Our corner of the world, our neighborhood, was a magical place. There were wheat fields all around us with “town” only a couple of blocks away. An arena for horse shows was just down the dirt road. The big new Catholic Church was being built right across the street from my house, chock full of nooks and crannies for our never-ending curiosity capers, sitting right on the corner that met three houses full of my friends and playing partners.
sledding
That was the same corner where the big hill sat for sliding down on our sleds in the winter or flying down on our bikes with hands held high in the air in the summer, right beside the house where Terry and Nancy lived, all the way to the corner where the Martins lived. There was the pond that froze over in the winter on which we “shoe” skated, down in the woods on the other side of Gail’s house and Peggy’s house. A short walk, maybe a half a mile, would take us to “Pee Curve” and the gullies where we swung from one side of the deep ravines to the other on long, thick grapevines.
And we kids had an appetite for adventures. We wrote and acted in our own plays, then sold tickets to our family and neighbors, even selling popcorn at one of the plays. We rode horses all over the place, putting the stubborn animals in the local horse shows (at least mine was stubborn).
one of the horses
We made Barbie towns in the basements. We even had our own village in Peggy’s basement with a restaurant, dress shop… now the details are fuzzy. We became blood sisters; climbed up and sat in the big tree and cut our palms and rubbed them together. We snuck out at night and rode our bikes around town. (Terry made me do it.)
riding bikes
And we made up this really neat game: Mulberry Groundhog. Since my memory was kind of fuzzy on the actual play of the game, I enlisted Terry and Gail to fill in the details, hoping they weren’t fuzzy as well. Turns out, if we were leftovers in the fridge, we’d be so covered with fuzz that we’d be ready for the trash bin. We did deduce it had something to do with a long stick, one participant being the Mulberry Groundhog with the other suckers sitting on a blanket squirming around to keep from getting whacked or jumping up and running off to be chased… or something like that. We remember bits and pieces.
days gone by
But what we all remember… is how very much fun we had growing up in our neighborhood.
apronsandappetites 
Makes me wish my grandchildren could know the kind of fun I had as a child
doing the fun things , that they will never experience. If it doesnt have a motor or remote…….not today, that is not fun. Sitting on the river bank at Ma & Pa ‘s houseboat, where they lived all summer, and watching the big Delta Queen come down the river, making the biggest waves that a girl like me ever seen……wow………good old days. You have a lot of fun memories of your childhood, I enjoy reading………all……..Keep up the good work BB
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Thanks for commenting. I appreciate it. Helps me know that people actually enjoy this blog. 🙂 And those were good days, weren’t they?
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We were so fortunate to grow up in that time and not in this computer age. Kids don’t know how to play and have fun today. I remember Muffett and I would play with water bottles and dress them up like dolls! haha And Terry and I would dress our cats up. Wonder we didnt’ get our eyes scratched out! Playing in the 6 foot deep snow drifts in the gulleys. Lost Mare in one once and had to go get the boys and a shovel to dig her out!! haha It was never too cold nor too hot for us to be out playing.
Riding out horses was such fun! Lots of great memories never to be forgotten!
Good one, Brenda!!
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Glad you liked it! Since I cheated you the other day. hahahaha
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And then there was me and Nancy 🙂 The little sisters. We were never apart….even would meet at the top hill to discuss matters of importance. We loved our baby dolls and then our barbies and then the cruising of the mall. I always told my mom, “Nancy has everything” and mom would say “her momma doesn’t love her anymore than I love you”. Some how that always worked for me. But we shared everything. We were fortunate enough to be in on a few plays, but I never played Mulberry Groundhog. I remember you all playing Hum Bum where you hid all over town. Anyone remember?
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I loved this blog! I was only a grandchild who lived out of state and I remember the hill, the church, going to Nancy’s house sometimes (when we were lucky). Marty and I will talk about all that sometimes. We looooooved Nancy’s long, straight hair!
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