Missing Out

As you grow older do you have to stretch your imagination to try to recall what you really missed out on when you were young?

Let me help. Perhaps one thing you missed most - was just that - your imagination.

Caution: this is not one of those old days vs new days blogs.Each generation has gained something on the previous generation.

Take 78 rpm records vs the 33 1/3 albums. I loved my 78s but got tired of having to get up everytime a song ended and the record needed to be turned over. It also didn't do much to enhance pre-teen romance either. That clickety-clack could drive you nuts. The so-called LP's (long plays) were much more accomodating as I moved into my teen years.

There were other benefits to compensate for those short term music days. Actually, they were quite simple.

It seemed to me that some of my best memories are of being alone  - day dreaming out under a big tree of unknown species at the end of Atlantic Avenue school's softball field. In my secret - very own location - I would stare with varying degrees of concentration back at the school building rebuilt after the fire in "45" or "46".

Neither parent was informed as to where I was going.

I used to imagine that the new brick building configuration at the end of my glazed vew represented a steam engine pulling a coal car.  You can only guess at the great cloud pictures I could  - and did - make while lying on my back under my tree. It compensated for my inability to draw anything more advanced than stick figures in those old white tablets made of heavily distilled pulp..

There were few distractions other than the leaves blowing = perhaps some small birds singing- and the occasional butterly that dared to intrude on my revery

Occasionally the sound of  an organ playing softly at the Presbyterian Church at the end of the field and to the left would waft up into my sensory musings,  drifting in and out on a windy day.

I wasn't accomplishing much of anything back then. Just daydreaming and   slowly exercising my mind capacity.

Sometimes I had a blade of grass or a dandelion stem clenched within my teeth  - possibly imitating my Dad with his ever present pipe. I don't know. I don't care.

I wonder now if he ever removed it during those romantic soirees with my Mom on three total occasions which he insisted occurred during their marriage.

Sometimes, with no planning a forethought - as I daydreamed - and mused -a solution would pop ingto my head as I sub-consciously revisited one of those big pre-teen problems we all thought we had.

But, most of all my time was spent simply relaxing in the little world of my own I had formed.

Unlike the shacks I had built out of  large appliance boxes from Bestwick Electric I never invited anyone to join me under my tree.

 I suspect if  a friend had wandered by during one of my tree visits I would simply have stood up and suggested we do this or that instead of sitting. Didn't care to share.

My tree was a short distance from the alley at the rear of 120 Sumner Avenue, a e house with the white picket fence on 3 sides my grandfathers had built to protect the twos story house in which I  lived with Mom, Dad, and 2 brothers.

Upon revisiting the site while in my 50's it was amazing how much the yard had shrunk.

One late night Mom and I sat at the upstairs rear window with either Brother Jim or Tom (still a baby) while Dad was across the alley with the Forest Hills  Volunteer Fire Department attempting to put out the blaze of the old Atlantic Avenue school.

I wonder what I was thinking that night - other than remembering not to press any body parts up against the extremely hot glass .

 Perhaps my thoughts were of the two goldfish I had brought to Miss Huss's third grade class and left at her request - wondering if, while they were located on the side of the building opposite the fire, they had managed to survive.

My memory is of being thrilled when I learned they were safe - even though some other kid's "show and tell' pussy cat devoured them in one bite during a visit the following week.

Okay, I made that up.

Saccharin was starting to build up on my new computer keyboard.

Would it have been the same if some classmate had interrupted my thoughts with a cellphone call during my tree visit?

As I look back on those childhood days not really sure that I "missed out."