Tales from a Blogger's Childhood

Growing up in the middle of the Midwest offered me many opportunities as a child. Without any sizable theme parks or other attractions to speak of nearby, my companions and I had to come up with... unique ways to occupy our time.

Really, though, before I get too far ahead of myself, I should mention that most of the adventuring started around the time I was in first grade and a new neighbor named Alex moved in. Three years my senior and one year older than my brother, we idolized her. Not too long afterward a boy my age named Sam moved in down the street. We all befriended one another and became a sort of motley crew in my neighborhood. Alex, the oldest, became our self-appointed ring leader. Sam was loud, arrogant and obnoxious and liked to think himself a rebel. My brother was the most lax out of all of us, leaving me to be the capricious whirling dervish.

We all had our own psychotic tendencies colorful personalities, and despite our differences we managed to spend the dog days of summer and the long winters together without killing one another. Which, in retrospect, I find quite fascinating. I spent about five years of my life with these friends. Two of those years found me being a lovable ragamuffin. I spent the other three years being a vindictive, meddlesome, slightly more entertaining ne'er do well. What caused this change, I'm not sure. I just remember the last three years of my friendship with those kids ended up with many acts of vandalism, trespassing, and straight up truancy, which I don't think I'll go too far into the details of those right now.

I have many fond memories from those years, where I am certain that I could be defined by modern definition, as a punk. Most worthy of note, in my opinion, is the summer night where we found an old bike in Alex's garage. Upon further inspection we discovered it lacked brakes. I can't remember who exactly dared me to ride that bike down a hill, but I remember I took the challenge unflinchingly. By the end of the night I had cuts and bruises all over my arms and legs, after ramming into a fence.

Another story that I love to tell friends is about the human sized elmo doll Alex bought at a garage sale. He was the outlet for many spontaneous beatings, and we ended up breaking both of his softball sized plastic eyes. I'm not sure what was so satisfying about beating up an elmo plush, but it was somehow entertaining. We also loved to use the elmo doll as a prop for our movies we'd make, in which he acted as a stunt double (most notably when we tied him to a wagon and let him free fall down a hill). Though, and this is really my favorite, is the day where we sacrificed elmo by creating a noose with my jump rope and hanging him from the pine tree in my back yard. My father immediately put a stop to our sacrifice to the gods, and we were severely reprimanded (namely, we couldn't play with jump ropes anymore).

I realize that these tales might make me sound like a lunatic, but hey, don't we all have stories about sacrificing plush toys as kids? ...No? Well, you certainly didn't have much of a childhood then, did you? Just kidding, I know everyone has their own stories, but this is mine, and I don't think I'd change any of it.