Tomatoes

My Mom and Dad grew up with gardens in their backyards and so we had to have one too. The house was built into the side of a hill so the top half of the house went out the front yard and the bottom of the house came out the back. The hill was very steep on one side of the house so Dad decided to terrace that hill just like the Mayans did with their gardens on hills. Dad spent days leveling and putting in railroad ties to hold the dirt in place. Starting from the top Dad used two railroad ties to hold the dirt in place for each terrace and at the bottom of the hill he used three. He placed extra railroad ties on one side to form steps so we could all go up and down with ease. Each terrace was probably four or five feet wide. This is where Mom and Dad put the garden. Now planting a garden was the easy part my older sister and I helped. We walked behind Mom and Dad and patted the dirt down sometimes they even let us put the seeds into the holes. I was having a lot of fun helping Mom and Dad plant the garden. I could envision the ripened fruits and vegetables all ready to eat. I imagined how wonderful it was going to be. Mom and Dad planted the seeds and then one went to the store and brought home already growing plants; tomatoes, peppers, and strawberries. With those all planted we went off to play. The next day we went out to see our garden. Nothing had happened. It looked the same as yesterday. Something must have been wrong so I, with my older sister ran to Mom to tell her the garden didn't work. She smiled and told us that it takes time for a garden to grow. We asked how long and she said two or three months. I was shocked. How could a garden take so long? I knew that our apple, apricot and peach trees took that long but they were big trees and they had a lot of work to do to make the apples, apricots and peaches so big. Mom also said that we would have to work in the garden for it to grow right. I am sure I had heard wrong. We had just done all the work planting and burying the seeds. Weeds! Now the way she said weeds made it sound very scary. I think she was giving me a warning about just how scary they could be. Well we waited and watched the garden for days and then mom pointed out the first sprouts poking through the ground. Peas and carrots seemed to sprout the fastest and I loved pees straight from the pod. She also pointed to other sprouts coming out of the garden showing us the infamous weeds. Frankly I could not tell the difference from the sprouts and the weeds. I trusted Mom and went looking for more sprouts. Mom went after those weeds. Every day she would pluck a few more out of the garden and every day the weeds came back for more. Someday's it seemed like the weeds could sprout and grow ten inches tall in a single day. Mom kept at it. We tried to help but occasionally we picked a plant instead of a weed and Mom would ask us to try to replant it. After days and days of work with the weeds, every tier of the garden was green with the fruits and vegetables we had planted. The pumpkin and zucchini vines were taking over their area and part of the neighboring vegetables area. We spotted the green round tomatoes and the pees and beans in their pods. The corn was almost three feet tall but we could not see the carrots or the potatoes. The garden was a huge success. Towards the end of the summer Mom, Dad and their helpers had harvested wonderful vegetables and fruits. The strawberries had come and gone. The peas had long since been eaten and we had harvested bushels and bushels of tomatoes. Mom canned tomatoes to save for winter when there wasn't a garden any more to pick from. Mom had done so many tomatoes and yet the tomatoes continued to produce more fruit. One day we asked if we could pick a tomato and eat it with our friends from next door. Mom agreed and sent us out with two salt shakers. I knew just the tomato I wanted. It was bright red, smooth all around the sides and little lines as it curved in towards the stem. It was a two hander. I picked the tomato and sat with my older sister and our friends and we ate the tomatoes with the salt. Once done with one we asked Mom if we could pick another. She said we could eat as many as we wanted. Heaven had merged with the earth. Mom said as many as we wanted. I ate until I could not get another tomato into my mouth. The juices were running down my chin and I had juice and seeds all over my shirt. My hands were sticky, the salt shaker was sticky and the tomato plants still had more fruit. I didn't eat another tomato for a week.

