The Story of My Life: Christmas Magic

I love the holidays, especially Christmas. It's essentially a month long holiday from the day after Thanksgiving to the big finale on December 25th. The classic Christmas songs hit the airwaves. TV stations constantly broadcasting Christmas classics. Cities and their grayish gloom from winter's dull touch become adorned with wreathes, ribbons, bows, and trees. Friends and family hold and attend numerous holiday themed events all month long. And every year when it rolls around, I feel as if there's a touch of magic in the air.

Every year, Christmas came in threes for me. Always starting things off was Christmas eve at my grandparents house on my dad's side with my aunt, uncle, and cousins. Then Christmas morning was gifts from my parents and finally a return to my grandparents around lunch time for more Christmas fun, but this time my great aunt and second cousin joined us. Next is a breakdown of what those three events looked like through my eyes.

Christmas Eve put my excitement level at an all time high. Weeks of buildup, helping Grandpa and Grandma Watkins decorate their house including the Christmas tree that would soon have wonderfully wrapped presents beneath them, led to sheer joy overload when the 24th of December made its appearance. My parents would dress up me and my siblings in nice clothes and after dinner, it was off to Grandma's house we went. The lights were twinkling, the table was covered in goodies, and there at the foot of the basement stairs was the tree and it's gifts. We raced down the stairs to find Grandpa either starting or stoking the fire. Once everyone was downstairs and settled, my cousins, some of my siblings, and I would hand out the gifts. Then began the destruction of the wrapping paper, followed by the fun of playing with the shredded paper. To finish off the evening, we'd head back upstairs for cake, cookies, candy, pop, and all the sugar our hearts desired.

Christmas Day usually started with us kids wanting to play with our new treasures from the night before, but we had to add to them with gifts from Mom and Dad. Santa wasn't a big deal for us and we were fine with that, but we tried to do our best not to spoil him for the other kids. As lunchtime approached, and depending on the year, we'd either go back to my grandparent's house or head out to my great aunt's house. There we would enjoy a Christmas lunch followed by another round of gifts. Us kids would spend the rest of the day playing with the new goodies or outside in the snow (if there was any). 

One of our favorite pre-Christmas activities was when our parents bundled us all up after dinner, packed us in the old station wagon, and drove us all over town to see all the different ways the neighbors adorned their houses with twinkling Christmas lights. Some houses went all out with every edge and eave covered in lights, their front yard protected by inflatable snowmen, and good ol' Saint Nick and his reindeer smiling from their roof. Other houses simply had one tree dressed in a rainbow of lights, which may not seem like much, but it was more than we did and it was awesome. As I got older I did come to learn that this was an inexpensive form of entertainment and a good way to have us pass out around bedtime. I still, as a man in my 30s sometimes slowdown by twinkling houses when this time of year rolls around.

With Christmas came traditions. Especially when it came to cookies. We'd joyfully retrieve the Christmas themed cookie cutters as my mom prepared all the baking supplies. Once everything was in place, we'd grab our personal aprons off the hook and get to work. There'd be mixing and stirring and rolling and dough sampling and spoon licking. Our faces would be covered in batter and our hands in flour. Then, as the dough was complete, we would bring forth the Christmas shapes hidden inside it. Snowmen with top hats appeared, as did Christmas trees, candy canes, and of course, the face of Santa Claus. Before the finishing touches could be applied, we had to wait out the baking. We'd know exactly when they were done because back then, we had a little wind-up timer that let out a buzz or ring so loud you could hear it anywhere in the house. It didn't matter if we were watching TV or playing intently, that timer's song was enough to make us drop everything and run to the kitchen. Once the cookies cooled, we began icing them (and eating some of it in the process) with the homemade icing that was made for them. Some were lucky enough to be covered in sprinkles or sugar coating. They wouldn't last long in our house, but when they ran out, simply making more was the way to go.

I don't think that last paragraph was enough to truly portray how serious my family took Christmas cookie making. Every Christmas, without fail, Grandma Watkins would makes many batches of many different arrays of cookies. Any days we spent at her house during December, we'd be tasked with helping, which we didn't mind. Grandpa would help too, but his help consisted of eating the finished products before they could be packaged up. Grandma would scold him and let him know that the more he ate, the less there'd be at Christmas time. But why did she make so many? Because they made the perfect gift to give to many people. The table in the breezeway would be covered in tins filled with cookies until they were delivered to their recipients. To this day, my family still practices the art of cookie making and it's become a staple Christmas tradition for us.

No two Christmases were ever the same, but the magic that came with them was always there. It came in different forms, shapes and sizes, but it always reminded me why I love this season so much. Here are some of those magical moments.

Let's kick things off with the Christmas of 2000. Every year Grandma Watkins wanted a list from us. She didn't care how long it was, just as long as nothing on the list was more than $20. So every year, I went through the Christmas Lego Catalog and made a list of every set I knew my parents would be okay with me having that fell under $20. If I wanted a particular set more than the rest, I put it near the top of the list. However, it was very rare that I received any set close to the $20 value because Grandma and Grandpa like getting us multiple gifts rather than one bigger one. Well in the summer of 2000, Curtis was over at my house and he brought his new Lego set that had just come out out that year. It was part of the new Adventurers line which was my favorite. The set was a large airplane called the Island Hopper. It was the biggest one I had seen and had a lot of bells and whistles. I was in awe of the two large propellers on the front, the secret compartment in the back, and it even came with a Lego Pterodactyl. I think I talked my mom's ear off about it that summer, but didn't think I had a chance at getting it because it cost exactly $20. I spent the rest of the year looking at it in the Lego catalogs and dreaming about how I'd play with it if I owned it. December eventually arrived and Grandma asked for a list. I put together probably one of the longest lists I had ever made. My memory isn't 100% here, but I'm pretty sure I did not put the Island Hopper on the list because I thought I wouldn't get it. Christmas Eve came as it normally did and once at Grandpa and Grandma's, I was excited to hand out the gifts. I zoomed back and forth from the tree to the person whose name was on the To/From tag. Even though I had handled most of the gifts with my name on them, none stood out to me. I decided to open the smaller ones first to build up to the "better" gifts. After a few oohs and aahs, I grabbed what I deemed to be a medium sized present. I tore into it wondering what it could be. The first tear was enough to freeze me in my seat. I couldn't believe what I was staring at. I let out a shout of joy and tore off the rest of the paper. There in my hands was the Island Hopper. It took me totally by surprise and hit me with a blast of sheer joy. I ran around the room showing my mom, dad, uncle, aunt, and grandparents. They all knew as they were in on it. That big, beautiful plane was mine and would be fully assembled by the end of Christmas Day. This was most certainly one of those Christmases where the one single, thoughtful gift made Christmas a memorable one. The Island Hopper is still proudly displayed in my room to this very day.

The year eludes me, but sometime in the mid 90s, one Christmas in particular was memorable not because of the gifts alone, but because of all the events leading up to it. The first occurred on a chilly night. My parents dressed me up in a nice vest, dress shirt, and dress pants. We then went to a holiday party where My Uncle Randy, Aunt Tina, and cousin Dave also were. It may have been a company party or special church party, but that didn't matter to me. There was a large, decorated tree in the corner that lit up that section of the room. Next to it was a device that was meant to return golf balls putted into it. I'm pretty sure it wasn't supposed to be left out as no clubs nor balls were in sight. Dave and I discovered it after the dinner. Since we didn't have golf balls, we used pieces of corn left over from our plates and set them in the return machine. We then put pressure on the plate to trick the device into thinking a ball was inside. The device would then flip it's flipper and send our corn kernels flying much to our delight. Christmas music played throughout the night and at one point, a man dressed as Santa Claus showed up. All the kids in attendance were lined up in front of him. I some how ended up in the front of the line. I was scared and didn't want to go first so I ran to the back of the line. As I watched the other kids go, I saw nothing to fear. As soon as they set me on his lap, he asked me what I wanted and I didn't know how to say the name of the hot wheels car track I wanted, so I told him that I wanted super zooming cars that went on a crazy tracked and zoomed everywhere. He nodded his head, said Ho Ho Ho and Merry Christmas. Spoiler alert, I didn't get it because I'm pretty sure it was the most expensive hot wheels track that year and I don't think I told my parents. That night may have been the last time I ever sat on a strange man's lap who was dressed as Santa. It was also the earliest Christmas party I can recall attending and as a child, made me appreciate this season much more. 

Later that month, a large package showed up on our doorstep. It was early Christmas presents from my Uncle Bob and Aunt Cici in Wisconsin. It was filled to the brim with stuffed animals. One was a bear with overalls that I thought was strange but awesome at the same time. I named him PJ. PJ didn't supplant Bernie Bear, but he was part of many childhood adventures. As Christmas drew closer, my parents took us to a retail store known as Hills to do some Christmas shopping. Normally this meant we would get to see all the Christmas decorations the store had for sale and to ogle the toys in the toy aisles. Some toys had holes in the plastic with a "try me" button to give you a taste of what the toy could do without opening it. I didn't care that we weren't spending money, I always had a blast. This time was a little different. We had been given some Christmas money and could get one thing. As we wandered the aisles, there was a stack of boxes with the toy that was inside them displayed on top. I knew immediately that was what I wanted. I didn't even need to look at the other toys in the store. On top of that massive pile sat a black monster truck called "Buffalo". The magic about it was that it was remote controlled. In the 90s, the remote controlled cars made by Tyger Toys were all the rage. And I was going home with one. You better believe I ran that thing until the batteries died and needed replaced. Since it had big tires with rubber spikes, I could drive it across grassy terrain. So of course I did. Never did I imagine that simple trip to a retail store would be a wonderful Christmas memory burned into my mind for ages to come.

Christmas Eve and Day that year seemed like the best Christmas I ever had simply to everything that led up to it. One thing I haven't mentioned about my grandparent's house is that every year my grandma would put out a plastic dish tree on the table. Each little dish would hold a hershey kiss or reese's peanutbutter cup as the "decorations". Grandma would let us fill that tree and the rule was that if you ate a decoration, you had to replace it. It was simple, yet an important part of each and every Christmas. 

I have other Christmas memories I am going to share, but those I was to save for as we move along in the timeline because they were instrumental to those years of my life. I hope you have a wonderful holiday season and goodwill and blessing to you all. 

Vaya Con Dios Enrique

A little over 10 years ago an older friend, Jose, called and told me he had met a young person not far from where he lived and that young person would be joining our youth group for our Fall Harvest Day. That young person was Enrique. Only in 7th grade at the time, he was a well spoken, bright young man whose presence could be sensed from a mile away. Normally for the Fall Harvest event, we would go to a large farm-like property and spend the afternoon there doing all sorts of activities and eating all kinds of delicious food. This year was a little different as we decided to do a little gospel sharing first. In this case we went door knocking. I was unsure of how Enrique would handle being with a bunch of strangers knocking on the doors of strangers. As we went out, he had fliers in his hands and placed them on doors when no one answered. Eventually we asked him if he'd be willing to talk to the next person who opened a door. I was expecting him to say no, but he jumped right in and executed his greeting flawlessly. To say I was impressed would be an understatement,

Thankfully his introduction to us didn't scare him off. In fact he kept coming back and became an integral part of our youth group throughout his remaining Jr. high and high school years. He and my brother Stephen became pretty fast friends so I saw him more often than most. Through my interactions, I found out that he loved football and like me was a Philadelphia Eagles fan. We'd invite him to watch games and we would talk Eagles football for hours. 

