- NY: One summer we were beset by tons of toads. They were everywhere. I was immensely excited about this and would walk around looking for them, and would gently pick them up to have a closer look. They were varying sizes, all very slow moving and docile. I wound up taking many of them back to my sandbox so we could have a big toad conference. I think I tried to shut them in (the sandbox had lids), being too young to know that was a bad thing, but Dad explained to me they could die so he let them all out. I was a little sad I lost all my new friends, but I was glad that they were free.
- NY: One summer evening with our blue netted canopy in the backyard. Ma liked to talk on the (then new) cordless phone while we relaxed in lawn chairs with no bugs to ruin it. I took an empty pitcher and collected blackberries growing in the meadow just beyond the yard's boundary, and Dad went out to bring home pizza.
- NY: The Rochester Lilac Festival. All I remember was the incredible smell and the lilacs everywhere, and then rolling down a grassy hill with other children and laughing like a hyena.
- KY: Dad and I taking after-dinner walks around the trailer park on summer evenings. Golden hour, long talks, sometimes chats with neighbours, and on occasion we'd go back to the edge of the forest and follow the trails for a few minutes - Dad didn't like doing this though because he was nervous of potential cottonmouths and copperheads. We'd go to the front of the park where the landlady lived and visit the pond where there were lots of geese, dragonflies, and frogs.
- KY: The drive-in movies where I sat under the stars being enthralled with films like The Lion King, A Goofy Movie, and Pocahontas.
- KY: Some weekends we would spend the Sunday afternoon at Freeman Lake Park in Elizabethtown. Saturday night Ma would make tons of popcorn & put in a paper bag. Sunday we would stop at Rally's and get lunch, then drive to the park and sit on one of the benches to enjoy our food and the view. The geese, ducks and swans usually came right up to us demanding the popcorn - they were never shy, especially the mallards and the Canadian geese, the latter of which always hissed at me.
may 26 2025 ∞
may 26 2025 +