Jump

The house i grew up in on Colin Ave.-

I have memory issues, I know I do. For years, I've listened to my sister tell stories of our youth which I usually don't remember all together. Sometimes her stories will jog a glimpse of a memory that I would never have remembered on my own. Maybe it's normal, I don't feel like it is. I don't have so much "memories" as I do "snapshots" of my life. Where others can give you a play by play of a moment, I am more of an "overview" kind of person. Sometimes I feel like I am missing out because I can't remember most of my childhood, but then the optimist in me realizes if anything traumatic may have happened, I don't remember that either. What can I say, I'm messed up!

Which is one of the reasons I decided to write this blog - to help trigger memories or at least get what memories/snapshots I DO have down on paper, so to speak. In the same breath, I have been hesitant to do this because I sometimes can't even make sense of what I do remember. It makes me feel incomplete and inadequate. My children want to know more about me and I don't even know anything about myself!

This song triggers one of those snapshots in my life. jump - YouTube . I'm 12 years old, sitting on Pete Pylinski's front porch with Star Wars toys and a boom box playing this song. Just a day in the life of a 12 year old. A happy time. I look back and smile at this time in my life.

Pete was my age and lived 3 doors down from us, but this is more about our whole neighborhood. If you grew up in the 70s and 80s, I hope you had a neighborhood like I did. We had everything! A basketball court (our driveway with a backboard attached to the garage). A baseball/kickball field (our front yard with 1st and 3rd bases being two trees). A football field (the narrow street where everyone yelled CARRRRR when we needed to move out of the way for someone to pass). We had an amazing tree to climb in, big wheels and bikes, skates and skateboards. And in a radius of 8 houses there were close to 20 kids of all ages to play with!

Surely there were rough times, I was grounded a LOT as a kid. But, this song takes me to the time of youthful innocence. When every time I saw my friend's mom she would sing "Delta Dawn" to me, badly. Where kids of all ages played together. Where everyone was as afraid of the neighborhood parents as they were their own but those same parents were looking out for every kid out there. When it didn't matter if the new girl in the neighborhood asked if you were a boy or a girl cuz you had a bad haircut and glasses that were even worse. And where you'll never forget the atomic wedgie Brian Seay gave you that hurt so bad you still want to kick his ass. Of all the things to remember.