Remember When Wednesdays - Your Childhood

My experience of growing up in PA during the 70's & a few years of the early 80's, was very innocent. Now being a mom, I think back and know that there must have been alot of the same problems and people in the world then, but being a child then, maybe I was sheltered really good from it, or maybe it just was a lot simpler?

• I believed in Santa Clause until I was 14. These days you are lucky to be between 5 - 7 years old, without figuring it out.
• We lived in a "newer home development" , where we were one of the first developments on a mountainside. There was alot of forest and woods surrounding the development.

To this day, whenever I am under stress or need more than singing to escape, I love being surrounded by woods, forest, trees with sunlight shining through, listening to a nearby brook, just seeing a mountain view, makes me sigh and tear up.

• I loved to go walking through those woods. Sometimes alone, sometimes dragging my younger brother to explore with me in a near by creek, turning over rocks to find salamanders. Sometimes over a very high bridge made out of railroad trestles, that later were torn down and so dangerous. On the dirt path to the trestles there were these beautiful white birch trees that had these huge limbs dangling over the path and we would try and use them to boomerang ourselves. It was alot of fun.
• For my girlfriends and I, we would find where people dumped ceramic left overs. Our big discovery would be part of a Teddy Bear or Animal Head for us to paint, but if worse came to worse we would always bring home pieces of the ceramic to use as chalk and play hopscotch in our driveways.
• Sometimes as a family we would go through those woods and hunt for blueberries. My mother would then make blueberry pies.
• I didn't have many toys. I had one big baby doll at one time and then a few "Dawn" dolls (mini Barbie's), a few board games. my bicycle's, roller skates, a walking doll and then later around 13 years old, I got my first Raggedy Ann. She is still my favorite, with her little I Love You in a heart on her chest.
• The boys in our neighborhood built forts a few feet into the woods behind one of the homes. At the time I remember it all being so larger than life.

I was back in this neighborhood a few months ago with Matthew and not only is the mountain just bombarded with houses now, the houses from my development were tiny to me. There is basically no woods, the yards are so small.

• When I was about 13 I had a red skateboard that I used to ride down (stealing from Matthew) THIS BIG HILL!!!! When I drove down this street recently, I was telling him how cool I was and laughing to myself because the street is nothing of a hill, how could I have seen it so differently then?

In my defense at the bottom of the hill, there is a drop off to a busy road, with a curb at the bottom, but if you hit that curb the wrong way, God Help You.

To show how innocent we were, my friend K would walk from her house to mine (or vice versa). Then we would walk down that big hill, down this path, cross the busy road, down another hill that if you aren't holding onto the branches and trees just right and lose your footing, you're gonna slip!! We'd cross that busy road, go down another crazy hill with paths, down a street or two, to go to her grandmother's house.

Well, I have to go for now. I have to go help my son with his memories. I think we will take a walk in the woods today or one around the lake so he can see "THE BEACH" as he calls it. (Again, only very small patch of sand) shh...don't tell him.

How many childhood memories do you remember?