Thinking About Childhood

On the whole I had a very happy childhood (pre-teen, which was an entirely different animal after the death of my father). I've been thinking about that and what a blessing it is. I have great memories...such as:

My father and his brothers having a few too many beers and driving the boat while my cousins and I fought for dear life hanging on to an inner tube. At the time, we didn't know there were too many beers, and skipping across the water at about 30 mph and the mix of pain/fun that followed was great.

Somehow we'd acquired a sled and I lived in a neighborhood with, no kidding, 45 degree inclines (I've double checked in adulthood too, so there's no embellishment here) on several different streets within walking distance. On the day or two a year we'd get a snow day from school, the sled came out and we'd do some serious speed racing with the other guys in the neighborhood. Once, one of my friends got his dad to get out his rail buggy and he would give us a ride back to the top of the hill.

We played whatever sport was in season in our front yards. Sometimes they didn't have to be in-season because we played hockey in the summer...and I remember the drafts for teams and the arguments due to lack of refs and re-aiming the flood lights to give us the ability for night play.

We had "woods" behind our house. We played real war with real BB guns. We built lean-to clubhouses. We played hide and seek. The high holy day was when Tim found a stash of Playboy magazines in his dad's attic and brought one to the fort after a BB gun war. Think about what a guy day that was: War, clubhouses and porn. We were 10.

One day when we went with family to the Gulf of Mexico, there was some sort of tropical storm brewing that was no threat to us but created the biggest waves I've ever seen, even to this day. In another near-death childhood day, my dad and Uncles Jimmy & Joe took me and my cousins Rob & Duke out into the perfect storm and we body-surfed. There were times the undertow was so bad that it pile-drived us into the ocean floor and we'd pull ourselves to the shore, shake off the near-concussion, and return 5 minutes later as our dads yelled for us to "Get out here, you pansies. You're missing the best waves." If you call an 11 year old boy a pansy he'd jump off a cliff. The next day the storm brought rain and we challenged our dads to skee ball for literally 4 hours. That was the 2nd time I beat him at anything.

The first was when, for some reason, I have this incredible talent for Putt-Putt golf (not goofy golf)...the kind that used to have tournaments on television. Well, one summer my mom would drop me off at the local Putt-Putt and I was actually in a summer league in the P.P.A. (yes, there was actually something called the Professional Putter's Association that charged us $25 a year for membership but we made that back by playing for pay and a third-place finish in a weekly tournament could net you $10). No kidding: We practiced 8 hours a day. Anyway, my dad picked me up after work one day and challenged me to a round. I shot a 26 (my average at the time)...that's 10 holes-in-one and 8 two's. My dad shot about a 40. He joined the P.P.A. and told my mom he couldn't stand it that I actually beat him in anything. He never did...but he gave me a "wink wink" punishment one time when he found out that me and some friends were literally "hustling" grown men at Putt-Putt like people would hustle in pool halls.

Man...now that I look over it, my dad was a pretty good dad. I had more in 13 years than most get in a lifetime...