And now for something happy. I have been "tagged" by Viki. Horray! =) *** What 5 Things do you miss about your childhood?
But first the rules to this meme game: Remove the blog at #1 from the following list and bump every one up one place; add your blog's name in the #5 spot; link to each of the other blogs for the desired cross pollination effect:1. Searchin' for a Rainbow2. Aint it Amazing?3. Spit Noodle & Joey4. VikiBabbles5. Lake AllisonNext: select new friends to add to the pollen count. (No one is obligated to participate).1. 2. If you want to do it, the meme is yours. 3.
Okay, so, on to the 5 things I miss about my childhood.1. My attention span. When I was a kid, I was focused. The anti-ADD child. I could sit still for hours, scribbling ideas in my journal, made sure to practice my violin every day, constructed elaborate forts in the woods out of fallen trees. I was dead serious and rarely bored or restless. Sometimes, it was fun enough just to stare at the wall and let my imagination wander. I didn't need the TV, I didn't even need friends to keep me amused (which is good, since the other kids thought I was strange). But the older I get, the more distracted I am. I can't stop moving, doing, always onto the next thing, can't stick with a project. The textbook ADD adult. If I still had my childhood attention span, I'd have finished and published two novels, by now. 2. The station wagon. My mom had this enormous, hideous brown Ford Fairmont wagon. It was always stuffed with kids: me, my sisters, our friends, kids my mom was babysitting. We'd ride around town, blasting Tom Petty, running errands and dropping kids off at various after-school activities. The wagon would backfire and we'd all scream in fear and delight. My mom was always in a hurry, so she'd never fully stop the car. Instead, she'd slow down and say, "Tuck and roll, kids. Tuck and roll!" Sometimes we'd get to sit in the back of the station wagon, where there were no seats and my mom would drive "crazy" on side roads, swerving so we'd get knocked around and we'd laugh and squeal. The sucky thing was, the station wagon leaked fumes, which probably wasn't good for my growing brain and may account for the problems explained in #1. 3. K-mart. I spent much of my formative years at the Wheeling K-mart. I'd walk there alone, or with a friend (though as I mentioned above, I didn't usually keep friends for very long) and we'd spend the day learning about life from the K-mart shelves. We tested out make-up in the beauty section, read about Batboy in the tabloids, had shoe-fights and played hide and seek in the clothes. We'd dial phone sex numbers from the payphones and listen to the slutty, panting voice on the recording. If you like hot, horny girls press 1. *giggle* If I was there alone, I'd buy a teenybopper magazine or an Archie comic and sit in the food court, reading and munching on stale popcorn. As I aged into a surly, junior high kid.. let's just say I became quite the master lip gloss thief. They've closed down the store since then. I wish it was still that easy to kill an afternoon. 4. Going to Georgia. Each year, my grandma and I would ride down to Georgia to visit my great-grandma Alice (my namesake). On the ride down to Georgia, my grandma would slip and tell me bawdy stories: "The first time your grandpa and I made love..." We would stop in the Smokey mountains to buy souvenirs, like giant pencils and leather moccasins, then spent the night at Motel 6 and I'd get to soak in the hot tub like a grown-up. Once in Georgia, we'd stay with great-grandma. Every time someone opened the door to her trailer, she'd scream out "Snakes! Snakes!" 5. My mom. If you knew her, you know she was cool. She was tall and pretty, had tons of energy and enthusiasm, her voice was booming and loud. She was always singing, chasing kids around, scouring garage sale tables for treasures, tending her fabulous garden and making art, like stained glass windows. She seemed to live at twice the speed of a normal person. She taught me that nature is sacred and to add a creative touch to whatever I do. Though I kind of suspect she wouldn't be too happy with me, if she were alive now.
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