In the summer of 2014, we took our youth to an Indians baseball game and Enrique came along. It was a day game, it was hot, and our seats were in the sun. There was almost no offense as both teams only scored 1 run each all game. After nine innings of play, the teams were still tied and headed into extra innings. The opposing team quickly took the lead and the small crowd that remained thought it was over. In the bottom of the 10th, the Indians managed to load the bases, but had two outs and Nick Swisher had two strikes. Then the opposing pitcher threw a meatball and Swisher didn't miss. I jumped in jubilation as I got to see my first grand slam sail over the fence in person. I then hear Enrique groan "Finally!" I looked at him funny and said "Don't you realize what you just saw?" He gave me a dead stare and said "We won and now we can go home. It's hot and I'm tired." All I could do was laugh because there was no reasoning with him.

Speaking of meatballs, Enrique loved those too. So much so in fact, that for a period of time, it became his most commonly used word. I would ask him how he was doing and he'd respond in a funny accent "Meatball". If I asked him what he was eating, sometimes he would say "meatball" even if it wasn't. And then there were times I'd try to get a longer response about something and would only get "Meatball." Thanks to Enrique, every time I eat a meatball, I can't help but think about him.

Sometimes we'd butt heads in disagreement and Enrique had a unique way of going about it. If things got to a boiling point, instead of raging or going into wrestling mode, Enrique would start shouting at me in Spanish knowing darn well I couldn't understand or properly respond to anything he was saying . Some of those arguments ended with me laughing and him still refusing to speak English until we were on better terms.

After high school, Enrique took a different path and I didn't see him much anymore. I still thought about him often and tried to reach out every now and then, but it was hard to keep in touch. Then, a little over two years ago, he reached out to me directly. I can't tell you how much joy I felt to hear from him. Shortly after, he showed up to help drive some of our kids out to an event in Willoughby. When I saw him walk through those meeting hall doors, I didn't say hi. I walked straight up to him and gave him a big hug. I rode in his truck to Willoughby that night and we talked the whole way catching up on all the lost years. I learned about his HVAC work and of course we talked a lot about the Philadelphia Eagles. Being able to spend time with him again was a breath of fresh air and I'm so glad I treasured that because I did not know it then, but that night would be the last time I saw him.

I received a call this past Sunday morning that Enrique had unexpectedly passed away. It came without warning and I couldn't believe it. Processing it was hard as I was tasked with breaking the news to others around me that knew him. Losing anyone is hard, but even more so before the age of 30.  

One of the things I loved most about Enrique was his heart. From a young age, he was always willing to help and cared a lot about the people around him. As he matured into a young man, he was definitely a people first, me second kind of guy. When we needed someone to run the sound equipment for Sunday services, he jumped onboard. It was rare to ask him to help move stuff or clean-up because he was already involved before you could. 

The other major aspect of Enrique that was so special was that he had become a man after God's heart. I was there when we baptized him and it was special. When I read through the facebook posts and listened to people talking about him at his visitation hours, they talked about his passion for God and love of Christ. Being one who has served youth all these years, nothing gives me more joy than seeing a young person commit their life to Christ. 

Enrique's time on this earth was really short and provides another reminder that tomorrow is never given and life is truly a blessing. Vaya con Dios Enrique, until we meet again my dear friend.

The Story of My Life: The New Millennium Has Arrived

If you were to ask me which year had the most spectacular new year's celebration worldwide, it was hands down when 1999 gave way to the year 2000. To say you were alive at the birth of a new Millennium is not a mundane feat. And spoiler alert, the dreaded computer crash never happened. Being 9 years old meant no extravagant parties for me, but watching the world celebrate on TV was thrilling. NYC was more hyped than ever with even larger crowds, the best and brightest in the entertainment industry putting on performances of a lifetime, and the glitz and glamor was on overload. London was ablaze with with a brilliant fireworks display over Big Ben. Sydney, Australia one-upped them with their own legendary fireworks display, so much so that you could see the Opera House clear as day. Many more extravagant parties were happening all over the globe as 2000 was welcomed and we sadly said goodbye to the 90s.

The summer of 2000 was another special one for me as two major things happened. First, the summer Olympics returned and they were in Sydney, Australia. This was the first year I gained an interest in them and fell in love with everything that they were. The swimming was unreal that year with legendary Aussie swimmer Ian Thorpe (The Thorpedo) flat out dominating in the pool. But little did he know that a new legend was making his first appearance and would challenge him for years to come. That man was Michael Phelps. Sydney put on an exciting Olympic games that would be memorable for years to come.

The second memorable moment was that for the first time in four years, my family returned to Wisconsin. Instead of one week, we stayed for three. And those three weeks were a huge up and down roller coaster that would give me life experience for years to come. As a child, spending three weeks on a farm out in the country and away from home was both a blessing and a struggle. Being able to play with so many pets, explore big open land, go fishing and boating more times than I could count, and spending a lot of time with family I don't get to see often added to my growth. But because I also was dealing with anxiety issues and the fact my dad couldn't stay the whole three weeks made some days harder than others as I dealt with my struggles and homesickness. With all that in mind, let's dive into the memories of these three weeks.

Farm cats are always in plentiful supply and this year was no exception. There were three generations of calico cats. The third was a kitten that stole the show. It was white with orange fluff spots. At the time of our arrival, I don't think it had a name. But my aunt Cici picked him up one night when he managed to sneak into the house and I swore I heard her say "Come here you little melon." From that point on, I called the kitten Melon and the name stuck. Thankfully Melon was slightly understanding of children because every time we returned from an outing, as soon as we saw him, the first one to him got the rights to hold him. With five children all wanting a turn, that poor kitten was passed around like dishes on thanksgiving. But he was a tough cookie and graciously put up with us.

What would three weeks in the country be without fishing and swimming right? Lucky for us, my Great Uncle Wally and Great Aunt Lorena had a cabin by the lake. They had it well stocked with pool toys and a nice dock that were were able to run and cannonball off of until our hearts were content. The fishing off the dock was pretty good too. One afternoon, after I decided I had done enough swimming for the day, me and my brothers took out the fishing poles and tried our luck. Baiting the hooks with earthworms that we had dug up on the farm, we casted those lines towards the lily pads. The sunfish must've been mighty hungry as they were gobbling up our worms faster than we could bait them. We caught a decent lot of them and were placing them in a large Styrofoam cooler that had water inside of it. By the time we were done, we probably had 10-15 fish inside. We left it on on the shore near the edge of the water by the dock. Later, when I came to get them to take home, I found the lid half off and only one dead fish inside. I was flabbergasted and wondered how so many fish could disappear. The truth was never fully known, but apparently my mom thought they weren't getting enough air and opened the lid partially. Then, since the cooler was so close to the shore, the waves rocked it enough that maybe gave the fish a chance to jump out. That's the theory anyway because no one could explain the complete disappearance of that many fish. 

I loved collecting things. Hot Wheels cars and Legos being the two most desired during those days. I managed to start three new collections while living on the farm. The first was pop cans. The room I was staying in had this nice wall shelf at the foot of the bed. It was a perfect place for storing empty pop cans. And since my mom's side of the family loved that fizzy drink more than anyone I knew, I was able to fill that shelf with many colorful cans. The second thing I began collecting was stamps. I had no intention of doing so at first, but when my aunt Cici gave me a small baggie filled with them, lets just say I went on a stamp collecting craze. Any piece of mail that came with a stamp I didn't have, I claimed the discarded envelope, tore off the corner with the stamp, floated it off in warm water, and added it to my collection. While they aren't worth anything due to being used, there's a lot of history tied to them. I stopped adding to my collection years ago, but that collection reminds me of bygone eras and the fun I had acquiring them. The third and final thing is something you probably wouldn't suspect. Newspaper clippings of Snoopy statues. I loved the comics as a kid, especially the ones that came in the paper. My grandfather was also a big fan and would always show me the ones that he liked the best. Peanuts was one of them and was one of the most famous comic strips. Snoopy was my favorite character in that strip. In the year 2000, Charles Schulz, the cartoonist who created Peanuts, passed away. As a tribute to him, the state of Minnesota erected a lot of Snoopy statues around St. Paul. Because of the area my mom's family lived in, they received a local newspaper that reflected things of Minnesota. Each daily paper had a picture on the front of a different Snoopy statue. I thought they were the coolest things ever and cut each new one out, hoping to one day see them. Cutting these out and looking at them also helped with my bouts of homesickness I would be subdued by during our trip. I still have all those clippings in a box in my parent's attic to this day.

My cousins at this time were living just down the road. The youngest, Aaron, would come over to the farm almost daily to play with us. We were always coming up with different things to do. Some days he'd want to go clay pigeon hunting. There was a big marshy field at the bottom of a large hill where my uncles and other friends would shoot clay pigeons over. Not all of them would be shot, nor break when they hit the ground, so Aaron took this as an opportunity to collect them. Now the vegetation out there was extremely tall and Aaron was concerned with getting lost. So he'd have me sit on top of the hill and every once in awhile, he'd toss a broken piece of clay pigeon in the air and ask if I could see it. If I did, he knew he was still in range of the edge, if I couldn't, he had gone too far. Sometimes I wouldn't respond as I'd get distracted by the the occasional bird or pesky bug. Aaron wouldn't be to pleased, but what did you expect from a 9 year old?

Life can throw curveballs sometimes and I experienced two of them during this trip. One was a learning experience, and one was a scary experience. As much as I loved to fish, I had not yet learned (nor did I want to) how to take a fish off the hook. One day we were at my great Aunt May's and I was fishing off the dock. I began hauling in tiny panfish left and right. After I caught one, I would run back down the dock and up to one of the adults seated up by the house. I would as them to take it off, then I'd run back down to the dock with both the pole and fish in my hands, trying my best not to drop either, and then giving the fish a heave-ho into the lake. This process was repeating itself frequently enough that Aunt Cici finally had enough. The next fish I brought her she refused to take off. She sternly told me "I showed you how to do it and now you have to do it yourself. If you want to catch fish, you have to learn how to let them go as well." I began throwing a fit. The tears came flowing as I was afraid the fish was going to die. Aunt Cici still refused to help. If I wanted to save that poor tiny fish, I had to do it myself. I sat down on the dock and carefully wiggled the hook. In a matter of seconds, it was no longer in the fish's mouth. The fish sensed this, gave two kicks of its tail and flopped towards freedom, back into the lake. The terror that enveloped me turned into relief and satisfaction. I was now a true fisherman. From that point forward, I had no problems releasing my own fish...well except for the ones that swallowed the hook. 

The scary experience happened one evening after dinner. My grandfather, some of my uncles, and a few other family friends were all out talking by the feed barn. I was bored and went over to see what they were doing. There was two-wheel boat trailer propped up against the barn. I went and stood by it as that was the best spot to hear what they were saying. Eventually I got tired of standing still and leaned up against the feed barn, or so I thought. I was suddenly being forced to the ground at an alarming speed. I knew I was pinned and I heard a bunch of wild shouting all around me. Then I felt the weight that was on me disappear and a pair of strong arms stand me up. It took me a moment to realize I had leaned against the boat trailer, caused it to fall forward, and pin me to the ground. Thankfully, I managed to avoid all the extended parts and the slow fall only caused a small bump on the back of my head where the trailer initially caught me. I was also grateful there were a lot of strong arms nearby to get it off me quickly or who knows how badly that could've turned out. 

