When my older brother and I were old enough to drive, we found many places to go fishing close to home. My Uncle used to have what is called a “jon boat” that we ended up with. They are basically small aluminum boats; that one was maybe eight to ten feet long and only able…
Kings of the Sky
As young boys in search of the perfect branches to make our own homemade long bows, we had learned how to safely climb in various trees. One might ask, how do you learn how to safely climb trees? There could have been any number of ways to learn other than the method we used. If…
Snowman’s Paradise
While living in Pennsylvania, we experienced numerous snowstorms. Back in 1993, we had a huge blizzard that kept dumping snow on us. For us kids, it meant we didn’t have to go to school, which was tremendous! To make matters worse, on this occasion, there were a lot of snow drifts. I remember looking out…
A Video Store Dream
“Hey, Mom, can I go to the video store?” “Sure,” echoed a sarcastic voice from the kitchen. I thought to myself, well she did say yes, and that was good enough for ten-year-old me. So, off I went on my bicycle. It wasn’t just a video rental store, it had video games too. The whole…
Groundhog Day
When I was young, our house had a long yard that stretched all the way back to a large field. Our friend was one of the neighbors in an adjacent property about halfway back our yard. For the most part, the neighbors let the children play in any yard, although some did not want us…
Boys will be Boys, part 3
The switch! When hearing those words, some immediately think of changing from one thing to the next. Others may think of light switches. For me, I think about a thin branch that smacked my childhood rear end. If us boys ever got out of line, our great-grandmother would smack our rear ends with a switch.…