Since this blog is for my family and some of my family don't really know ME, I am writing to create 'knowing between generations. I have already written about my mother and her influence on my life, and I have written about my passage into an older age, one that is ill-defined except to be clear about not wanting any new animals in it!
Maryn is 10 so I will remember and write about when I was 10. Perhaps Dan will write about when he was 10 too!
At 10, I was living in Yuma, Arizona. My brother, Joe (that's what he likes to be called now) was 9. We played out in the sand dunes when we could, tumbling and rolling down uncontrollably but confident we would not be hurt. We built forts, and pretended to design our future homes and the city they occupied. I had my usual cat, scarred from numerous abscesses since he got into fights all the time. He didn't sleep on my bed but I loved him. My favorite sport was tetherball, which I played every chance I got with a ferocious spirit of competition. My fiercest competitor was a girl whose name I still remember and not because she was my friend. I was a typical wild child and can remember doing bad things, like engaging in a game of darts with my brother, but there was no dartboard. We threw them at each other and tried to dodge them. That game ended when one went into the top of my knee! In those days, early 60's, to kill mosquitos in the summer months, the trucks roamed our neighborhood at dusk blowing a thick smoke out the back which I believe now was probably a pesticide like DDT. My friends and I ran crazily behind the trucks dodging in and out of the thick curling smoke. The truck didn't go too fast that it outran us. I remember having fun doing something that I know now was insane to have done! Kids at 10! What did you do when you were 10?
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3 comments:
When I was 10, I was in the 5th Grade at La Costa elementary school. We lived in large house with palm tress and ice berg grass in the yard, in the hills above La Costa canyon and Encinitas. I remember going to the beach, Moonlight mainly. Running and swimming in the california sun blonding the hairs on my head. My older sister 11 years older and engrossed in her life, my younger sister 6 1/2 years younger, annoyingly so, I was left to my own with my friends. My friends and I riding my bike around the hills, riding to 7Eleven for slurpees, making bike jumps in the dirt, building forts in the low growing shrubs, shooting my paintball gun at targets. After school I was usually reprimanded to the Boys and Girls Club by my parents cause as a younger boy, I was a "bad boy" and not to be allowed all alone. Every weekend was set aside for some kind of sports game, whether it be soccer, Mom's favorite, baseball, basketball, or roller hockey. When I was 10 I wish I could have seen what was to come and what I left behind and cherished every moment.
Dan, this was fun to read. You were never a "bad" boy - there are laws you know that parents have to follow about protecting their children!!! I am glad you realize about cherishing every moment. A wonderful insight and life lesson of appreciation. Love, M
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