June 11, 2005

another meme

I just couldn't pass this one up. It's something I think about a lot now that I'm a dottering old fart. I still remember vividly what it was like to be a kid, and I miss it.

Five Things That I Miss From My Childhood

1) Knowing exactly where home was, and being totally assured that people there loved me, no matter what. Most of them are dead now.

2) A sense of adventure fueled by books, movies, tall tales and my belief in magic. Call it youthful enthusiam or young-boy craziness--- it was still fun to live. ANYTHING was possible, and I believed that fact!

3) Total invulnerability. I took a lot of chances and did a lot of dangerous things my my youth, but I KNEW that wasn't going to get hurt, at least not badly. Blood clotted and cuts healed. Falling out of a tree was no big deal. Getting shot in the ass with rocksalt from a farmer's shotgun might sting for a while, but it wasn't going to kill me. And that never stopped me from sneaking back over there to see his daughter, either. I figured that if you didn't have a few dings to show for it, you hadn't been living large.

4) Wondering what I would be when I "grew up." I had a lot of dreams back then, and I actually fulfilled some of them. But as I became older, that dream-scope shrunk from a big spotlight to a pencil-beam. I miss the huge horizons I one saw in my imagination. Age does that to you.

5) Innocence. I believe that I miss the sense of trust and the "Beaver Cleaver" outlook I had on the world during my youth more than I miss any other part of it. I thought that honesty was the best policy and a man's word was his bond. Boy... was I in for an unpleasant surprise later in life.

Those are my thoughts on this meme. I'm not going to pass it along to anyone else, but you can feel free to comment.