On one of my down days, Uncle Bob took me in his pick-up truck to go up into the fields and check the gopher traps. Apparently, the gophers were digging holes and were damaging the crops. That truck bounced and jostled all over the place as we climbed our way up the narrow and slightly eroded trail. Eventually the truck came to a stop and as I climbed out, I could already see the holes in the ground. My uncle went over and pulled two traps out of two holes. Each one had successfully caught a gopher. I asked him what he was going to do with them and he said "Give them to the cats." I was feeling a bit nauseous and didn't want to ride in the truck the whole way back, so I picked the two gophers up by the tails and walked all the way back down the trail to the barn where the cats were. As soon as I called for them, they came running out knowing a treat was waiting for them. I didn't want to see the cats actually eat the gophers, so I set them down quickly and ran off. Later when I returned, there was not a gopher remnant to be found. 

One last memory I want to share is the day my Uncle Duane, Aunt Linda, and Aaron went to the county fair. It was probably the first one I had been to. The day was overcast and drizzled on and off, but that didn't quell the fun Aaron and I had. We saw many animals, rode some crazy rides, and sampled the delicious fair food. At one point, Duane gave us a few bucks to play some carnival games. Aaron and I gravitated to the cork-gun game where you had to shoot pop cans to try and win a prize. I believe I hit 3 out of my four shots and watched as those cans plunked off their shelves. I ended up with a couple of colorful feather clips and a basketball made from teddy-bear material. That was a great day.

We had many more adventures during that trip which included many campfires, s'more making, more lakes that we swam and fished in, lots of exploring, food, and family. Eventually it was time to head back to Pennsylvania with 20ish hours of driving ahead of us. It would be another four years before we returned, but what an incredible 3 weeks I had.

There were many other small moments that helped usher in the hope that came with the new millennium, but the return to Wisconsin was by far the biggest impact in my life that year. Stay tuned dear reader because next month I will be sharing my favorite pre-2000 Christmas memories with you all. 

The Story of My Life: Labor Day Shenanigans

Labor Day never had the allure that July 4th, Thanksgiving, and Christmas did. But I looked forward to it every year because that weekend was a mini vacation for me. A lot of the church groups that came together at Camp Wabanna twice a year also held a weekend church conference in the Washington D.C. area every Labor Day weekend. There was no giant lodge for everyone to stay in. Instead, many of the locals in the D.C. area opened their homes to those coming from out of town. I loved it because it meant eating food I normally didn't get to eat, playing with toys I didn't own, getting slightly spoiled by our host family, and making new friends. It was the moments I spent in these homes that I remember the most.

The first host family I recall staying with were the Kings (yes that was their real surname). They had two daughters who were much older than I, named Jennifer and Joanna. In the down times between meetings and in the evenings after they meetings, they would play with us, but they were more like older sisters than baby sitters. I spent a lot of time in their basement because that's where all the toys were. There was a door down there that led to a storage room. On the front of it where very bold warning signs that read "Beware of Vampires!" Do Not Enter...poisonous snakes!" "Angry Sleeping Bears". There were at least six of those and I asked my dad if they were real. He sighed and said they were meant to be a joke. 

That basement was also part of one of the most legendary moments in Watkins kids history. During one of the evening meetings, my Dad decided to stay back at the house with us. My dad, my siblings, and I were all playing in the basement when we all noticed Nathaniel had suddenly disappeared. For perspective, he was a toddler. Upon noticing that he was missing, we turned around and found him at the bottom of the stairs. We all stared in disbelief. His face and hands were completely covered in blue icing, with cake fragments oozing between his little fingers. Then out of his mouth came his two most famous words..."Got cake." I ran over and saw that the beige carpeted stairs had a trail of blue icing all the way up to the top. My dad and I followed the trail up to the kitchen the find that the leftover birthday cake that had been left out on the counter displayed evidence that toddler hands had been in it. My poor dad had to spend the next hour or so cleaning all the rich blue icing out of the carpet and off Nathaniel. When everyone finally came back for the night, my dad explained what happened and the Kings were very understanding especially since the cake was leftover. To this day it's one of our favorite stories to tell as it was quite epic.

The King's generous hospitality kept on giving. One night after a long day, Jennifer and Joanna got all of us kids into the living room, sat us in these huge, comfy, black chairs and popped in one of my favorite Disney movies of all time. Robin Hood. I called it Robin Hood the Fox to distinguish it from the much older real life movies and literature. To be able to watch that movie on a bigger screen than a tiny tube TV and in those large chairs made me feel as if I was in a movie theater. They also allowed me to play on their computer where I discovered a lot of fun games like Gizmos and Gadgets, Freddie the Fish, and fun little battle tank game. I was in childhood heaven.

After back to back years of staying with the Kings, the third time around was something else. We stayed with a new family known as the Millers. The Millers were like us and had a large family as well. I don't remember exactly how many kids they had, but I think it was at least 6. So imagine a house of four adults and at least 11 kids. It was both pure bliss and chaos. One of their younger boys, Kyle, was about my age. We hit it off really quick and spent a lot of time playing with legos and pokemon cards. One of my favorite memories was actually coming back from a meeting. My parents were driving an 90s Chevrolet Caprice station wagon. It was blue and had a backwards facing bench seat in the trunk. As my Dad put it, that car was a bad investment, but us kids loved it. This time, Kyle and I were sitting on the backwards bench seat. We were cracking jokes at the most ridiculous things as we noticed them. Suddenly, the wind whipped a helpless plastic bag right across the back of our car. Kyle then said something about a wimpy bag and I lost it. I wish I could recall the full context of the joke, but being there at the birth of an inside joke is something truly magical. 

Something else pivotal happened at this conference. Wesley asked why we never stayed at his house during the conferences. I didn't know, but made up some story that the people in charge placed you where they felt best and if you wanted to stay in a specific place, you had to be request it. He asked if we could request them. A lightbulb went off in my brain. I told my dad after the conference that we should request to stay at Wesley's place each year. Actually I begged him. At the time, the situation seemed bleak. But come one year later, as we were preparing to leave, my dad came up to me with a grin. "Guess where we're staying!" he said. "Where?!" I asked excitedly. "Wesley's house!" Like a pinball launched off a flipper, I began bouncing off the walls. And here's the kicker. Every year after that for the Labor Day conference, that's where we stayed. When him and I were together, shenanigans were bound to ensue. 

Wesley was big into anything military related. He had toy soldiers, guns, helmets, and pretty much all the bells and whistles. I guess it makes sense as he eventually joined the Navy when he was old enough. When the weather was good, we'd don the plastic green and sand colored toy helmets and find the perfect spot to set up our base. We'd pretend we were fighting in historic wars and even fictional ones where we were the stone cold generals who led our armies to great victories. Sometimes the enemies would be our unsuspecting siblings who were not even included in our fictional battle. We'd pretend to attack them from afar and they were "eliminated" if they didn't notice our shenanigans. However, our mission would fail if they caught on. His sister Bonnie was our primary target most of the time. Actually some of our games involved messing with her because we were deep into the "boys rule and girls drool" phase. It was never malicious and she sometimes got us back. One time when Wesley and Bonnie were arguing, Bonnie said something that caused Wes to unload a phrase I used throughout the rest of my childhood. He stared her down and like a machine gun unleashed, he fired the words "I am rubber, you are glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you." The dagger had been thrown. All Bonnie could do was stick her tongue out and storm off. Wesley let out an evil cackle as he claimed victory. 

Like the Kings before, Wesley's house was like a kid's paradise. They had an in-ground pool which we utilized extensively. They had a camper trailer that they let us sleep out in one night instead of in the house. And they also had a computer that Wesley had a lot of games on. It was here I was introduced to Roller Coaster Tycoon, Sim City, and the ever classic Ages of Empires. Their mom, Cindy, also pulled out all the stops when it came to breakfast. When Reese's Puffs were released, she made sure to stock up on a few boxes for us. Reese's Puffs are still one of my go-to cereals. 

The children's service meetings were a whole different story. When young children are placed with a large group of their friends, things could go in any direction. Wesley would constantly be challenging others to a battle of wits. Chess matches could get intense. And creating games out of the limited things at our disposal was a common pastime. It was in one of these children service craft times that I taught myself how to fold a paper airplane. Followed promptly by attaching objects to it to make it more like a missile that I could launch at people.

I wish my mind would release other memories it is holding hostage from these days as there were some moments that shaped me. One last highlight was at the end of one of the conferences, before we made the drive back to Pennsylvania, Wesley's family took us to the Potomac River. I remember gazing in awe at the raging river and then promptly begin rock hopping. That short experience was a perfect way to cap off another labor day conference. What a time it was to be alive.

The Story of My Life: Camp Wabanna and a Life Changer

Nestled on a small peninsula in Maryland directly off the Chesapeake Bay, sat a large, but quaint camp known as Camp Wabanna. Beginning in 1997, our church along with other sister churches on the east coast decided to have a bi-annual retreat and this was the chosen location. Sitting on 23 acres, the camp consisted of a large lodge, many bunkhouses and lodging areas, a gymnasium, beaches, a craft house, a small farm, and many other interesting facilities.

I always looked forward to visiting Camp Wabanna because it meant many fun activities, a road trip, seeing all my friends from the DC area, and so much more. We almost always went down in a three car caravan. Al and Sue drove one of their cars, my parents drove another (usually the Ford Aspen) and Alice drove her camper van with her daughters Melinda and Joanna. That camper van was incredible. It was built to go on long road and camping trips so one could live in it. The bench seats were parallel to the wall, facing  a little table in the middle. Behind the bench seats were windows with curtains we could open and close at will. It was always a treat for us to ride in it especially on long car trips.

Whenever we went, the first night was always simply check in and settle down. But if you were feeling ambitious, they'd have a campfire on the beach, where a small group would gather and enjoy some songs and the sound of the crashing waves. We decided to check it out once and we met up with the Bishops there. Wesley and I spent most of the time hopping around on the empty log seats, possibly annoying some adults in the process. Eventually our parents decided it was time to get us off to bed, but right before we left, Wes and I sat down on a log and he he pulled a small stack of cards out of his coat. "Have you heard of Pokemon?" he asked. I told him no as this was 1998 and the game had just landed on US shores, but the craze hadn't erupted yet. He explained what it was and gave me two cards to start a collection. I received a Weedle and a Drowzee. I thought these were the coolest thing ever and my introduction to Pokemon had officially begun.

A typical daily schedule of events looked like this: Breakfast in a large room in the main lodge (or in a large outdoor tent), morning meeting for adults, kids to children's service, lunch, afternoon was a free-for-all full of activities, dinner, adult meeting and kids in children's service, and finally end of day. The schedule sometimes varied depending on circumstance, but that was the general plan. 

