"Give them the kind of childhood that needs a bath afterward. Creek water on their shoes. Grass stains on their knees. Mud on their hands. And stories they can't wait to tell."
This image took me back to my childhood. Mama put us out to play and we could come in for meals, the bathroom, and injuries. She did not referee sibling disagreements. She made us figure them out. If you ever said you were bored, Mama could fill our boredom with work.
We played in the corn crib, climbed the walls of the old red barn, played with the Corbin grandchildren when they visited Case and Gladys, and filled our days with as many friends and cousins as we could.
I have a theory about language and creeks. It seems to me any little stream was a creek, but when it was on your property, it was a "crick." I do not know for sure. It might just be the more country term. I do know that we spent our days in the creek, chasing kittens, and creating pottery from the claylike mud.
At the end of our long lane was a little house my Uncle Bobby made in shop class in high school when I was little. We used it for bus shelter during the school year. April and I loved that little getaway that was all our own. It sat near the mulberry tree that grew in the big ditch. We would race to beat the birds to the mulberries when they were ripe. We would sweep the dirt out, wash the one window, and play the days away. The "crick" provided plenty of wildlife, wild asparagus, and wildflowers to observe.
"Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good." -Genesis 1:11-12
It was very good!
Today, I am grateful for grand adventures in ordinary days.
