Posted tagged ‘rafts’

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“Live! Life’s a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!”

August 11, 2015

Finally we have rain. It started gently, but now I can hear a heavier rain and drops plunking as they hit the umbrella yet there is no fierceness about this rain. The forecast does say a thunderstorm for the afternoon. I hope so.

I was a fearless kid. I think most kids are. On the swings we’d pump and pump our legs until we were going faster and higher. Once we got high enough, we’d jump off and fly for just a little bit. We climbed trees and crossed ponds using makeshift rafts. We tried to ride horses bareback in the field. We climbed the water tower. I remember once my friend and I needed to cross the highway for a shortcut home. It was two lanes then two more lanes in the other direction for us to cross. We stood and watched for a break in the traffic then ran across the first two lanes to the grassy median where we sat for a bit catching our breaths before the next leap. When we were ready, we stood beside the traffic watching for a break. When it came, we ran across to the other side then jumped the fence. To us it was no big deal, but I suspect my mother would have been horrified as the traffic was fast and heavy on that highway, Route 93. We had no doubt we’d be safe. We were kids. We were invincible.

A few broken bones and chipped teeth later I know invincibility isn’t true, but that hasn’t stopped me. I like the adventure, the novelty of trying new things, of going new places and eating strange foods. I love off the beaten track and find it odd other people don’t. Life is filled with so many possibilities I wish I could try them all.

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“Part of the urge to explore is a desire to become lost.”

June 14, 2014

The rain has stopped but the day is still damp and cloudy. There is such an after storm stillness that even the leaves aren’t moving. I was on the deck for a bit this morning and was surprised by how warm a morning it is. Today is a free day. I have no lists.

When I was a kid, we roamed a lot on Saturdays. On days like today my sneakers and the bottom part of my dungarees would get soaked. I never cared. The best part of being a kid was needing no sense of style or fashion. Dirt was acceptable. Fields and woods were for exploring, and rain was never a deterrent, at least not misty rain or, as my mother called it, spitting rain. The leaves always glistened when it rained, and I remember slurping rainwater from the leaves when I got thirsty. We wandered far afield usually staying in the woods or along the railroad tracks. Once we found a raft and used it to pole around a pond. The raft was made from an odd combination of wood pieces, and there were holes between the pieces so our feet were always in water. We poled a couple of times around the pond and then put the raft back where we had found it. At the swamp, we jumped across the little canals from one island to another and went as far back as we could until the underbrush was too thick and there were thorns. It was only in the winter that we could follow the swamp to where it ended.

My town had a box factory and two factories which made chemicals and all three of those factories were by the railroad tracks. We used to see the people from the box factory on their breaks. They’d be sitting outside on the steps talking together and smoking cigarettes. The factory was at the end of the tracks near what used to be the station. The windows were too high for us to see what was going on, but there were piles of unfolded boxes stacked on the loading dock. Two railroad cars were always on the tracks across from the factory. They never moved, and I don’t think they were ever used for anything. We couldn’t get into them but we did climb the steps and look wistfully inside.

We were gone all day, but my mother never worried even though she didn’t know where we were. When we were leaving, she’d ask where we were going. We never knew so our answer was always,”Around.”

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“The trees that have it in their pent-up buds To darken nature and be summer woods.”

July 21, 2011

The breeze this morning was cooling, but it is disappearing. The clouds periodically give way to the sun. The 74° we have now will soon be 80°, the lowest temperature for the next three days. I feel like a hermit, a cool, comfortable hermit but a hermit nonetheless. A friend is coming late this afternoon for cocktails which sounds so 1950ish that we both should be wearing Donna Reed ensembles complete with pearls and dainty shoes with pointed toes. I need a brick patio and a husband wearing an ascot.

My town had woods everywhere. The ones below my house weren’t very big, but they had blueberry bushes, the swamp and a wonderful old tree with a split trunk which served as a plank for the pirate ship and whatever else filled our imaginings. Once we found a tiny wooden shack made with boards of all different sizes. Inside were magazines some of which had naked women. We didn’t go back there for the longest time, and when we did, the shack was gone. All that was left were a few boards. A water tower was at the top of a hill at one edge of the woods. We always wanted to climb the tower, but we never did. A small outcrop of rocks surrounded one side of the tank. Once we’d reached the tower, we used to sit on the rocks and rest as if we’d climbed Mount Everest instead of a grassy hill which wasn’t very steep.

We’d move out of the woods to the field across the street and watch the horses and try to tempt them to us with grass but we weren’t ever successful. The closer we got, the further away they got.  Sometimes we’d hike to another set of woods to a pond where we’d once built a raft. We got the idea from Swiss Family Robinson. It sank on its maiden voyage.

We’d arrive home late in the afternoon. We were always grimy, sweaty and thirsty, the best signs of a great summer day.

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