From my perspective, there were no boring moments throughout the day. You might think that the meal times would produce some yawns, but on the contrary, they were always exciting. I was able to interact with many different people because we weren't split up into age groups. I would usually gravitate towards kids playing a Gameboy or whomever Wesley was eating with (if not me). Sometimes I would be at a table with kids whose parents thought the best form of entertainment were dad jokes and they usually were. Every once in awhile, something unusual would happen including a scary moment. The incident happened one of the years we ate in a large outdoor tent. The morning announcements had just been made and the staff was preparing to serve the food when a nearby golf cart motor roared to life. No one thought anything of it until someone on the staff shouted "Oh my god there's a kid on there!" Lot's of people stood up to see what was going on as the staff raced out of the tent to attempt to wrangle the wayward golf cart going in circles with a young boy at the helm. Much to everyone's relief, one managed to jump into the rogue golf cart, ease it to a stop, and return the boy safely to his terrified but relieved father. Then came the thunderous applause from everyone in the tent for the heroic actions of the staff. It was a happy ending to a scary moment.

During the adult meetings, which took place in the Lodge, the kids were left with a handful of adults in various designated places. Sometimes we ended up in a small building with a lot of chairs where some people would play instruments while we would all sing songs. Then a Bible lesson would be given and my favorite ones were when the lesson-givers created a skit. Watching adults be silly and goofy had us enthralled and was even better when they used some of us kids in their skits. After that portion, we'd be split into groups. Some of us would end up in the craft hall and the rest in a large gymnasium. If we found ourselves in the craft hall, we would spend the time constructing a craft based on the bible stories we just heard. Some were cool and some not so much, but either way we were proud of our creations and ended up excitedly showing them to our parents. Some crafts made the trip back home, some did not, and most ended up being thrown out eventually as they became interesting pieces of clutter. The gym, however, was the best part of the whole children's service. This was the place where we got to burn energy, play large group games we normally didn't get to play, and really get to know a lot of new kids. It was at this very camp that my out-of-state friend circle grew. Wesley knew many of these kids beforehand because they lived close to him in Fairfax, VA. Sure enough, I made some fast friends who I could always have a good time with on trips like this. The short list of those people include Andrew B. and his older sister Renee, Paul G. and two of his sisters Mary and Elizabeth, Rebecca G., Kyle M. and his older brother Morgan, and Asher W.

The first half of gym time always consisted of organized group games that the adults set up and we had to play. Sometimes they were fun and other times they were torture. One game in particular is one I will never understand why adults thought it was a good idea to play with mixed age groups, sometimes themselves included. It is none other than the classic game of Red Rover. The game was simple. Split the group into two teams with the same number of people on each team. Then everyone would line up side by side about 50ft from the other team and face them. Each team would then link hands and spread out as far as their wingspan would go. One team would be declared it and they would call out "Red Rover Red Rover, send (name of person on the other team) over!" That person would then let go of their chain and charge full speed at the other team's chain and try to break it by running through a pair of linked hands. If the chain broke, the runner would get to choose one of the two people in the broken link to join their side. If the chain held, the runner had to become part of the opposing chain's team. The winner was declared when a runner broke the last link of the final two people on a team. Now when this game was played with just kids my size and my age, we had tons of fun trying to crash trough each other's arms. But when we were the smallest ones there, the bigger kids targeted our arms because they were the easiest to break through and it was near impossible for us to separate their arms. One of the times we played, poor Wesley got clothes-lined when he went for what he thought was the lowest chain link and ended up smacking his head into the arm link and going down. He ended up being fine, except for maybe a bruised ego. I don't think I managed to break through any arms that day either. 

The real fun began when we could play our own games. The gym had basketball courts, volleyball nets, and floor hockey goals. The most popular games were Knockout and floor hockey. For floor hockey, we'd pick teams schoolyard style naming two captains and they take turns picking players. We never had to worry about uneven numbers or someone not getting picked because we let everyone play and it was pure chaos. Imagine 20 kids with hockey sticks as a mass horde charging a bouncing ball or puck. Sure kids fell, crashed into each other and got the occasional whack from a poorly placed stick, but no one took it personal. One time I had a really good game and scored a few goals. Sometimes we wouldn't play a game, but instead have someone stand in the goal and see how many shots they could stop. No pads. We were hardcore.

After the adult meeting ended, our parents would come get us and we'd go get lunch. Then came the afternoon free-for-all. This meant a few hours of doing whatever you and your family decided to do. If you wanted to take a nap, you could do that. Explore the camp? You could do that too. The camp also offered tons of fun things to do. You could go paddle-boating or canoeing in the bay, rock climbing in the gym, horseback riding, hiking, and so much more. The first time I tried rock climbing, I failed to make it to the bell. But the next time we went, I was determined to ring it. I went fast and furious up that wall, but about the halfway point I started to struggle. I took a minute to get back in the groove and continued upward. The bell was in reach. I was going to ring it! But then my muscles started to ache. My sweaty palms started to slip. Was I really going to be denied this close? I forced my body to make one last grab, gave myself a little boost, swung my hand at the bell and heard the sweet, sweet "DING!" I felt like a legend in that moment. And to prove it wasn't a fluke, after a few minutes rest, I went up the wall again and rang the bell a second time. I was on top of the world that day.

One year they had a special pendulum swing. You had to be a certain age and sign up for a time slot. Once it was your turn, they put you in a harness, attached you to a release cable, and pulled you until you were at a high angle off the ground. Then, whenever you were ready, you'd pull the release handle and let gravity do the rest. Instant freefall and sheer thrill. Unfortunately I was too scared to try it at the time, but Wesley did it and had a blast. 

The swing-set was a popular place for kids my age to go. There was one year where Wesley, Morgan, Rebecca, and I would claim all of the swings and spend most of the time swinging away and talking about Pokemon. We would kill what seemed like hours doing this and usually ended by seeing who could jump the furthest off the swings. 

The afternoon time was followed by dinner and then the last adult meeting of the day. For this time, they sent all the kids straight to the gym and had everything done in there. The singing, the stories, the group activities, and the free-for-all. To me, the evening times were way better than the morning ones, but it was at one of these times where my life would take a drastic turn.

I had a love/hate relationship with thunderstorms as a kid. In the summer, they were the coolest thing ever and fun to play in after the lightning stopped. But if they happened in the dead of night in a place where I was far from home, I couldn't stand them. One of my irrational fears as a kid was being in a place where an ocean, river, or lake would severely flood the area. During one of the evening times, all of us kids were in the gym. It was a free-for-all period and due to it being hot out, they had the large doors pulled open to let some air in. Wesley, my siblings, and Melinda and Joanna were occupied with other activities. I can't remember what I was doing, but I remember hearing the low rumble of thunder in the distance. I went over to one of the open doors and saw large black clouds coming off the ocean. I looked back into the gym and saw the chaos of happy children, running, playing, and being obnoxious and also saw that the small number of serving adults didn't have an eye on every kid. These adults were not my parents and to me, it didn't seem as if they cared about the coming storm. Fearing the storm and not knowing what was going to happen, I decided to put a plan in motion and plot my next move. I casually walked just outside the garage door and began staring at the vending machine, acting as if I was going to buy something. Then I managed to fully conceal myself behind it, peeking back into the gym to see if anyone noticed. No one had. Then at the next rumble of thunder, I bolted. I ran as hard as my little legs could carry me across the open field towards the lodge. I didn't look back until I had made it to the lodge doors. Once there, I looked behind and saw that not a single adult had come after me. Not one. I weaved my way through the lodge to the doors of the meeting room. I slowly pulled it open and saw hundreds of people listening to the speaker. The speaker was making closing remarks and then noticed me. He said something along the lines of "It appears that a storm is coming and I think it's time to pick up the kids as one has shown up. Hundreds of eyes turned upon me. A terrifying moment became more terrifying. My mom and Alice recognized me and rushed over. They asked me who brought me here and I told them no one. I said I saw the storm coming and ran over here. Concerned for the rest of my siblings and Melinda and Joanna, they brought me to Dad and then took off towards the gym. Right as they made it to the gym, the storm came sweeping through the camp. Loud thunder, violent lightning, and high winds thrashed about. It took out the power. None of the kids that were in the gym were able to leave as it was the safest place to be until the storm passed. All I could think about was what would've happened if I had stayed there. I was concerned for my siblings and friends, but I was more concerned for myself. Finally the storm passed, but the power wasn't restored right away. My mom and Alice eventually returned with everyone else in one piece. Everything should've been fine...but it wasn't.

That terrifying experience that I went through caused me to develop cruel anxiety. Because no adults kept an eye on me in a scary situation and because not a single one came after me as I fled, made it incredibly hard to trust adults who weren't close friends or family. I don't fault those adults now as I realize they were short-handed and had way too many kids to handle, but to let a kid under the age of ten escape without notice could've made for a bad situation. The anxiety that I developed from this experience ruled over my life the rest of my pre-teen years and into my early teenage years. It impacted the way I acted, experiences and opportunities that came my way, as well as many other facets of my life. It ruined a lot of things for me and it began before the turn of the millennia. 

Now I don't want to end this chapter on a sour note, so I'll end with this. Camp Wabanna will always hold a special place in my heart. It allowed me to experience life outside my small little world in Pennsylvania. I got to experience many little joys of life that I didn't get to otherwise. I had the best of times with dear friends I only got to see a few times a year and we always picked up where we left off. Many of them I haven't seen since childhood and the memories of this camp reminds me of all the fun we had in those days. There are more small stories I could tell, but I may save those for another time. 

The Story of My Life: Saying Goodbye to the 90s

I hope you enjoyed those themed segments of memories, but a brief intermission for the normal timeline. I've already discussed most of the important tales from 96 and 97. Now it's time to enter the last two years of the 90s. I didn't know it then, but the 90s giving way to a new millennium was the end of a decade that meant the world to me.

1998 made a big splash with the arrival of Pokemon to the US shores. It had already been released in Japan since 1996, but once the craze was introduced here, we couldn't get enough. The games, cards, and toys flew off the shelves. Burger King introduced the creatures as a toy in kids meals and they sold out in hours all across the US. Kids couldn't get enough of a digital world where you could go adventure, capture strange, but charming creatures, and battle with them. Pokemon cards were a hot commodity which kids collected as many as they could to try and get them all. The search for the ever elusive holographic Charizard caused gullible parents to spend a lot of money on packs of cards hoping their kid would pull it. Unlike the Beanie Baby craze, this one had some weight. Because today in 2021, Pokemon is still going strong and those in my generation who are now adults are getting hit with the nostalgia of their youth and buying up cards everywhere. That holographic Charizard in near perfect condition goes for $300,000 online! Imagine if your kid was lucky enough to find one of these and kept it in a card sleeve all these years. Their college tuition and a mortgage would be covered. Pokemon was more than a craze. It became a cultural phenomenon. 

A big change entered my life late 1998. Elise's dad's job offered him a five year deployment in Germany. Just like that at 7 years old, my best female friend was moving halfway around the world. I was definitely a little sad at the time, but my young, stupid self couldn't fully comprehend the weight of what was happening. Someone who I knew pretty much my entire existence was leaving for a long time which would ultimately cause us to drift apart. When she left, we wrote back and forth via letter a handful of times that first year. Her family even sent us a large package with German goodies inside. But my family didn't have the technology we have today and combined with the lack of desire I had for writing letters, our contact simply faded. It's hard to fault a young child for that. Many are a product of their environment and can make new friends as easily as they lose old ones, but I never did forget the ones I had before. There are times I do wish younger me knew the true value of that friendship and fought to keep it close. But life continued on and I still had my main core of friends around me to keep me going.

