THINKING BACK

I am 66 years old and I guess at this age it is a time when people my age often think back to the good old days. I often let my mind wander back to the 1950s. It was a tough life growing up, but I have many happy memories.

I grew up as a country boy and those memories are something I will cherish until the day I die. I would often walk through the forest and watch some squirrels playing, seeing some wild turkeys, or sit on a large rock and watch a herd of deer. A couple of miles through the forest I would come to a little stream called, Pup Run. It was small and would often dry up in the summer. I would sit on a rock there and read a classic by one of my favorite authors, Mark Twain. I would read about life on the Mississippi River as I looked at that little stream and pretended it was my Mississippi. I guess it sounds kind of silly now to have those thoughts, but to a little boy no more than ten years old it seemed so real.

I remember riding my bicycle almost ever day with my best friend, Billy Jones. We would ride our bikes to the railroad tracks and watch the trains climbing or descending the long hill through the Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania. We would wave to the engineer, he would wave back and blow the horn of the engine for us. It gave us a thrill of a lifetime. Those days are long past, well over fifty years ago.

Billy and I would often collect our glass soda bottles, but them in the baskets of our bikes and take them to Lewis's supermarket where we traded the bottles in. With the money we would buy some candy and another bottle of soda. We would stop at a flat rock on Mill Creek, put the soda in the cold water to cool off as we eat our candy. Billy and I would talk for the longest time. We both had dreams of what it would be like to grow up.

My brother, Jim, and myself loved to spend time outside. There was no computer games back in those days. I often wish there was none now. We would play football in our yard with a waxed paper milk carton stuffed with leaves, go to a field and play baseball, or play basketball by the hour in our driveway no matter how cold it was. In the winter we would spend a lot of time on our uncle John's pond ice skating.

It has been years since I moved away from the Pocono Mountains. However I think of it often. I didn't grow up rich, far from it. Actually, I am still far from it. Over 60 years ago since the 1950s. I now have been married over 44 years, have 2 wonderful children, 5 grand kids, and now have a great granddaughter. I just hope that they all love life as much as I do.

Memories, that is what life is all about. There have been good memories and bad memories, but I don't think much of the bad ones. I like the memories that make me smile, make me glad that I grew up a country boy. You can take the boy out of the country, but you can never take the country out of the boy.

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Copyright  Larry W. Fish   2015