Stairs

I have an older sister. She is the oldest child in the family and that makes her my older sister. Coming second in a soon to be line of ten children I learned early what older sisters did. I also learned what was possible when I became the older brother. Older Sister wanted to make sure that I knew who was in charge. If I wanted to sit in a certain chair then she wanted to sit in a certain chair. If I wanted a certain cup, she wanted the cup. I realized that everything I wanted she wanted including control. I was just learning to walk and could stumble about better than most toddlers I knew. I made sure to keep my hands out to make sure that if I fell I could at least push myself back up. I was never very worried about falling. It is a part of life that I knew all too well so I might as well get used to it. The only challenge I really had was my older sister, and stairs. Being scared of sister will be explained later, this is about the stairs. The upstairs of the house was level with the front yard and the front door opened to the street about forty feet away. The downstairs of the house opened up to the backyard and had a chain link fence surrounding it. Inside the house were stairs leading from downstairs to upstairs or upstairs to downstairs depending on which way one was traveling. The stairs traveled in a straight direction from downstairs to up until it hit a landing two stairs from the top. The stairs turned ninety degrees and proceeded the last two stairs to the front room. Now I was learning how to walk and was not afraid of falling. When I had learned to use the stairs in the past I simply crawled up when I was going up or sat down when I was going down scooting my bum from stair to stair. I am pretty sure that my Mom or Dad taught me how to do all of this but I watched and that is not how they went up or down the stairs when they walked. I was walking now so I should use the stairs like they did. At the bottom of the stairs I tried to walk up but my legs were too short. I had to crawl up the stairs. I thought that maybe since I didn't have to lift my foot up at the top of the stairs to go down I would try going down first. I got to the top of the stairs, above the landing, and tried my luck. I put one foot out into the air and tried to put it on the step below. Apparently my leg was still to short or I was not used to the balance that was required to put ones leg in the air. I fell down the two steps to the landing. Although initially frightened by the fall I was not hurt in any significant way. I got up and decided to try again on the very next available stair.

The Spider

The family moved to a small town about an hour south of the big city. We were in a small valley pegged between two very large mountain ranges. We had a local community college that almost doubled the population when it was in session. My parents bought a small house that was built by the community college as part of their construction program when we moved into the house it was new but had been vacant for about 6 months. The yard was just weeds. Tumbleweeds can grow to amazing heights and our yard won the prize for tallest weeds for miles around. Tumbleweeds are odd plants because it seemed to me that they grew dry and brown. I am sure there was some green on them somewhere but all I ever saw was brown. My older sister, younger brother, younger younger brother, and a new younger sister were told to go play outside while Mom organized the kitchen and put away boxes of sundry items. We made trails through the tumbleweeds and could hide quite easily among them. Tumbleweeds must have minds of their own because whenever we went running through them the tumbleweeds would reach out and grab at the sleeves of our shirts and gave us many small scratches on our arms and cheeks. I think the tumbleweeds secretly knew that they were going to be plucked out of the ground soon and wanted to draw first blood. Shortly after arriving in this small town, while playing in the tumbleweeds, I saw something amazing. A spider. Now this was no ordinary spider, this was a cat face spider. Now if you look up cat face spider you will see how cool they are. They make very intricate webs and then sit in wait for their prey. I was obviously too big to be its prey. The spider was big enough that it could catch small grasshoppers in the web it had created. So I went hunting for food for this spider. I caught a few grasshoppers and threw them into the web and then watched as the spider did what all spiders do...ate lunch. What delight to feed a spider. My older sister, younger brother, younger younger brother and new younger sister all got a kick out of catching grasshoppers to feed to our new friend. Well I thought we could do one better. I went inside and asked Mom for a mason jar. She asked what for, so I told her and she helped me put a few holes in the top of a lid so that it could breath. I went outside with my mason jar and broke off a few branches of the tumbleweed closest to me. Then I lured the spider onto another stick I had and put the cat face spider and the stick into the jar. My older sister, younger brother, younger younger brother and new sister caught a few more grasshoppers for the spider and put them in the jar. Our spider was so much fun to watch. I think it slept some, ate a lot of grasshoppers, and probably couldn't possibly understand the hospitality we were showing it. The curve of the jar must have made our faces look very funny as we stared at the cat face spider. Mom told me that I could not under any circumstance put the spider in my room for the night. Mom didn't want it in the house at all but I thought it cruel to put the jar outside with the spider in it because maybe the other cat face spiders would laugh or tease our spider. We compromised and put it in the garage. The next morning we promptly forgot about our friend the cat face spider sitting in the garage in a mason jar full of grasshoppers to eat. A week went by and we still did not remember the cat face spider. Now dad was working so he did not know anything about the cat face spider we had put in the garage. One morning as he was getting in his car in the garage he noticed something move in the corner. He went to investigate and found a broken mason jar swallowed up by a spider web. Now as I mentioned before we had fed our cat face spider very well and it had almost doubled in size from when we had caught it. Dad does not like spiders. Dad especially doesn't like giant cat face spiders. He yelled for Mom to come and see the spider. Of course we all came running too. Mom told the story of the spider to Dad. I wanted to recapture it but Dad grabbed a broom and swept it out the garage door to freedom. I saw many cat face spiders since then but never one so big as the giant cat face spider that scared Dad that day.