Somewhere around this time, two new friends entered the scene. They are brothers by the names of Matthew and Curtis, but we called them Matt & Curt. Their mom Melissa (Missy) started meeting with us on Sundays and that's how we came to know them. It was really good to have more boys around who weren't my siblings. They fit right in with all of our shenanigans and at time brought some of their own.

Legos really took off for me during this year. I signed up for the Lego magazine and each time one came in the mail, I read it cover to cover many times over. So much so that the pages would become tattered and torn from excessive use. If I liked the magazine enough, I'd keep stapling it back together. My 1998 Christmas catalogue should be in the Smithsonian. It was also because of the magazines that I saw more and more sets I had to have. I remember one day in the middle of the summer, I burst into my mom's room while she was on the phone. I was upset because I didn't have any new Lego sets. The person on the other end of the line was my grandma. Mom told me to talk to her. She settled me down and told me to mention one I liked that was under $20. I told her I liked the Land Jet 7 from the Extreme Team collection. And that was that. No she didn't go out and buy me the set on the spot. And I eventually forgot about it.

Summer gave way to Autumn and Autumn fell to Winter. Christmas was looming around the corner and I couldn't be more excited that my favorite holiday was upon us. All December long I jammed to Christmas tunes on cassette tapes, watched Frosty the Snowman at least five times, ate delicious iced Santa cookies, and dreamed of a white Christmas.

Then Christmas Eve arrived. My parents had spent the day wrapping gifts, making food, and dealing with our extra bouts of energy. After dinner, we all bundled up and piled into the car. The trunk of the station wagon had gifts for my grandparents, uncle, aunt, and cousins. We cruised down the road to Grandma's house, gazing in awe at all the Christmas lights along the way. When we made that all too familiar left turn into their driveway, you couldn't really tell they celebrated Christmas unless you saw the wreath on the door. There were hardly any decorations on the outside to be seen. Yet, the inside was truly what mattered.

Walking through the front door into the breezeway, I was greeted by the musical Christmas lights, the smell of the cookies lying in wait, and the glow from the basement was a beckoning beacon of warmth. I rushed in and said hi to Grandma and Grandpa, surveyed all the goodies in the kitchen, then rushed down to the basement where the fully decorated tree stood, guarding all the colorfully wrapped gifts tucked underneath it. It wasn't long before everyone arrived and assembled in the basement. Grandpa had an stove-like fireplace and a black cauldron next to it where he stored all his carving wood scraps. It didn't take him long before he had a nice roaring fire. He'd give me and my cousin Dave the task of keeping it going by feeding it the wood blocks. Then came the fun part. Handing out the gifts. Being able to see the size of every one, the type of wrapping paper that adorned them, and simply being able to find mine was such a blast. I ran all over the basement, scooping up gifts from under the tree and delivering them to each person whose name was displayed upon them. After all the gifts were handed out, us kids were given the green light and we began ripping the colorful wrapping paper to shreds. I liked to start with the big ones first and finished with the little ones because to me bigger meant better. At one point I had a average sized package in my hands. Like the presents before it, its wrapping paper was rendered useless. My jaw dropped. I was not expecting this. There in my shaking hands was the Extreme Team Land Jet 7 Lego set I had asked for 6 months ago. I was in shock, but overjoyed. My grandparents, aunt, uncle, and parents all beamed knowing they had helped make this Christmas that much more special.

Normally we would wait until the next day to assemble and play with the Legos, but this one couldn't wait. Dave, who also received a Lego set, joined me at the little square table and we began the assembly process. Before long, we both had completed sets which we promptly set aside to go play in all the shredded wrapping paper all over the floor. The rest of the evening was spent enjoying lots of goodies and good company before our parents had to get us home and to bed at a decent hour.

Fast forward to 1999 which leapt upon us like a tiger in the grass. It was the last year of the millennia. There was much excitement and anticipation in the coming of the year 2000. But there was also a significant amount of unwarranted fear. Why? Technology was developing at incredible lengths. Home computers were becoming more popular and efficient. The internet was charging us full steam ahead into the future. So much so that everything was beginning to be run by it. The fear that arose was that the computers did not have a way to compensate for the calendar leaving the 1900s and entering the 2000s. There was a panic that everything would crash. As silly as this sounds, the fear of such a catastrophic event loomed over 1999.

Another major event that I was well aware of at eight years old was the ongoing impeachment of President Bill Clinton. I did not know what that meant, but I remember it being all over the news, the bumper stickers of people's cars, stickers on light poles in Walmart parking lots, basically everywhere. It was odd that this was happening to the only president I knew (George H.W. Bush was president only until I was 2 years old). For a young kid who was already fascinated by history, this event was strange and annoying as I didn't fully understand why it was happening and was sick of seeing it everywhere. Ultimately the Senate acquitted him and he finished his final term, but his reputation was forever tarnished.

One of my favorite Backstreet Boys songs of all time was released this year. Titled, "I Want It That Way" this song ruled the airwaves and continued to surge their popularity and that of the boyband generation. Years later, this song has still made for memorable mini jam sessions with my fellow 90s babies.

By the time the 90s were nearly over, two other things had become a large staple for me. Labor Day conferences and Camp Wabanna. These were two large annual events that a handful of east coast churches put together. The Labor Day conference meant we would go down to Virginia over Labor day weekend, stay with a family down there, and attend meetings with 100s of other people. Camp Wabanna was a large camp facility located on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland where all the same churches would gather in the spring and fall for a fun-filled retreat weekend. I'm going to go into detail on these two events later on, but I bring them up now because two major things happened in my life revolving around these two events. 

With the Labor Day conference, our family met another family whom we became extremely close friends with. They are the Bishops. Their eldest son, Wesley, and I became fast friends and best buds. He became my closet friend in the DC area. His family consisted of parents Brian and Cindy, a sister Bonnie, and another brother Grayson. His youngest brother Joseph came a little later. Whenever we got together, we were two hooligans who drove everyone around us nuts. Whether we were pretending to be soldiers in a great battle, annoying our sisters, or coming up with new adventures, life was always good around him and his family.

Camp Wabanna led to very significant change in my life that impacted me for years. It occurred between 1998 and 1999, although I do not remember the exact year. It wasn't great and was life altering. But I need to save that story for the next chapter and am only mentioning it because it happened in this part of the timeline.

I'm sure there's some things that I want to share with all of you that may be buried in the back of my mind at the moment, so I apologize in advance if I flash back on them later. All that being said, we say goodbye to the 90s, the decade I came into existence, began to form my identity, and is still to me one of the best decades of my life. On to the new millennia!

The Story of My Life: The Magic of Friendship

I didn't have that many friends growing up as I was homeschooled. But the ones I did have sustained me all the way to my teenage years. I've already introduced you to most of them and some brief looks into our adventures, but now I want to hone in on a handful of significant moments in my life influenced by them before I jump back into the timeline.

I mentioned previously that I hung out with Elise a lot as a kid and that wasn't an overstatement. Our mom's would take turns coming over to each other's houses and letting us spend countless hours playing while they enjoyed each other's company. I obviously preferred going over to Elise's house as that meant toys I didn't have I could play with, a really nice swing-set, and cable TV. For me, cable TV was a big deal because it meant cartoons 24/7 and some channels played the same series all day meaning you wouldn't have to worry about missing out on critical episodes. One of my favorite educational cartoons was discovered in Elise's living room. We were a bit pooped from playing all day and to give our mom's a break from our incessant noise, Irene turned on the TV. Before my eyes was a cartoon I would come to know and love for years to come. The Magic School Bus. A zany teacher who took her kids to places mankind could only dream of going all via her magic school bus. Science became a desired subject and I attribute part of my reason for wanting to be a marine biologist as a kid to that show. 

I spent a lot of time at Al & Sue's in the summer. But the best days were when we were there all day. Why? Because that meant I was able to do plenty of things with my Motley Crue of friends. There were days where Zeke, Cam, Joe, and I would chuck plastic baseballs in the air on a hill out back and take turns mashing them with a plastic bat. There was a swing-set at the bottom of the hill that was spray painted red. This was because Joe's favorite color was red and Al let him pick it out. One sunny afternoon, Al, Joe, and myself spray-painted the whole thing red. To young boys, spray paint was one of the coolest things to exist and the fact that we got to use it had us over the moon. That swing-set served for more than an art project. Joe and I would sit in the double-swing-bench and see how high we could get. We'd take it a step further and imagine we were headed to a far away land, battling monsters found in a Power Ranger TV show along the way. During a lazy summer evening as the sun was beginning to set, Zeke and I were sitting on that bench swing. It wasn't dark enough yet, but the moon was quite visible and it was a thin, crescent shape. Zeke asked me if I wanted to know something cool. He said someone once told him that when the moon is shaped like that, gleaming over the earth, it's God's thumbnail. For short period of time I actually believed that in my naïve innocence, but I still hold onto that memory. 

When it would become too dark for us kids to play further away from the house, we'd usually congregate on Al's big patio. It was well lit, contained some picnic tables and a bench swing, and since we were out in the middle of nowhere, our parents had no problem with us all hanging out there unsupervised past 10pm. One night in particular we got a little bored and Chalene suggested we tell scary stories. Chalene went first and told one based on Stephen King's "The Children of the Corn." Her story was so convincing that cornfields at night freaked me out for quite awhile. Cam tried to go next, but he kept laughing and couldn't finish the story. No one else really had any good scary stories so we just talked about kid stuff until our parents said it was time to go.

Another place I spent a lot of time at was Melinda & Joanna's house. Like Irene, their mom Alice was good friends with my mom. Alice was also a teacher and she had a functioning computer with internet. Once a week, part of my homeschooling would be spent there doing educational things on the computer. Some of the programs I used were Treasure Mountain, Treasure Cove, Puddle Books, Reader Rabbit, Word Muncher, and so many more. Melinda & Joanna were in public school so they weren't there until school let out. I recall countless summer days of creating adventures in their woods, riding bikes all over their big driveway, swimming in the above ground pool, petting their neighbor's horses and goats, watching lots of Nickelodeon, and making lots of different crafts. I considered their house my second home at times. One of my favorite times there was a New Year's Eve. I'm pretty sure it was 2002 going into 2003 because their dad had a brand new Sirius Satellite radio that he had received for Christmas. We got to stay up late, the house was filled with people, we ate a ton of snacks, and played various games up until midnight all while having Radio Disney playing in the background. When the countdown began, the girls decided it was a good idea to make a human pyramid. I believe it was me, Sarah, and Tim on the bottom, Melinda & Joanna in the middle, and we put Nathaniel on top. We held the pyramid for the 10 second countdown, shouted "Happy New Year!" at zero, then abruptly collapsed the human pyramid in celebration. I'll probably have to dedicate a whole chapter to the memories and moments that occurred here.

Joe and I were like two peas in a pod. We learned how to rollerblade together at age 4. I went with his family to Racetown one summer and rode a speedboat for the first time. We spent many many summers creating new adventures and many winters coming up with creative ways to use a sled. We navigated our way through the early stages of life together. Here are some of the fun memories we shared together. When we were around 7, his parent's had given him a kids snowmobile for Christmas. One very snowy day, he brought it to Al & Sue's and I was excited. We were bundled up so tight the only parts on our bodies exposed to the elements were our eyes. Al took us out to the hill in the back and helped us get on the snowmobile. Once Joe and I were seated and snug, Al stood there as the snowflakes concealed themselves in his white mustache and told us to let her rip. Joe squeezed the throttle and off we lurched. It didn't have enough power to send us flying, but I didn't care as I was riding the fastest sled-like thing I had ever ridden before. It was a total blast.

