The house I grew up in-final

We played outside often when I was growing up. My mom would limit TV and kick us outside. The other alternative was to go read, which I did, or practice piano, which I did not.

There were enough kids in the neighborhood for it to be fun. My first best friend lived down the hill and through the woods. Her mom was in my mom's wedding. We used to play in the woods making forts from rotted out trees. A stream ran through the woods and we would catch crayfish, rock hop, trying not to get our shoes wet from falling in. Our motto was "Never trust leaves". Leaves were slippery going down hills. Leaves covered up shallow areas of the stream so you would step on them and end up with wet shoes and socks. Leaves hid rocks and branches perfect for tripping over. NEVER TRUST LEAVES.

The paths through the woods were well worn and never overgrown because we used them so often. Going to her house was great because it was all down hill. Going home at the end of the day was exhausting. Trudging up the steep hill using saplings to pull yourself along seemed to help. Of course if you had a Tupperware or jar full of minnows or crayfish, you could not do that. You simply plodded up the hill, at the top you pushed aside the forsythia bushes that hid the trail entrance and then had to walk up the driveway home.

At the bottom of our driveway was a large rock. About the size of a fat pony, which it what it transformed into many days. Next to the rock was a sour cherry tree. The birds and squirrels got most of the cherries but every once in awhile, you could try them and decide that yes, they were too sour to eat off the tree. About halfway up the hill to the house, there was a sassafras tree with the most perfect U shaped branches for sitting, that is, if you could pull yourself up. The leaves of that tree were fuzzy had a distinctive smell and I still am not sure if I loved it or hated it. Some of the leaves were shaped like mittens. I would think about that as I lay in the grass under that tree. We did not worry about ants or bugs. The grass was soft and easy to walk on.

My father loves to garden and on our almost 2 acres, he had so much to work with. He had a bank of day lilies, mostly orange but some had other colors. I used to pick apart the seed pods when I was bored or pull the dead stalks out and use them as swords or magic wands.
I loved the tall purple phlox he had planted among the azaleas. The tall clumps of flowers seemed so majestic standing proudly among the bushes. Azaleas were fun to play with because the flowers were like ladies' skirts when you turned them upside down. I used to make flower ladies from them and from the hyacinth flowers. Dancing flower ladies at a woodland ball.

I remember picking bouquets of violets and lilies of the valley for my mother. I was so proud to bring her flowers to let her know how much I loved her. She would put them in a tiny vase on the kitchen windowsill.

We also used to dig in the woods, playing archeologist. I am not sure if my father was the influence here or not, because he was always finding things when he was gardening. Old medicine bottles, a broken clay jug that he put back together. We found oyster shells, rusted iron objects like a clawfoot for a tub or an old wall bell. We guessed that our property was the trash dump for the Pot Spring mansion. It was exciting to find these old things. I don't know what became of everything. They might have been tossed in one of my dad's garage cleaning sprees.

The side yard had the rope swing and a swing set. We never went past some old rotting logs that were back in the woods. It seemed to be a natural boundary. The only time we might, was to gather kindling for fires. I carved my initials in the beech tree there. It might have been a heart with another set of initials, like NS + CV. He was a sixth grader that I adored when I as in third grade. On the swing set, we would image the swings were horses and we were galloping away on them. Sometimes maybe we would be the horses, shaking our manes and galloping through the woods.
We made forts by bending and twisting saplings together. We gathered moss for soft areas to sit and slate to have plates and cutting surfaces. We would sweep the leaves aside to make imaginary wall boundaries. We might have been pretending to be families or siblings abandoned in the woods. I am sure we had all sorts of scenarios. We were never about war unless there was a boy playing with us.

On the other side of the house, there was a rarely used patio off the guest room. It has wooden screens for privacy from the street. My dad had created a stone path from the front door to this patio. Part of it was lined with hostas. It seemed like he was always digging them up and dividing them. The hill between the driveway and the house was pretty steep. The area was covered with pachysandra. We lost so many balls in there.
 Past the seldom used patio there used to be a swing set before the swings were on the other side of the house. We used to swing so high and hard that the legs of swing set would lift and bump but never tip. Behind the swing set there was a tallish stump and an animal graveyard. We were always taking in baby squirrels and birds that had fallen from trees. They usually died, but we tried to keep them alive anyway. Hamsters, gerbils, mice, chinchillas all went there. I was afraid to walk about the ground there for fear of stepping on a dead animal and having my feet smush its lifeless little body. It freaked me out. I tried to avoid it when I cut through the yards to go see my other friend who had a  large family. Mary Katherine, Mary Louise, Hector, Ignatious, Edmund, and Mary Margaret, who was my friend. I don't remember her coming over as much as I was over there and she didn't even know about the pet cemetery.

In the Winter, this was the side of the house where we would sled. Usually someone with a saucer would make a great path. then we would pack it hard and fast with our sleds. Sometimes you did not steer and had to hit a tree to stop. There was one large tree just as the path got fast. You could start there or start up higher and slower on the hill.

The back of the house was mostly patios. They were off the living room, dining room and family room. Great areas for entertaining and having family over. They were stepped so the living room patio was higher than the other. Narrow steps led down to the lower more used patio, which seemed protected with a railroad tie wall and an hill beyond. The neighbors could not see you down there. When we bred our golden retriever and she has a litter of seven puppies, that was the perfect place for  them to romp when they big enough too. Imagine the cuteness of seven golden puppies. Her whelping box was later turned into a sand box. I painted out on the patio, made those colored
sandscapes in jars, it was a good place to get messy. We ate steamed crabs back there and cooked out. There was a bench that ran the length of the patio that we sat, stood and used to climb on the bench. When we had a hard rain the patio would become a wading area because the storm drain could not keep up because leaves frequently blocked it.

If you stood on the top of the hill, you would be about level with the balcony off my parent's bedroom and you could see the backyard neighbor's house and their large black dachshunds.  I don't know why we did not play back there very much. Maybe we felt like we were being watched.

My father tried to use what little sun we got through the trees for gardens. There was a terraced section off the back of the garage next to the patio. Sometimes we had vegetables growing there but I do not remember them doing much there. I wonder if we trampled everything so it could not grow. He burned leaves back there too. After reading Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder, I decided to try and bake a potato in the ashes like I read in the book. I did not tell my parents but I will tell you, it worked!

I loved growing up in our neighborhood without sidewalks. Playing SPUD and kickball in the cul de sac or driveway. Attempting to ice skate when the driveway froze over. Playing until dark and hearing mom call for you in the distance. Walking home from school and plucking an apple of a neighbor's tree. All of these seem pretty idyllic. I hope my son has fond memories of the place or places he grows up. I am not sure people are a stationary as they were back in the sixties, seventies and eighties. Most of my friends lived in the same house all their lives too. I cannot say the same will happen with my son.