The Hedge

My Dad's Mom's house, Grandma's house, looks like a boat house frequently seen on Lake Powell. It has slanted walls on its second story and a wall of windows that are slanted inwards all along the back side of the house. The windows are there to look out at the pool and patio area that fills most of the back yard. In the front of the house were hedges. There were short hedges that knee high things that went along the sidewalk along the front of the house to the front door. There were larger hedges almost as tall as the first story of the house that blocked one from clearly seeing the front door if one was looking at it from the corner. This hedge was neatly trimmed and stood a good two feet away from the house. With two feet of space between hedge and house it became a major path for my cousins and I to play on or hide in when we did not want to be found. The hedges ran the rest of the length of the front of the house and curved along the side of the house and finally ending at the fence that surrounded the pool in the back yard. There were two ways in or out. One next to the front door, where we could enter but not easily as the opening was only a few feet tall. I think Grandma did that on purpose to discourage us from going in or out through this entrance and it was the only place I noticed that backside of the hedge ever touching the house until one got to the pool. The other entrance was on the side of the house. This entrance was five or six feet wide and had a poplar tree growing right in the middle of that entrance. One day we, my older sister, younger brothers and cousins of various ages, were playing tag. We were playing in the front yard were the yard sloped down the street and where the hedges would play into the strategy of getting away from whoever was it. With all of us laughing and running around the yard we were getting more creative with our moves through the hedges. Now a quick note; when kids play any game there are rules that are known and rules that are made up on the spot. We preferred to make rules as we went along. So one of the rules was that if you went into the hedge you had to come back out within five or ten seconds. Well as the course of play continued I became it. I ran around the yard trying to catch my cousins, older sister, and younger brothers but was not having much luck then I saw one of my cousins enter the hedge at the front door entrance. I quickly ran to the other entrance on the side of the house and entered at a full gallop. I was running so fast in one direction and my cousin was running so fast in the other direction that we collided somewhere in the middle behind the hedge.

Cherry Tree

Growing up around my Mom's Mom's house, Grandma's house, I really enjoyed all of the trees. She had two really big walnut trees and one big cherry tree. She had other trees on the property but these were the biggest and best climbing trees in the yard. When I was young and small I would become jealous of my older sister and cousins that were bigger and could climb these trees. I was left to climb the smaller ones. I would beg my older sister to help me get to the first branch on the cherry tree because I thought that after I got to the first branch I could climb the rest of the way to the top. She never helped and always said I was too small. I would run to Grandma and tell her my troubles. Grandma was four feet, eight inches tall. Even with her slight frame she was still taller than me. Grandpa on the other hand was six feet, two inches tall. He towered over all of us. Anyway I would run to Grandma and she would tell me the same thing my sister had. I was too small and I would get stuck in the tree. If I got stuck who would get me out again she would ask. I told her about my superior climbing skills. I begged her to help me or tell my older sister that she had to help me but it never worked. As I grew I finally was able to climb the cherry tree. I was so excited when my hands touched the first limb. I joyously jumped up, put my arms around the branch, and proceeded to climb up the tree. I got all the way to the top and could almost see over Grandma's two story house. What a wonderful place to be. I could see over the big garden Grandpa had. I could see into the neighbors yards. I could see my younger and smaller brothers and cousins trying to get up the tree. They begged me to help them. They told me they could handle it once they got up the first branch. They went and begged Grandma's help just as I had done. They got the same answers I did. Well one cousin had an idea. She went and grabbed a metal bucket and stuck it under the first branch. This made her tall enough to reach that first branch and she proceeded to climb. She got up the tree and proceeded up to the point where I was in the tree. When she got almost to where I was she looked down. Now as I mentioned I could almost see over Grandma's two story house so we were "way" up in the sky. Well she looked down and proceeded to be afraid of heights! She hugged the trunk of the tree shut her eyes real tight and began to cry. I teased her a little. I told her to stop crying. I even tried to help her get down. She would not let go of the trunk. The wind blew a little more and the tree started to sway. This only made it worse. So I climbed out of the tree and went to Grandma. I told Grandma that Cousin and gotten stuck in the cherry tree. I told her about the metal bucket she had used to get to the first branch. Well Grandma all four feet, eight inches, went over to the tree and climbed up. She was probably the best tree climber I had ever seen. She went up so quickly and easily it was amazing. She went to Cousin had her hug Grandma instead of the tree and proceeded to climb back down. My Mom and Cousin's Mom and other adults came outside to see what all of the commotion was about and saw Grandma, all four feet eight inches, up the cherry tree.