Another snowy memory that comes to mind is when Joe and I were using normal (mostly) sleds. Joe had a new red sled the looked like a racecar. It had a plastic steering wheel in the center to steer the small rudder underneath so you had some control going down hills. After taking turns zipping down one hill for a bit, we wanted to move to another location. The sled had a rope attached to it so Joe said he'd pull me to the next location. There I sat, toying with the steering wheel as he pulled me along. At one point, he decided it was a good idea to pull me along the top of a steeper hill. An impish thought crept into my head. Without him knowing, I cranked the steering wheel hard right. The rudder turned and dug into the snow, making the sled harder to pull. Eventually, Joe lost his grip and I went flying straight down the hill. I looked back for a brief moment to see Joe panicking and trying to run down the hill after me, but it was more like falling as his snow clothes impeded him from gaining ground. As I laughed with sheer joy, I suddenly realized I had made a mistake. I was going way too fast and headed straight towards a small, frozen creek. Not wanting to temp fate, I bailed at the last second into the snow. Somehow, Joe appeared out of nowhere and made a diving grab to stop the sled from ending up in the creek. I collapsed in the snow full of laughter, but Joe wasn't too pleased. All was forgiven an hour later when Sue treated us to hot chocolate and warm chocolate chip cookies.

Being our neighbors, Maggie and Katherine made up a huge part of my life in those days. My mom would babysit them after school until their mom got home from work as well as many full days in the summer. Summer evenings and weekend would also be the ideal times they would invite us over to play. Simply using the toys and sporting goods we had, we came up with so many competitions an challenges. Maggie was also really into history and she was a grade ahead of me in school. Sometimes her challenges would include reciting the preamble, naming one of the amendments in the Bill of Rights, reciting historic dates, etc. Both Maggie and Katherine were into what was popular in those days and since I was homeschooled, I learned most of the trends through them. Bell bottoms made a brief comeback, anything Lisa Frank was all the rage for girls, and if you weren't writing with Gel Pens, you were doing it wrong. 

About those competitions. They were fierce. Especially the foot races. Those were a straight mad dash across their grassy lawn. And they were totally different from the bike races. I did not have the turns, jumps, and rough terrain to use to my advantage. I couldn't bend a tool to my will to help me win. All I had my body and what it could do. We were at an age in life where we were developmentally the same, except Maggie, being a year older, had a slight edge on me. Imagine if you were driving your car leisurely down the street and as you were passing by the last house, you see anywhere from 4-6 kids charging at you. Never once did we end up in the street, but I can imagine we spooked a driver or two. A normal race went like this: We lined up at the imaginary starting point in a professional track stance. Then someone shouted "Go!" We took off legs pumping and arms flailing. If you cut into someone's lane purposefully or not, you were going to pay. Crossing the imaginary finish line was something else. If it was close, we left it in the hands of the person not running. If there was any hard disagreement with the "judge", then the only solution was to run it back. My racing days may be long behind me, but the legends live on.

In the next chapter I'm going to make the long overdue return to the timeline, but I wanted to insert these moments to paint a better picture of how much better life was having the childhood friendships that I did. And it was magical.

The Story of My Life: Kid's Kingdom

Playgrounds and children go together like peanut butter and jelly. Littered with many crazy contraptions to entertain children for hours on end and also tire them out at the same time. I remember most playgrounds I grew up on, and to distinguish them, we gave them our own personal names. There was a big one on Elm Ave in Hanover that we called the Spaceship Park. There was a lot of static equipment, but the most attractive was a metal structure that started as a square ladder that led into an oval dome that looked like a spaceship. This was both a fun beginning and end of visit attraction. The best time to go was in the early evening as the sun was setting. I would lie in the oval and watch as the sun set on the basketball courts down below, imaging I was about to take off to the stars. The "spacecraft" did have a major flaw and probably wouldn't fly today. I mentioned the entire thing was metal. Metal absorbs heat very well. Hot metal and a child's skin do not mix. It's why I haven't seen anything like it since.

The other park in Hanover we frequented was dubbed the Giraffe Park. In the dead center was a giant metal giraffe that you could climb up it's back and to its head. This was the sole highlight for coming to this park. Everything else was...meh. This is another forgone piece of playground equipment because it had no side barriers and the drop was a good 20ft off the ground, I imagine enough kids fell off it to make it be deemed unsafe. It actually was removed before we moved out of state. However, there was one legendary moment that happened here. It was a warm summer Saturday night. The mysterious metal cabinet that was always locked was finally open, revealing a lot of sporting equipment. It wasn't long before 16 or so kids (myself included) grabbed a bunch of hockey sticks, a street hockey ball, and promptly formed a game on the shuffleboard court. I had not met a single one of these kids before in my life, but being kids, we were all just happy to play with each other. That game was memorable. There were some kids who were definitely bigger and better than I was and it was intimidating. At one point I saw an opening and took my shot. It sailed right under two sticks of good players and off the back for a goal. Then later in the game, one of the better kids on my side told me that if a bigger kid charged me with the ball, to simply charge him back and take it. I wasn't willing to do that, but when the moment came, my teammate nodded and I charged the big kid charging me. To my amazement I swiped the ball and sent it to a teammate further down. I don't remember the exact outcome of that game, but my love for street hockey was born that night. The last thing that made that night memorable was a very smart ice cream truck driver drove his musical truck right by the park. Instantly he had 30-50 customers. My parents obliged and allowed us to get ice cream. It was an incredible night.

Abbottstown park was a bigger park in terms of land that was down the street from our house, but not playing equipment. However, due to its proximity to us and its baseball fields, we frequented it quite often. There was a small wooden playhouse that you climbed wooden stairs to get into. It had a rickety bridge connected to a platform which had a slide built off it. Sometimes we would bring hot wheels cars to this park and race them down the slide. One time after doing this, we decided to go down to the baseball fields and Tim left his shoebox with a handful of cars in it at the slide. When we returned later, they were gone. After that we never brought more than a few cars each. The house was fun when it was new but eventually it became quite rundown and wasp infested. Whenever we had bigger group outings, we'd usually end up here. And every summer, the large field on the back end of the park would host a carnival. Rides, games, cotton candy, the works. I did one of my first House of Mirrors here. It was nerve-wracking for my young self, especially when I walked head first into a mirror. One of the popular rides here was spinning crowns. They were large crown cars that could hold 4 people and they spun like mixer. If you had dizzy problems or a weak stomach, this ride was definitely not for you. Each year though, Zach would have a competition with some of his other friends to see who could ride it the most times in a row without puking. I never did see the end results, but at one point, he didn't look too good. Small town carnivals were always a blast.

I did have a favorite park. If it was up to me which one we'd go to, it was this one every time. It had its own name. Kid's Kingdom. Imagine pulling into the parking lot with your parents. There, just a hop, skip, and a jump away, stood a large wooden castle. To my child eyes, it was huge. There were different levels, multiple floors, ladders that went down hatches, rooms with spyglasses, and even built in receivers where you could communicate with your friend on the other side of the castle. This was the kind of place where my imagination went wild. 

Sometimes I would see myself as a valiant knight defending the castle's honor. Other times I would believe I was a vicious raider coming to loot the castle's treasure. And on occasion, I would be an explorer, searching for long forgotten riches and treasures. But never once in these great escapades was I alone. We always went on group outings here so the usual suspects included Melinda, Joanna, Elise, Maggie, Katherine, and sometimes Joe. We would craft new realities to our heart's content. Sure the occasional disagreement would arise, but we were noble kings and queens who could reconcile our differences in a civil manner. This castle truly made me feel like a king.

There isn't a happy ending to this story, however. Playgrounds like this used to be quite prevalent. But as the times changed, they took with them these iconic grounds. Being made of all wood, splinters could be a common issue. The cost to upkeep these types of structures in season changing climates became uneconomical. But the biggest reason for their demise is simply that parents could not see their children half the time. In the 90s, parents didn't have to worry as much as they do now about child predators. It was perfectly fine for 7 year old me to disappear into the castle for chunks of time without my parents being overly worried if anything happened to me. But now, those castles with all their blind spots create havoc on anxious parents. Some may still exist, but all the ones I knew and loved are long gone. Left to be nothing more than amazing childhood memories that gave purpose to my life. 

One last thing I want to mention is that parks with playgrounds were a great place for making temporary friends. You showed up, other kids were there, you wanted to play a game, and you were set for the rest of the night. Ninety-nine percent of the time, you'd never see those kids again, but that mattered not as they had served their purpose. To simply be someone to play with for a short period of time. And that's quite alright. 

The Story of My Life: Why Saturdays Were Legendary

I loved Saturdays. Rain, snow, or shine, they were the most epic day of the week. You may guess it was because that's the point every week where my education went on pause. That astute observation did indeed play a part, but was minimalistic in my reasoning for being enthralled by a day named after a Roman god. It was a combination of an exciting routine of events that made a kid feel so alive. Let's get into it.

A typical Saturday started with waking up before the sun did most of the year. Most young children do that naturally and it's not until the teenage years where sleeping in becomes habitual. Yet, there was a purpose for it. Saturday morning cartoons. Starting at 6:30am and running until noon, they captivated and entertained us for hours. They were what we waited all week for they were the best of the best. We didn't have cable TV growing up (where cartoons were run nearly 24/7) so once a week we got our fix. Every major channel had them. And it wasn't just watching them; it was also how we watched them. The process was simple. Roll out of bed, don't change out the PJs, make a bowl of cereal, then plop on the couch for the next 4-5 hours. Sarah was the cartoon junkie and would have the TV on and a bowl of cereal ready to go around 6am. Scooby-Doo came on at 6:30am and there was no way she was missing that. Most of the cartoons I enjoyed came on from 8am-11:30am so getting up that early was not in my wheelhouse. Seven to seven-thirty was where I usually drew the line. You may be wondering how five kids managed to peacefully watch cartoons without bickering over what show or channel to watch. We had a system of unwritten rules. Sarah was the first one up and most of her favorite shows aired between 6:30am-8am. Anyone else who woke up at that time simply watched whatever she was watching. After that whomever got their hands on the remote usually had control which was either Tim or I. Nathaniel and Stephen usually didn't get much say in the matter, but they were young enough that as long as the TV was on, they were content.

The morning cartoon hours were more than just the cartoons. Like super bowl commercials, Saturday morning cartoons and something extra with them. We only had an analog TV that got 7 or 8 channels and used the ancient technology known as rabbit ears (antenna). This was before airwaves converted to high definition. Depending on which channel you were on, each had it's own intro and transition clips between commercials. ABC had what was called One Saturday Morning (which was my favorite) that had a sweet intro song (youtube it) before the cartoons and then a little lightbulb in the corner that would be turned on to signal the start of each cartoon. The best set of cartoons they aired were Doug, Recess, and Pepper Ann. FOX eventually had the Fox Box which boasted cartoons like Action Man, Nascar Racers, Ozzy and Drix, Pokemon, and Yugioh. NBC would show cable cartoons that could be seen often on Nickelodeon such as Blues Clues, Little Bear, & Franklin, but were re-run on regular TV in the Saturday morning cartoon time slot. Another side note is that the commercials were even worth it because they were all aimed at kids. The toy commercials, the candy & drink commercials, the cereal commercials, and even the shoe commercials were exciting to watch.

