I spent a lot of time thinking about the past this year, and I felt like I should write all this down somewhere.
I grew up in a dirt poor family. Not once did I ever know or realize that we were dirt poor. Instead, I assumed that you should never toss out food that can possibly be eaten again, don’t flush the toilet unless absolutely necessary, and the fact that we lived in a trailer was just because that was our home and other people lived in other homes, and that’s how things were. Presents happened on birthdays and Christmas, and we didn’t get anything but clothes or school supplies the rest of the year.
My grandparents lived right next door (technically, as I learned years and years later, allowed my parents to park our trailer on their property, and that’s just... how we lived. On their land).
Grandmom always had Kit Kats avaliable. I visited her a lot for my daily Kit Kat. She put them in the fridge so they never got melty.
We never had A/C growing up.
Our land was three miles in the wilderness, only reachable by a very long dirt path that wound around obstacles and up and down hills. Grandpa made it himself.
In order to keep the road from getting too muddy, once a year he would order up a giant truck of seashells from the... sea shell quarry or something, and we would spend the next few days flattening down the shells over this stretch of road so they wouldn’t get washed away.
I kept a few sea shells a few times, but lost them when we moved.
Sledding down those same hills our ‘street’ was on during the winter, knowing no one else would come driving there because we were the only people to live there.
My sister and I once went to grandmom’s house during the night to play some pool, but we didn’t know that behind the house, grandpa was outside chasing the coyote's away with his shotgun. My sis was pregnant at the time with my nephew (he is now an adult).
We did not do that again until the coyote pack had moved on.
Whenever my sis would sneak out (I was a Good Kid (tm) who did not dream of ever attempting this), she would go through the graveyard behind grandmom’s house and cut through two miles of land next door where they kept a horse, and had to avoid the horse manure on her way.
We once found my sister twenty miles away hitch-hiking across the Jamestown bridge in the middle of the night.
Grandmom and grandpa had a garden where they grew crops. There’s nothing like homegrown corn, or string beans. I loved harvest time.
Water? From a well? My parents warning me to always make sure the toilet stopped running, because if it didn’t it might use up all our water when we’re out.
Miles of wilderness where I could just... wander.
Finding quartz and rose quartz in the wilderness? Identifying all these cool rocks? Awesome. Also finding old fences made of piled up rocks. A+ way to spend the day.
That one path in the woods that was populated by the most massive, bitey flies. We RAN.
Ticks were a constant problem, and I hated when I got one. Grandpa had to deal with Lyme disease. His hip is weak because of it now.
How depressed I was when grandmom and grandpa sold part of their land, and some construction guy named Lance went and bulldozed over the most beautiful strawberry and blueberry grove, all wild and natural and I loved that place so much and now it’s just dirt.
My sister stuck her hand down a hole in the ground and pulled out a baby chipmunk and I’ve never heard grandmom scream so much about it (the chipmunk was fine after it was all over with).
The giant spiders we would come home from to find on the doors, the shrubs, inside the house.
I wondered a few times where my arachnophobia came from, but it probably has something to do with the giant, dried-up husk of a spider I found in my closet one time.
Spiders in the house or not, I would always greet the spiders I found out in the wilderness and admire their webs, but never disturb them. They were just doing their thing. I was always impressed when I found the ones that would blend into the inside of a flower, all ready to spring their trap.
That rare flower, Lady Slipper? It bloomed everywhere around our place. We were very careful to keep away and make sure it was never disturbed.
Okay this is getting a little long, so I’ll cut off here and maybe if people are interested, I’ll post more another day.
Moving to a more developed area was such a shock I just never go outside anymore. There are people, and they can see you if you’re relaxing on your porch?! *Shakes stick at them*