That Bike

We went to my uncles house in Lancaster, California almost every summer. One particular summer we went my cousins had new bicycles. It was a great way for our Mom's to kick us out of the house and say go ride. Well I was on a bike, my cousin was on a bike, my sister was on a bike, another cousin was on a bike and my younger brother was on a bike. My other younger brother, the one just younger than my younger brother also wanted to ride but all of the bikes were too big. He said he could handle the larger ones and promptly got on the one my sister had just vacated. So he rode standing up and practically leaning all of his body to the side to which he was pedaling. We rode around the cul-de-sac where they lived up and down the short street and jumping the curbs as we went. The best thing to do for a thrill was to ride closes to the curb and jump up and down each of the driveways as they were sloped to the road. I was in the process of building up speed to make an epic jump off of on of these driveways when little brother, the one just younger than the younger brother, the one that leaned to the side while pedaling came down the same driveway that I was about to jump. I had just enough time to yell half of his name when he hit my front tire. As I mentioned I was yelling his name and he was wreaking into me so when I proceeded to fall my tongue was outside of my mouth and I bit it. What I mean is that I both bit the dust from falling from my bike and I bit my tongue. I bit my tongue so hard in fact that I had dug a small hole in it. I was bleeding profusely from my tongue and I did not notice the few other scrapes that I had on my hands, elbow and knee. I ran inside with blood dripping from my chin and tried to tell my Mom what had happened. Now with a hole in my tongue I could not tell the story very well. I really just wanted to get my younger brother, the one younger than my other younger brother, in trouble. My Aunt thought this must be very bad so she called the doctor. The doctor said they do not sew tongues unless completely detached. I stuck ice cubes in my mouth for about an hour until the swelling went down. We had noodles for dinner and because of my tongue situation I just slurpped and swallowed them, no chewing or tasting just swallowing. We went to Disneyland the next day and all I remember was that I talked funny the whole time. Ever since that day when I put a hole in my tongue I have been able to create some really cool patterns in my ice cream cones.

Icarus

So I just finished a book that gives inspiration to the going and creating making a move that might be scary but will move towards goals that I have. Icarus flew too high and his wings melted. But if he would have flown too low he would have also died crashing into the ocean. I imagine that flying too low I will soon crash into the ocean unless I do something to overcome my own fears and get outside of my comfort zone. I will do this! I can do it! I just need to continue to say go and do, not wait and see!