One last thing I'll say about the cartoons is that sometimes it was mission impossible of sorts. My parents were on the strict side growing up and they didn't allow us to watch whatever we wanted even if it was a cartoon. They'd even go as far as to change the channel if a commercial they didn't like came on. For us, some of those cartoons we couldn't watch were some of the coolest. For a period of time, we would attempt to watch these "banned" cartoons when they came on, but only if our parents were out of the room. These would be the most tense ones to watch because any little outside sound caused us to immediately change the channel. The other problem was that the old analog TVs were sometimes slow at changing between stations and when they did, they displayed the channel number for an excruciatingly long period of time in the upper right hand corner as pixelated digits. It didn't take long for my mom to put two and two together as every time she came down the stairs, she saw a channel number in the corner of the screen. Thankfully, we only received a harsh scolding when caught.

After the cartoons had ended the afternoons would vary depending on whether my dad worked or not. If he did, then we utilized those chunks of the day to test new games we created (including the previously mentioned banned ones), played full blown soccer games in our back yard, hung out with Maggie, Katherine, Zach, and any other neighborhood kid that showed up, and if it had snowed, would spend the entire afternoon sledding. If my dad was off work, we would more often then not have an afternoon outing. Sometimes that would be spending a good portion of it at Chuck-E-Cheese, or going to a local park, or spending the afternoon exploring Hanover. 

For us kids however, Saturday evenings were our Friday nights. By that I mean the most epic evening of the weekend occurred on Saturday. We didn't have a lot of money growing up, but that reality faded when we all piled in a Ford Aspen station wagon and rolled into Hanover. Nearly every Saturday the first thing we did was go out to eat. We loved this because sometimes it was McDonald's and sometimes it was our favorite buffet called Ryan's. Buffet's were the best because we got to pick what we wanted and had a wide variety to choose from, although some of us were content with macaroni & cheese and french fries. You would think that bringing five kids to a restaurant on a weekly basis would be a nightmare. But my parents raised us right and the simple warning of misbehaving would put going out to eat on a hiatus, we listened. I cannot count how many times random strangers came up to our table to compliment my parents on how well behaved we were. It happened almost on a weekly basis and I had set a high standard for myself to attempt to receive such compliments every time we ate out.

Going out to eat was not the end of the night. Sometimes we'd swing over to our favorite fun center known as Falloon's. It started as a simple arcade center where you could play the games and get tickets to exchange for prizes. Eventually as their business picked up, they added an indoor jungle gym, a mini golf course and allowed a pizza place and a dairy queen to occupy space inside. If I had to designate a favorite place, this was it. The thrill of having a pocket full of once shiny tokens which unlocked countless hours of fun was the stuff dreams are made of.

A night here went like this for me. My dad would give me a $5 bill which was good for 20 tokens. As most games at that time only cost one token, I was able to stretch them pretty far. I always went for the video games first because they didn't give out tickets. I wanted to make sure that the last games I played were the ones that dispensed tickets so I had a better chance of acquiring enough for something I wanted by night's end. I was drawn to the racing games because as much fun as it was to win, it was even more fun to try and wreck the computer drivers. The name of my favorite was Days of Thunder. After that it was usually on to a fighter pilot game where for a few minutes, I got to feel like a real war pilot blasting enemy planes out of the sky. Then came the ticket games. While skee-ball was usually a safe bet and a ticket gold mine, I gravitated towards the more physical games. There was Big Bertha where you had to throw as many plastic colored balls into a large clown's mouth. Spider-Stomp had you stand on a platform and would light up spider pads that you had to stomp on before they turned off. But the one that always drew my attention was an older game that was called something like Whack-a-Croc (probably not, but close enough). The game had a padded mallet attached to it and a soon as you put your token in, mechanical crocs would slide out of their holes at random. Your job was to mash as many as you could in the time given. Some crocs would stay out forever, but some would come out only long enough for you to attempt a whack,  but if you missed, you were likely to miss another croc as well. We always made it a competition among ourselves to see who could get the best score, including my dad. We got so competitive that we realized we could hit more crocs without the mallet and just use our hands instead. Sure mashing hard plastic didn't always feel good, but you had to do what was necessary to be the best.

Games of chance weren't originally my cup of tea as it meant betting precious tokens for the chance to win big, but most of the time end up with little to no tickets. Then, on one fateful night, everything changed. There was a popular chance game that appeared in most arcades everywhere. We called it Jackpot, but I believe the branded name was Cyclone. It was a short, hexagonal machine with a dome on top and a light that zipped around a circle. You could pic any one of the sides to place a token in to send the light in the reverse direction. You had one chance to stop the light on the jackpot space by pressing a single button. I never cared for this game because the one time I tried it, I missed badly and got 2 tickets. But this one night, as I was passing by it, I heard the machine going nuts. It was making ringing sounds and flashing like mad. There was a lone man maybe in his late 40s or early 50s just standing there as tickets poured out of the machine. He had hit the rare jackpot. The tickets kept coming so much in fact that I went to play other games rather than watch them all spill out. That lucky guy was still standing there near the end of the night when we went to cash ours in. When the machine finally stopped, the man took this large bundle to the counter. The employee took them and began to feed them through the ticket counter machine. After what seemed like an eternity, the counter read nearly 2000 tickets! My jaw dropped. That many was enough for a prize from behind the large glass, basically the more expensive ones. From that night on, chance games took up to 40% of my tokens whenever I visited a place with ticket games. 

My goal became to beat Cyclone. I fed many tokens into that game. Studied the light pattern. Timed the exact moment to press the button. Then it happened. I hit the button and stopped the light right on the jackpot, only to watch in horror as it skipped off onto the 10 ticket space. That was the day I found out the game was rigged. But I didn't know how rigged. My ever relentless desire to beat Cyclone led my timing to be so spot on that I could stop the light on the jackpot nearly every time. But that stupid little light would "skip" off over and over...until one night it didn't. I had stopped it on the jackpot. But the game didn't make victory sounds. The lights didn't go berserk. They just disappeared and the game spit out 10 tickets. Not to be robbed, I spoke with one of the employees and told her what happened. She informed me that if I was successful, the secondary backlight would have lit up as well. This meant that you could stop it dead on, without it skipping, but if the game decided it wasn't profitable to spit out that many tickets then no jackpot for you! That moment surly put a damper on how often I played the game. But like any addiction, the slight urge to play was always there. This would be a game that tested my patience for years to come.

Cashing in our tickets was always fun as it meant we were able to obtain prizes. The reality was that not a single prize was worth the amount of tickets they required nor the amount of money used to purchase tokens to obtain tickets. But as a kid, that mattered not as it was not our money we were spending and the prizes were "earned". I always wanted the big ticket items but never saved up for them because that meant multiple visits where I kept the tickets and had nothing to show for them. Usually I ended up with a lot of candy, some army men or parachute men, some stretchy men, and some other weird dollar store toys. But once I managed to get a black and yellow smiley lanyard. That lanyard held my house key for years and well outlived its value. It may have been the one I used the longest out of all the lanyards that came after it. And I earned it.

Before returning home, my parents would usually want to stop at Walmart to pick up a few necessities. As kids, it was the perfect end to the night as one parent took us to the toy aisle where we would spend every moment we had ogling and and "testing" the toys we couldn't have. What I mean by testing is that a lot of the toys had "try me" buttons that you could press to make them do something to show you how cool they were. For example, one of the hottest toys around Christmas time one year was the Tickle-Me Elmo. At the store (if you found one), you could press his hand to make him talk and then "tickle" him to where he would shake and laugh all while still in the box. Most other toys would make sounds or flash lights, but for us kids, it was sheer enjoyment and for my parents it was free entertainment.

After all the day's fanfare had finished, going home was still a sight. You'd still see the city of Hanover hustling and bustling with people. The car guys would be in the Wendy's or Walmart parking lots revving their sweet rides and showing off their neon glow. The dirt track down the road would be loud and roaring as the Saturday night dirt cars were just getting under way. The bowling alley signs would still be flashing their animated cartoons, beckoning you for an evening bowl. But my favorite part was when my parents drove back up Hershey Heights hill and I could see the entire town's lights as if it was a swarm of July fireflies. 

To the average person, these accounts may not be considered worthy of legendary status. But when coming from humble beginnings and a big family, being able to go out to eat nearly every week, making an occasional visit to a fun center, and being able to partially play with toys we couldn't own was enough to make a kid like me think I was living large. Maybe as you finish reading this, take a pause and reflect upon great experiences of your childhood. Take a moment to realize how magical they truly were. You're welcome. 

The Story of My Life: A Boy and His Bike

Bicycles. One of mankind's greatest inventions. You never forget your first. And by that I mean the first one that was your own and you learned to ride with no training wheels. When I was really young, Grandpa Watkins got me started on this really small, white and pink, kid sized (ages 2-5) bike with training wheels. I zipped all over his driveway on that thing for hours on end. While it was one of the first bikes I did ride, it wasn't full sized and the training wheels never came off. The bike I truly claim as my first as it became my very own, was a sleek black with gray splotches Huffy bike. A one-speed with no hand brakes and colorful plastic spoke clips, it quickly became my most prized possession. I still had not mastered the art of a two-wheeler, but by the age of 6, that was all about to change.

Huffy bikes were all the rage in the 90s amongst kids. If you had one, you were doing something right. Having one was only half the equation. To be cool, you had to be able to ride them without the "baby wheels" as we called them. So one summer day, my 6 year-old self decided it was time to ditch them. I'm pretty sure I asked my mother to remove them. Then, with the luxury of a big yard, I pushed the bike a distance until I was comfortable enough to hop on. Once I finally did, I pedaled like mad to keep from falling. It didn't take long to become comfortable with riding without the fear of toppling of in some horrific crash.. Now stopping was another matter entirely. With hand brakes not being a thing for one-speeds, there were three ways to stop the bike. 1) Pedal backwards so the gears locked and kept the back tire from rotating anymore (easiest). 2) Drag your dominant foot on the ground to cause enough resistance to get the bike to stop (Took some skill). 3) Crash (most painful). I employed all three of these methods and for the longest time, the foot dragging method was my brake of choice. Some of the problems that occurred with such a method were that my shoes would wear out faster, my foot occasionally got caught on natural debris, and sometimes I was going way too fast that attempting this method would almost always get overruled by method three. This was all part of the learning process and the only thing that mattered was that I could now ride a two-wheeler like the cool kids.

