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.