Prayer

Every night before we went to bed my Mom and Dad sat us down and we read out of the scriptures together. We listened most of the time but sitting next to my older sister, who could pack a mighty punch, might have made our reading a little unruly. After we had read and listened to the scriptures we would all kneel down to pray. One night as we were about to kneel down to pray we heard the train coming. We lived right next to the train tracks and loved to watch them as they went by. Since I heard the train coming I got off my knees and ran to the couch, I may have done this during the prayer. The couch was underneath the big bay window that looked out to the front yard, the road, and right to the train crossing. I parted the curtains and had to fight for position as I had been joined by my older sister and younger brother on the couch. Each of us were trying to look out the window at the train. Something was odd about the train crossing where the road came down to meet it. There was a car parked right on the tracks. The railroad people hadn't put up the flashing red lights or the bar that comes down in front of the road to warn motorists of an oncoming train yet. There was just a stop sign on the other side of the tracks as it merged with another road. Well I said to Mom and Dad that there was a car parked in the middle of the train tracks. Mom and Dad can be a little unbelieving of stories told by a four year old child so they slowly got off of their knees to check. The train was getting louder and it was blowing it's horn very loudly trying to warn the person in the car that they needed to move. It seemed like time stood still. There was a car going to get hit by the train and there was nothing I could do to help. There was nothing my sister could do to help. There was nothing my brother could do to help. My Dad ran to the door and just as he was about to open it we watched in horror as the car was smashed to pieces by the train. What a sight seeing a car being hit with such force that every nut a bolt, every window and every tire were sheered off and flung a thousand different ways. The noise was so loud as the train put on its brakes screeching down the tracks. It was exciting and gruesome to see such a sight because we did not know why the car was on the tracks or if the driver might still be alive. My Dad was frozen by the door and the look on my mothers face was sheer terror. Then we all heard a knock on the door. My Dad who had raced over to the door wasn't sure if he had actually heard a knock or if it was still the noise from the train. The knock came again and my Dad slowly answered the door. There stood a young lady. Her face was white as a ghost. She had tears in her eyes as she told us her tale. She was driving an old car, even old for those days and was coasting down the hill towards the tracks. She had slowed down for the stop sign and the car stalled. She popped the clutch and tried to start the car again but it wouldn't start and she was on the tracks. She tried again and again to start the car but flooded the engine when she panicked. What could she do her car was stuck in the middle of the tracks and she heard the train coming. She tried a few more times then she saw the train and knew she had to get out. She got out of the car and ran over to our house. We didn't see her coming because we were too busy looking at the car and the oncoming train. My Mom was quite relieved that she was okay. My sister and brother and I had to vacate the couch so that she could sit down as Dad went and called the police. After the shock of the incident My sister and brother and I enjoyed having the visitor there. We were even happier because Mom and Dad forgot to put us to bed and we got to stay up and see the police cars and fire trucks that came to our house. I may have even walked as close as they would let us get to the accident and picked up a memento of the nights tragic and awesome event.

Water bed

We moved from one house to another and one community to another as my Dad got a new job after finishing his masters degree in Public Administration from BYU. We went from a small community to an even smaller one on the other side of the Uinta Mountains. We moved into a very old home that needed a lot of work. The home had the master bedroom at the front of the house next to the living room and a back bedroom that was also was where the washer and dryer went. To get upstairs we took a very old staircase that turned two corners before coming out on a landing area. The roof was pitched fairly high in this space and there were two unfinished bedrooms one if you continued down the landing and one that was a step down from the landing area. We made the landing area our toy room and the bedroom straight ahead became my older sisters room. This was the first and I think only time that she had a room to herself. I and my two younger brothers shared the other room. So floor space was 3 beds and two dressers and a maze. I don't remember which side off the room that I slept on but When my parents first bought the place and were moving in my Dad's younger brother came and stayed in the upstairs and said that raccoons got in during the night and woke him up, he didn't say whether he got scared or not but I bet he did. Dad fixed the holes where they thought the raccoons might have come from and added some insulation to the ceiling before we got to move in but it worked for us. The windows let in plenty of light but at night the big pine tree on the front side of the house would rub against the roof creating very scary sounds. It took a few nights to get used to this as the sounds we were used to before were the trains that went by our old house and the cars on the freeway nearby. There are not very many cars in the little town on the other side of the Uinta mountains. One of my uncles had an old water bed that he brought up to the house. My parents didn't use a water bed and so we got to play with it out in the yard. Now this water bed no longer had the frame just the part that held the water. We filled it with water from the hose and then would jump on it. It seemed like a huge balloon because as it warmed up the water bed expanded and made jumping on it even more fun. One day while jumping on the water bed we found that we could bounce each other off of the water bed if we jumped at the right angles or sat on the edge of the water bed. Well it was with great excitement as we realized that the smaller someone was the higher they went if two of us jumped at the same time. So we got the youngest brother, at the time, who might have been two and a half or almost three and had him sit on the edge of the water bed. He was very excited and when he said he was ready we, my older sister and younger brother, counted down from ten. The anticipation of watching the smallest of us was wonderful. I imagine that while we counted down we saw absolutely nothing wrong with our plan. We would have helped our brother fly. Well we got to one and all three of us jumped onto the other side of the water bed. We landed and watched as little brother was thrown into the air. His little arms were up in the air and he was smiling and laughing. He must have gone as high as our two story house, or so we thought. Then gravity took over and brought him back down. His arms starting doing a windmill to try to slow his decent but it had no affect. He landed hard on his arms and then rolled on the ground. He cried a little but he didn't want his older siblings to think that he couldn't handle it. Of course when someone cries mom's ears for mile can hear it and mine came out of the house to see what was the matter. We were all very excited to tell Mom exactly what we had done because we had practically defied the laws of physics with our experiment in low orbit flying. By this time we noticed that the youngest was in a pain that was longer lasting than just a bump or bruise might have caused. Mom took him inside to examine him and we were admonished not to jump on the water bed again. We moped around that afternoon and into the evening. Younger brother was still in a lot of pain and Dad said it might be time to take him to a doctor. They left and that morning we found out that younger brother had broken his collar bone. Dad took the water bed, drained it and threw it away. We were compelled to be nicer and think about the potential consequences of our actions next time. We didn't have the water bed any more so how could there possibly be a next time?