With no phones, no internet, no video games (parents didn't let us have them at the time) and a big yard, bikes were our go-to entertainment option. If you know us by now and have been following this blog for awhile, you'll know that simply riding them was not enough. We had two major forms of excitement with bicycles which were racing and stunts. We utilized a large chunk of the land as an imaginary racecourse. Our starting point was always the white gravel road at the very end of the woods that led to the country club's maintenance garage. There was a large enough clearing through the trees that we raced through, which eventually led to a small in stature but long in length, hill. One had to clear this hill in order to continue the course. Upon doing so, we then raced by the male mulberry tree and down a bigger hill by the house. The final stage consisted of racing around the house, across the narrow strip of grass between the house bushes and the front bank, across the gravel driveway, stopping by the little brown shed. This course may have seemed long, but was usually over in a matter of minutes. It designed to be exciting, but also a bit dangerous. Why? First, the mini hill. It was really small yes, but if one had enough speed, it became a ramp and going airborne was quite common. While the hill was long, our clearance wasn't much. On the left was a large pile of dead wood that would get piled up there over the year. To the right was a large tree and then the shed directly behind it. We had plenty enough space to get between the sticks and the shed, but imagine racing four to five other people trying to hit that clearance. It did not always end well. The next dangerous spot was down the second hill and the first turn around the house. At this point, our speed picked up dramatically and if we weren't in control, we either wiped out on the turn or potentially collided with the house. There were two more risky spots. The patch of grass between the bushes and the bank was so narrow that only one bike could get through going one way. If you clipped the bushes or slid off the side of the bank, you were in for a tumble down it into the street. Immediately after that strip was the gravel driveway which had a bank on either side. Depending on your speed, it became another mini ramp with dangerous loose gravel that caused a handful of wipeouts. This was our racing course. And from mid spring to early fall, it was a staple in our everyday adventures as kids.

I also mentioned that we did "stunts". Our favorite spot to attempt them was that first mini hill which was big enough to get us airborne. Zach, Tim, and I would occasionally hold competitions to see who could get the most air and who could land the furthest. As Nathaniel became older, he eventually joined as well. Each of us would take turns starting all the way up at the white gravel road. We would then pedal as hard and fast as we could to get enough speed going into the hill. Then it was up to fate how high and far we went when we hit it. Being the little daredevils that we were, we'd sometimes change the course to go over the right side of the hill instead of the left. That part of the hill was a bit higher, but it also landed us on the concrete pavement between the picnic table and the shed. After that, there wasn't much distance to stop before we found ourselves in the gravel driveway and then running the narrow grass strip by the house. Going this was was tricky and any minor mistake could cost us. There were some pretty dynamic crashes.

Two of my most horrific spills came from when I was jumping the mini hill by myself. I was getting in practice runs for when I took on Zach and Tim in the future. I casually rode my Huffy up to the white gravel road. I faced the bike towards the hill, paused, took a long, cool breath, and then took off. I pedaled as if the devil himself was chasing me. Because I was going so fast, I was losing a bit of control and the walnuts and sticks crunching underneath my tires were throwing off my preferred course. By the time I reached the mini hill, I knew it was going to be close on clearance, but it was too late to stop now. I flew up the hill cleanly and was airborne. I knew my landing point was going to be extremely close to the shed, but there was nothing I could do but hope I missed it. The bike hit the ground hard and the jolt was enough to turn the front tire slightly to the right. BAM! The front tire clipped the edge of the shed, spun the bike sideways, and launched me to the left. I tumbled a short distance away from the bike. Then I collected my scrambled senses and checked myself out. Saw I had a few minor scrapes but nothing more. I checked my Huffy and saw that she was still in excellent shape. After walking away from a crash like that, I did what any young boy my age would do...go again. The second crash came much later and ended up creating a chain of events I was not expecting. I decided once again that I was going to try and catch massive air, but this time, I was going to attempt the risky route of splitting the shed and the picnic table. Once again I began my approach from the white gravel road. And once again, I sacrificed my control for speed. I had made this jump many times before, but this time for a reason unbeknown to me, I was approaching the hill too far to the right. I flew up it and achieved more air than I had even acquired before and I was flying. But my adrenaline rush turned to horror as I saw where I was going to land. Both wheels slammed upright on the concrete pavement followed by the front wheel colliding head on with the two cinder blocks that held up the right side of the bench for the picnic table. I was once again launched off my bike. Like the previous crash, I was able to walk away fine, but the picnic table wasn't so lucky. The top cinder block fell and cracked in two on the pavement. The bench was flung into the table, which toppled over the other bench and rolled down the slight incline, severely damaging it. To be fair, both the table and benches were old and rickety which is why they got pulverized by my collision. The destruction of the picnic table eventually led Mom to sending me (and Tim) with Al one day to build another one, but that's a tale for another time.

I wasn't the only one who had my fair share of crashes. I remember one in particular involving Tim, Zach, and I. It was a late Autumn evening and it was nearly dark. We decided to have a jumping competition. We each took turns racing our bikes down through the woods and up over the hill. Everyone was making clean jumps. So we decided to make it more interesting. We began making the hill "higher" How? By collecting a bunch of bark and slowly piled it on top of the hill. We took turns to see who could clear the highest pile. At one point, Zach and I were on the edge of the hill adding more bark onto the pile. I then stuck a tiny stick behind the pile for support, even though it wasn't really doing anything. Not known to us, Tim had began to make his run. Zach and I were still on the edge of the hill, making the clearance even smaller. I turned my head at the last second to see Tim come flying onto the hill. The next thing I knew, he was sideways in the air, tangled in his bike, and in a weird superman-like pose. He ended up landing on his stomach with the bike mostly on top of him. How it happened, I can only speculate. Maybe he thought he was going to hit us and bailed. Maybe he didn't think he was going to clear the pile and tried to miss it causing him to lose control. Or maybe he lost control in the air. Whatever the cause, he managed to get up with nothing more than the wind knocked out of him. 

While the stunt course was our secret pleasure, racing was where it was truly at. Anywhere from 2-8 bikes at anytime were at the starting line (that's how many could fit fairly). Any neighborhood kids that brought their bikes over would get involved. We'd race each other all summer long and sometimes deep into the fall. Even three year old Stephen would race at times even though he never had a shot at winning. Zach had the best bike and being a little older, he usually ended up winning unless something dramatic happened. One time after losing to him three times in a row, I was determined to beat him. Upon go, I pedaled with all my might. I actually had a tire length on Zach, but he was keeping real close. Suddenly, he shrinks lower to the ground and I hear a loud OOF. I blow by him and turn my head back to see him topple off the bike. I kept going and finished the course victorious. Upon my triumphant finish, I went back to see what happened. Zach was pushing his bike back to the shed. Apparently he pedaled so hard, he snapped a pin in the chain, causing it to fall off the gears and caused him to wreck. Seeing he was okay, I still soaked in the moment that I had finally beaten him. Another time Zach and I had a one versus one race. Zach smoked me pretty good. Determined to finish the course, I turned the corner on the house and to my surprise, saw Zach way off course and part-way down the hill. He was standing by his bike, but not going anywhere. He motioned me to come over. I started laughing. He had on a pair of those ever popular baggy jeans and one of his pants legs was caught in his gears. I had to go into the house and grab a wrench to help pry him loose. This became a common site if we wore baggy jeans while riding a bike. 

My love for bike racing and winning took me on a path to attempt to beat everyone who rode a bike. I had taken care of Zach, Tim, Nathaniel, Stephen, and even Maggie and Katherine. But there was one person I had not beaten because she didn't race with us much. That person was Sarah. So one night, she and I had finished eating dinner before everyone else. I asked her if she'd race me one on one. To my surprise she agreed. So we went outside, got our bikes, and took them up to our usual starting point. I called out 3-2-1 go! And  we were off. It wasn't long before I put some distance on her. So much so in fact that I made it down and around the house and she was nowhere to be seen. Upon being victorious, I rode my bike back around the house to see where she had gone. I arrived just in time to see her come barreling down the hill by the male mulberry tree. Then I stood there shocked as I saw her lose control and slam into the side of the house. I ran over to see if she was okay and thankfully she was. Her bike was still in mostly good shape, but there was a tire imprint on the house that remained there until the day we moved. That was my first and last race against Sarah as she unsurprisingly didn't want to race me ever again. 

Fall races were more challenging as there were a number of rough elements in play. The cold sting of the crisp Autumn air or our faces, the extra nature debris from leaves, sticks, and walnuts, and our own element where we found out that if you threw a walnut hard enough at a rotating bike tire, they would get caught in the spokes. During those races, one or two of us not racing would hoard a pile of walnuts, pick a spot along the course, and wait for the racers to come by so we could unload on their tires. Most of the time the walnuts either harmlessly fell off via the tire's rotation or landed perfectly to avoid any other bike components. However, every once in a while, a walnut would get lodged just right and jam the tire between the spokes and the fork, causing the front tire to seize up. There are no colorful crashes I can recall from these antics, but I'm sure some occurred.

Somewhere between the age of 10 and 11, I received a brand new, sleek blue, Pacific mountain bike for my birthday. I was ecstatic. I still loved my Huffy to death, but I was out-growing it. I retired the Huffy to our shed where it spent most of its time, only to be ridden on rare occasion. The Pacific, was flashy. It had 12 speeds, hand brakes for both front and rear wheels, and I could pedal backwards without causing the bike to stop. She was fast, she was smooth, and she was all mine.

Like the Huffy before her, the Pacific went through some harrowing moments caused by my own ineptitude. The first came when I was testing her out on the mini hill. On one run, I gained way more speed than I was used to. Right before I hit the hill, I panicked and squeezed hard on the hand brake for the front tire. Suddenly, the front screeched to a hard stop and the momentum from the back launched me over the front of the bike. As I hit the ground, the bike tumbled over top of me. I learned a valuable physics lesson that day. It taught me to clutch the rear hand brake first and then ease into the front brake if necessary. Another day I was testing the bike out on our normal racing course. I went clockwise around the house as was normal. But as I turned upon the narrow grass strip, there was Tim flying at me from the oncoming direction. I grabbed the brakes, but Tim and I still managed to collide head on. I kept control of my bike and used the bush for support, but poor Tim tumbled down the side of the bank. At the exact moment it happened, our parent's friend Ned had just pulled up in his car and witnessed the whole thing. We heard a loud "Wow!" and an "Are you okay?" Thankfully we both were fine. The worst crash with my Pacific came when my parents finally let me ride the bike in the street. I was allowed to go up to the fire station (about a block beyond the white gravel road) and ride from there to our driveway. Going in that direction, it was all downhill. The reason the driveway was the cut-off point was because beyond that was the country club entrance and exit. My parents didn't want me crossing them as cars coming in and out probably wouldn't have seen me. I made this run a handful of times no problem. But then I started to go faster and brake a little later. It was pure thrill. Then, during one fateful run, I was going faster than I should've and I over-shot the driveway. I didn't want hit the brakes fearing a wipeout in the street and a lot of scrapes and cuts, so I made a hard turn which took me up the bank in front of our house. The bank and my speed launched me incredibly high into the air and with nowhere else to go, my bike and I slammed into the corner of the house. My mom heard the collision from inside and came out to see what had happened. Not wanting to show her I was hurt, I got up and tried to hide my limp as I walked away. Once I regained composure, I saw I had taken a small chunk of skin out of my right knee. The rain gutter on the corner was dented. I also bent the fork on my bike. That was the first time I ever damaged a bicycle where it needed repairs. I faked my injuries enough to get into the bathroom and bandage up my knee by myself. As for the Pacific, Grandpa Watkins and Uncle Randy took it and replaced the fork. No longer did it match her blue hue, but was now a silver gleam on the front. It served as a constant reminder how lucky I was once again to walk away with nothing more than a cut or two. The limp wasn't serious and went away within a couple days. But what a ride that was. 

My Huffy and Pacific were two of the greatest gifts I'd ever received. I rode them fearlessly, endlessly, and crazily for as long as I had them. My childhood and the experiences I gained during those years wouldn't be the same without them. These were some of the tales of a Boy and his Bike.