Sometimes at night when I lay in bed waiting to fall asleep my mind drifts off to when we lived on the farm. I had an awesome childhood and sometimes I wish I could go back and relive it all. I miss it, but at the same time I am happy where I am at with my husband so we can create great memories with our own children someday.
I can remember when mom and dad had to take two trips to get all seven of us kids to church on Sundays. We didn't have a minivan yet so dad packed in as many of us as he could in the Mercedes and drove the 9 miles to church and went back to pick up the rest. One Sunday he got pulled over by a cop two blocks from the church because we were all crammed in the back not wearing seat belts. There were several times when one of us would get left at the church, usually it was Scott, so dad would have to drive back to find him.
With Becky and I growing up with five brothers we were somewhat tomboys, especially myself, we always watched Batman, Spiderman, X-men, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, etc... on Saturday mornings while waiting for breakfast, we played cops and robbers, hide and seek, and had sleep outs on the trampoline.
One summer Adam made a tire swing behind the barn and warned all of us that we were not allowed to play on it without his permission. Becky and I went out there and one afternoon and played on it for hours swinging around and around in circles until Becky got tired and decided to go do something else. I still wanted to play on it so I kept spinning, but soon got tired of it too. I was sitting on top of the tire holding onto the rope when I tried to jump off, but I couldn't move my head....at all. I was stuck and there was no one around to help me. Dad was on the tractor riding around in the pasture, but despite my best efforts at yelling at him to help me he couldn't hear, so I just sat on the swing waiting. Brad and Becky were playing on the basketball court near the house but they couldn't hear me over the noise of the tractor either until it moved far enough away. At this time my hair was the longest it had ever been--down to the middle of my back. Becky came through the fence, took one look at me and just started laughing. Brad soon followed and caught Dad's attention on the tractor. Soon everyone was surrounding me laughing at me because my entire head of hair had somehow wrapped itself around the rope as far as it could go without me noticing. No one knew what to do to get my hair untangled, so Dad reached in his pocket to get his pocket knife to cut my hair. I screamed and cried because I couldn't live without my long strands of golden hair. Before he tried to cut it Dad started to twist the swing in the opposite direction to see if it would unwind my hair. After a few minutes my hair was freed and we all went inside for dinner.
One of my favorite places to play was in the garden. Scott and I would spend hours making mud pies and having races down the rows of corn. I remember having to get up early every Saturday morning to weed in the garden and pick raspberries and black caps. Some days we would be out there for hours throwing dirt clods at each other, but we weren't allowed to come inside until our weeding was done.
There are so many memories that I cherish and hold dear. those were the days.....those were the days......
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