Baseball

I was small and my older sister was big. We had friends in the neighborhood who would come and play with us and we occasionally had a game where all of us played together. Baseball was one of these. We didn't have a bat so we used a piece of wood that was mostly round. My sister or one of her friends put tape on one end so we knew which end to hold and so we wouldn't get splinters. We had a great time pitching, catching, swinging, and sometimes even hitting. The bases were not regulation as we used mostly landmarks in the yard as bases, a rock for first, a tree for second and a hole in the ground for third, and home was a welcome mat that we pulled from the porch. As the game wore on the stick became more slippery as the tape became more worn down. My sister was the catcher and I was up to hit. I looked at the first pitch but I didn't swing, strike one. I looked at the second pitch but as it was over my head I didn't swing, strike two. I saw the next pitch coming a wonderful pitch right over the base, I swung the bat, connected with the ball and was elated as the ball flew into the outfield. However in my excitement and in my strong back swing I let go of the bat over my shoulder to start running for first. The bat connected with my sisters lip and she let out a howl of pain as she fell to the ground. I was sorry that the bat had hit her but I was more sorry when she said that I did it on purpose. I told her I didn't mean to. Needless to say the game was over as everyone gathered around to help my sister I was left with a great two hitter but no runs scored. My Mom gave my sister a washcloth with ice in it to slow the swelling. She just glared at me over the top of that cloth and was still whimpering a little because of the pain when Mom and Dad said we could go to McDonald's for lunch. She cheered, I cheered, even my younger brothers cheered. We went and ate and my older sister told Mom that she did not think it fair that even though I had caused the pain I still got to enjoy the pleasure of McDonald's. My sister lost the washcloth at the McDonald's.

Purple Hands

My Mom decided she was going to juice concord grapes. She did not have a fancy press or a way of easily getting the seeds out of the grapes. It would probably have taken too much time to get the seeds out of the grapes anyway. Mom had a lot of concord grapes to try and juice and no help from my older sister or me, and especially no help from my two younger brothers. So Mom sent us off to play and got to work. First she got the broom and mop. I know these don't seem very useful when you are trying to make grape juice but Mom had a plan. Back to the mop and broom, she tied some white towels or material from the middle of one to the middle of the other. This created a catch of about 12 inches and inside this she place the grapes. Sitting on a chair Mom put the grapes that were in the cloth or towel thing and began to squeeze the grapes. I almost forgot, second, Mom had a large five gallon bucket set between her legs. As she squeezed the grapes the juice began to come out of the cloth and drip into the bucket. As she squeezed her hands began to change color. At first it was a light blue tint, but as she continued to work the hue became darker and darker until her hands were a deep purple. Now as she squeezed the grapes she used the mop and broom to spin the cloth tighter. Mom would stand and spin one side a crank or two and then the other side the same. I am sure that this system sped up the process considerably. Well there she sat all morning as my older sister and I would come by and watch in amazement as the juice dripped deliciously off of the cloth and into the bucket. I am pretty sure that my younger brother's cloths became a little purple because of his need for a diaper change or a drink. I don't remember how many bottles of grape juice that mom put away that day but I know that her hands were purple for weeks.

