Childhood In Two Part Harmony

We were so lucky. We lived in the last days of the club’s innocence. A time before fences and landscaped yards. A time before Hermės riding gear and expensive hand-tooled saddles. A time before the water table had fallen so much that the creek which had seethed with the fish that had fed generations of my family and yours had dried up leaving only a large marsh with cat tails and the beginning of grass.

I only vaguely remember meeting you. I mostly can’t remember my life before you were in it. I’m glad. It couldn’t have been nearly as fun.

I remember a thousand morning of getting up with the sun and leaving the house and meeting you at the pool to go swimming, at the cliffs to go climbing, in the back pastures to go walking, with the horses to go riding (which we did bareback and in the same clothes we’d worn for the past three days), or at the creek to go fishing. We were great fisher folk, you and I. Though I think we caught as many turtles and snakes as actual fish. We never left a note saying where we were going, it never occurred to us to leave a note. We were out for the day, playing, and we’d be home by dark. We had our snakebite kits, our knives, our whistles, and we knew basic first aid. Yes, we were lucky. We lived in the last days of Leave it To Beaver innocence.

I told your mother not too long ago that I had learned all of life’s important lessons from you. If you don’t know how to hold a fish without being finned, just slam your sneaker over it while you unhook it. If you’re going up a really steep grade of land, keep your feet turned sideways, and you’ll be less likely to start sliding. One can make a sandwich from almost anything on hand, including hot-dog buns, peanut butter, marshmallow cream and Captain Crunch. I don’t think I’ve had a Captain Crunch sandwich since we were kids. It’s a delicious thing to remember. I’m not sure how delicious it was to actually eat.

We got ditched “snipe hunting” together. We fell into the lake together. Got stuck on cliffs together – able to neither go up or down. I’m sure we got in trouble together, but I don’t remember it. Not even once.

Once when we went to the Mountains in New Mexico, you and I and my father (what an odd group!) went several days earlier than the rest of the families. You and I were playing with toy cars in the back seat of the car, and got my hair caught up in one of the wheels. There was nothing to do but cut it off. I don’t think I gave that shock of short hair a second thought. I was still too young for true vanity, and I knew you didn’t care. And that was all that mattered – that you didn’t care.

We finally arrived at the cabin, and bedded down for the night (you and I naturally shared a bed, no one cared that you were a boy and I was a girl. We were friends. We were children. And the world, like us, was young.).  You had eaten something bad at the restaurant on the way, or had a 24 hour bug. I’m not sure. All I’m sure of is that you puked your way through almost every pair of sheets in a cabin that had six double beds, and spare sheets for each bed.

How strange that my father came with us! It was during the worst of his drinking. Did his driving scare you? Did he scare you? I know he scared most of my friends. Some so much so that they wouldn’t come to my house, but only invited me to theirs instead. And what was he doing with us? It’s hardly as though he liked children, could sit back and listen to our children’s noise and be pleased and content. Was he an asshole to you for throwing up so much?

We hiked and played. We found caves and boulders the size of houses. We broke and entered a lot into empty cabins. We found an A Frame cabin with a really fabulous swing set, and played there as much as could. We’d dare ourselves to swim in the snowmelt waters doing down the mountain in torrential streams. Water so cold you’d ache for hours after you’d been in it. We found a cabin with a zip line outside. One end running from a high tree, which you had to use the nailed on boards to climb, running to a smaller tree, almost ground level at the other end. We’d spend hours going back and forth on that line. We hiked up to the old gold mine (It’s all fenced off now), and took the treacherous rotted stairs inside with our hearts beating wildly. We discovered Pez candies and those odd little dispensers.

We were there a month and packed a life time of memories into a single June.

I was with you the day I started my period. We had taken a boat out into the creek, and I had through that wet feeling was just from the water splashing over the sides. You, who had older sisters were a complete gentleman. You never once alluded to the spreading crimson stain on my jeans. You were gone by the time I found out, and I never had time to be embarrassed.

Shortly after that, my father quit drinking, and we quit going to the club. I didn’t see you again until the family reunion in 1991. I met your lovely wife. She was warm and gracious, and she said to me, “I’m so glad to meet you. Mark talks about you so much I feel like I’ve known you my whole life.” I went away for a moment after that and cried. Cried because I had never known if I had meant as much to you as you did to me.

And here, in the middle of my life, you remain the sweetest of my memories. The purest of my innocence. At the center of my heart.