I Remember...

I remember being a kid. Not all of it, of course, but some of it. It's a curious thing, memory is.

I remember...being in the playground area of my grade school. It had a large field adjoining it. I remember, after raining, myself and the other kids would make tiny rivers int he ground for the standing water to flow through. I remember we would stick in leaves and twigs and watch them float along the paths as if they were boats.

I remember...finding a bamboo stick in the neighborhood we live in. I made it my walking stick and pretend "weapon" when I had adventures. I remember accidentally leaving it the neighborhood's tennis/pool/playground area one day. I remember not finding it and then this other boy I knew from the down the street showed up with my stick. It was not convincingly nor cleverly disguised. I remember becoming angry and taking it from him forcibly. I don't remember what ultimately happened to that stick.

I remember...a red-haired girl named Chelsea. We were both young...10 or younger. Her and I hung out all the time at a local sports complex where our parents played tennis together. I remember us running around the grounds and facility, having adventures together. I remember once, we had these pipcleaner dolls and used them to act out Saved By the bell episodes, seeing as we both liked the show. I remember visiting her house a year or so later and that being the last I ever saw her. I loved her.

I remember...having an impressive collection of Power Rangers toys. I remember many times when I would steal my Father's tools and take those toys apart and put them back together again, good as new. I remember storing them in a bureau in an unfinished downstairs room in one of our old homes in Georgia. I must have taken them apart hundreds of times.

I remember...exploring the wilderness surrounding this one neighborhood in which my parents had come for their tennis match. The feature that stood out the most had been this creek. I remember it being very wide and very deep, both the water itself being deep and the ravine it was in. I remember finding a "bridge" that connected both sides of the creek. By bridge, I mean a couple of long boards laid from one end to the other. I remember crossing it, on my hands and knees, almost paralyzed with fear at the potential fall. I remember making it.

I remember...having a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shaving kit. It wasn't real, obviously, but that never stopped me from using it and being like my Father. I remember the kit coming with a lather brush, plastic "razor", rinse cup, and a can of green shaving cream.

I remember all these things and more, sometimes pining for the old days when things were so much more simple. Yes, it is the old cliche of "adults wish they were kids again", but it's true. I didn't have a care in the world a lot of those days beyond where I was heading to next in my outdoor adventures or what cartoon was on.

I miss it.