Where Did the Mountain Go?

I remember seeing a cartoon in the paper. It showed three little children jumping, running and laughing on a very small mound of earth. The father is looking very sad and disillusioned thinking of himself as a boy on this same small mound, but in his memory it was a huge hill. I am not sure who, if anyone is credited with the saying ‘you should never go back’, but I do know for me it was very true.

I had returned to a place where I spent my early years climbing a mountain, fording a raging river and hiking forever through a huge forest. Like the Dad in the comic, it saddened me, for as I walked over a small rise, jumped a 3 foot wide stream, and cut through a small group of trees - for the life of me I could not find the mountain, river or forest. If I had not gone back, that raging river would still be flowing and the forest would have grown even bigger.

The other mountains that I played on, I am sure are still there, but I am ‘never going back’ to check on them, for fear that they too, may have disappeared leaving a small mound in their place.

The Back of the Door.

One of my earliest memories is the back of a door. When I was about 3 or 4 my mother was able to purchase some land with a small one room home on it. With small additions over the years, this modest abode was my parent’s home for the rest of their lives. It was purported to be an old granary (a building that grain was stored in).

I remember a wood burning cook stove, a metal bed, (shared by my mother, older sister and me) a kitchen table, and the only door! The back of the door had coat hooks on it, and during the winter people would brave the below zero temperatures to come and sit around the table to play cards. Once they had all arrived the hooks on the door would be bulging with winter parkas. The more coats, the more crowded we would be.

As I was too little to play, I would watch them from the bed (no sleep as there was far too much noise). The usual game was called “pig”. The idea was to pass cards around the table as fast as you could and the person who ended up with three of the same card would stop passing and put their finger beside their nose. Most players would be so busy passing cards; they would not see as others (noticing the first) also stop passing and putting their fingers by their noses. The last to respond would get a letter. ‘P’ then ‘I’ then ‘G’. Once a player got all three letters PIG, they were out of the game. I can still hear the laughter and see people with joyful tears running down their faces.

Finally, the guests would leave and, except for our own coats, the back of the door would once again be normal – until next time!  http://www.ohio4h.org/afterschoolag/activities/allaboutag/games/PigCardGame.pdf

About My Blog

I have been very fortunate to have lived during, what I think, is the greatest time in history. Where and when I grew up has contributed so much to my life and character (both good and bad). Growing up in a small farming community northwest of Edmonton Alberta has allowed me to experience life without electricity, indoor plumbing, and modern farm equipment. It has allowed me to experience attending a one room schoolhouse, having horses as the main form of transportation, and so many other things that are now part of history. From this extreme I am now experiencing the continued phenomenal growth of the computer and have reacted with joy, fear and sadness at world events during this span of 65 plus years. I could not have lived in a better time. I have experienced the turn of a century, and most importantly the music of the 50s, when it was first played.

These stories are of my early years, as I remember them. They are all true. Some will tell how different activities and chores where done during the 40s and early 50s. Many of them are my personal experiences. They are as I have remembered them; many happy, some sad, but all parts of my life that I would not change for any other time in history. I have been told that I am lucky to remember so much of my youth, compared to now - when asked ‘what did you have for lunch’, my usually reply is ‘I cannot remember’.

My main reason for putting these memories to paper, is for my children, grandchildren and their children to know and understand me better. My only fear is that some of the younger ones will try to emulate some of the ‘not so smart’ things that I did.

I realize now, that for a few years after WWII, my family was not very well off, but some of my stories would not have happened if my parents had been able to afford all the things available during my childhood.

These stories will not take any chronologic order, and I may skip from being age 4 to 15 and back to 4 again.