nine, Neighborhood Boy and I thought it would make an excellent climbing wall.
I could climb like a lizard, but when I was about 15 feet off the ground I reached for a handhold and got brick dust in my eyes. I panicked and Neighborhood Boy ran in to get my parents. Needless to say, they were not pleased. There wasn’t much they could do, though, except stand under me and fret until I got over myself and climbed down. I maintain that if hadn’t been for the dust I would have made it all the way to the roof. Not sure what I would have done then, though . . .
I grew up in an area that is heavily strip mined for bauxite and granite. By “in an area” I mean “we lived next to a quarry then later next to an overburden dump site.” The quarry was an active quarry where granite is blasted out the side of a mountain with dynamite. This is done several times a day and causes small earthquake like tremors. The stone is then processed into gravel and other stone sizes which pour off of conveyor belts into mountain sized piles of loose rock. So basically our backyard opened into an expanse of bottomless pits and treacherous falls. There was a fence but it was easily jumped. When I was about 6, my bros and I jumped it and made it pretty far into the quarry before security noticed us and chased us. We ended up hiding in abandoned cars in our neighbors yard to get away from him.
When I was 8, we moved two miles away in midst of the bauxite mines (bauxite helps in aluminum production). These are mostly giant holes that are eventually abandoned and become illegal swimming holes. The “overburden” or soil that lies above mineral deposits, is dumped in various spots around the area – making man made mountains of mud. Which are actually ok to climb on, unlike the gravel piles. I can’t really describe these accurately – it’s like a vision of a dystopian future or the surface of the moon. I’ll put a link below to some photos I took. Anyway, I spent my childhood climbing up ravines, jumping canyons, and falling very far into pits on man made mountains.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gypsybam/1601943957/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gypsybam/1601928909/
Hmm. As a child they had trouble keeping clothes on me – even at the age of 10 I’d be running around shirtless or going swimming with the boys wearing only my panties. I blame our (and the neighbourhood) parents – when we and the neighbour kids would get filthy, they’d throw us all in the tub together, regardless of gender.
I went barefoot all the time once the snow was off the ground, even in the barnyards, which my parents strongly disapproved of. And yeah, like the other horsewomen above, thought nothing of eating without washing my hands after playing or working with horses or even mucking out the barn.
The dirt pile out behind the house was our favourite place to play – we built roads, farms, dams, etc and got extravagantly dirty.
We all got dosed for tapeworms after my sister pooped one out, so there is a downside to playing in the dirt all the time. And despite having a couple dogs, countless cats, tons of chickens and livestock, and general farm living, I still ended up being allergic to cats, some long-haired dogs, dust, mold, cedar, and pretty much anything with a flower-based perfume (but not actual flowers), so there you go.
I went on a hike when I was a Brownie, aged 8-ish and came home so covered in mud my mother made me undress in the back yard. I was the youngest in my tranche of cousins and at family parties, they used to pass me like a rugby ball. My sister and I were wrestling on our parent’s couch once and I kicked her in the face and gave her a nosebleed. (I know she forgives me though, because tonight she gave me dinner and beers.)
I would walk anywhere I could – across the fields to the baseball diamonds, through the woods, down the road to the school. Just walking – alone, with my dad or sister, with my friends. One time, I convinced my pack of girl friends to cross the corn field in the night to go watch the night base ball games. Then a thunderstorm trapped us there (you know, lightening and fields??). I got in soooo much trouble.
I have lots of great childhood memories like this.
When I was about 5 or 6, all us kids (all of my brothers and sisters and friends which were around that day) would gather at the top of the stairs, and we’d race cardboard boxes down the stairs. With the younger ones, in order to make it safer (!), one of the older ones would be in the front of the box as we descended the stairs.
When I was about 8 or 9, we’d put all the mattresses in the big play room – across the walls and carpet – and we’d play wrestling. All of the neighbourhood kids would come around. It was like a massive wrestling ring, and a cross between british bulldog, brandy, wrestling, and a free for all.
Then there was the favourite of playing in the rain, which usually involved everyone getting dressed up, and making mud pies and weak mud tea.
Oh the fun!
Growing up we spent a week or two each summer at this remote cabin in the woods of western Oregon. I absolutely *loved* the time I spent there, but one day in particular stood out. My sister and I always spent the afternoons in the river, swimming, playing, and – more importantly – catching salamanders, minnows, and crawdads (aka crawfish/crayfish). But this day I’d become obsessed with the little larval salmon hanging out in a little pool. I spent the entire afternoon with my snorkel and mask on, following the salmon around and studying their behavior (hints of the biologist I was to become). By the time they finally dragged me out of the water at sunset, I had started going hypothermic and spent the rest of the night in front of the fire wrapped in every blanket we could find!
[...] borrowed this post idea from The Pursuit of Harpyness about “Childhood Shenanigans”- I enjoyed the posters stories of getting dirty in the [...]