Do You Remember???

Do you remember when you were eight years old and summer time came and how excited you were to be able to play outside until dark? I can still see my brothers and me in our old Heritage Oak tree house (hammering nails and boards on a heritage oak will get you fined or jailed these days) behind our home in Springfield Florida. We would snap off bulbs from the local Magnolia trees and they became our hand grenades. All you had to do was snap off the stem and throw it. Tossed from ten feet up in the tree house, those puppies could really put a welt on you. We had wooden board steps leading up to the platform surrounded by what seemed an endless supplies of ammunition, ACORNs…and I not am not referring to Obama’s liberal ground troops. You could either put an acorn in a sling shot or just have machine gun fire but throwing them handfuls at a time at either the enemy above or below. The deep green leaves of the oak with overhanging limbs made excellent camouflage as well as shade from the intense summer heat of the sun (glad I didn’t know about the harmful ultraviolet rays then). The neighborhood was full of kids who only went inside as punishment. We would run up and down the streets of Huntingdon Drive claiming victory for one side or the other, swapping who got the tree house fort on the next battle.
Being from a military community, you would always keep an eye on the garbage cans by the streets, you wanted to get to them before the garbage truck crews could especially if someone was either moving in or moving out (yeah I know, now they are trash containers picked up by robotic arms). Many times we found discarded uniforms, back packs, old medical bandages, surplus electronics components and about anything you could imagine from a soldiers garage cleaned out by a soldiers frustrated bride. We made good use of these items and fought many a successful campaign against the German and sometimes Japanese Armies. That always seemed the villains of choice in those days. We even once found an old walkie talkie and while it didn’t work it was an excellent prop for an active mind calling for re-enforcements.
I remember running up the yard to a small brick wall of mom’s favorite plants and hitting the ground hard and usually scrapping something on the collision. I might have a bloody elbow or knee but it didn’t matter (imagine that, no infections nor tetanus shots needed), I was protected from the enemy behind that wall and yes we even let the yucky girls play as our nurses. Around the corner of our green wood framed home came the massive German Army (usually about 4 or 5 soldiers). Machine guns blazing (many times scrap boards carved into guns by my grandfather and realistic rat-tat-tat sounds compliments of youthful vocal cords) and screams of “ATTACK” echoing through the un-air-conditioned windows of the neighborhood homes. These ferocious battles went on for days (ok a few hours before mom yelled for us to come and eat lunch). And if you have never taken a large appliance box and opened both ends and got inside and turned it like a tank track (As in this WAS our tank) you were a victim of child abuse.
After lunch we did not settle down to a video game or TV program (they were in black and white back then.. (shut up..Im not that old) but back to the battle fields of Huntington Dr. You know after all these years (43 yrs ago now, as I sit back in my rocking chair with blanket in lap sipping my hot cocoa..NOT) I still remember those boys, Michael Hanney, Michael and Kevin Daty, Gary Adams, and so many more. It was not because we had great times together playing Wii or Play stations, it was because we interacted with each other, trusted each other and exercised our imaginations with each other that made the memories. I treasure those days and will remember them always as a great child hood. We lived in Springfield for two years and soon after my eighth birthday moved across town to the Cove area but that’s another story that I will tell later. Have a great day.