Snow

As my family grew from one to two and from two to three and then from three to four, my Mom and Dad were left to wonder some days what to do with all of us. Especially on snowy days. We had a bike or two and a trike or two just enough for each of us to ride them. In the summer time it is expected that we would be out riding the bikes and trikes but in the winter time wouldn't it be to snowy and wet? It had snowed about 6 inches overnight, that was almost to my knees and we, my sister and two younger brothers, wanted to go outside to play. Mom bundled us all up with our coats, hats, mittens and boots and sent us out into the white bliss that awaited us. We spent some time just jumping in it and running in it and throwing it and eating it. With our noses dripping and our cheeks a bright red we all decided it would be great to get out our bikes and ride. The bikes were all thrown together underneath the porch at the back of the house and a little frozen together. We got them apart and began to ride. The snow was wet and deep. After a few falls and slips from the two wheeled bikes we got used to the snow and began to gain speed. What we didn't expect was the snow to start sticking to our tires. Pretty soon after we had started we had inches of snow and dirt stuck to our tires. The back tires of the trikes just kept getting thicker and thicker because there was nothing to rub against to brush it off. The two wheeled bikes would get enough snow to touch the top of the forks and then it would scrape off. We spent hours riding those bikes in the cold and snow. My Mom thought that it was so ingenious she had to come out and take our picture. Content after the long day out in the snow we came in the house, dropped all of our wet coats, hats, mittens and boots on the floor and went up stairs to enjoy hot chocolate and marshmallows.

Snow Globes

When I was three and a half I had a brother who was almost one. He knew how to crawl and I am sure I was always nice to him. It was Christmas and we had received several snow globes. I had also received a wooden mallet that came with a toy that had colored pegs that one would hit with the mallet and push them to the other side then turn it over and do it again. I think that my parents underestimated how much of a weapon a wooden mallet could be. I may have used the mallet to defend myself from my older sister who was almost six. She ruled with an iron fist in our home. I would even have to give up my seat at the dinner table if she wanted it, or my favorite colored cup if she were to see it first. Now back to the snow globes. Soon after Christmas I wanted to know how snow globes worked. I really enjoyed shaking them and watching the snow fall and even at three and a half I probably knew what was inside but I wanted to be sure. So instead of me getting into trouble for breaking something I knew I shouldn't I enlisted the help of the younger brother. He was big enough to wield the wooden mallet and so I thought could help me on my quest of discovery. I got the snow globes from wherever they were and brought them to my younger brother. I did not even have to tell him what to to. He had the mallet and seemed to know exactly what I wanted. He started to smash them and I got to see all of the water rush out. My brother was brutal with the wooden mallet making short work of the deaths of all of the snow globes. I am sure that both of us were laughing menacingly as we watched the horror unfold. I am not sure if I felt any sadness at what my brother had done. I was sure that Mom could not be mad at me when I had not yielded the deadly weapon. So thinking nothing of what was going on I was not prepared to see Mom standing over us. She was of course very angry, so I redirected the anger by saying the smartest thing I could think of, "He did it!" For an instance I thought it might work. I tried to slowly walk away from the disaster I had just witnessed but I did not make it far. It was of course my wooden mallet and I did not let anyone else touch my wooden mallet. After such a high while in the act I had found a new low. I had disappointed my Mom yet again. Crying after my talking to, I left and soon forgot about the snow globes. As is often the case when one does something horrible forgetfulness is ones only true ability to overcome. Days later I found one of the broken snow globes and shook it, nothing happened, the snow did not move. The snow did not move! Why didn't it move! I took the globe to Mom who had fixed so many things before and pleaded with her to make it work. She refused. I pleaded some more. She still refused. I was soon reminded of what I had done to the snow globes and was left to mourn their loss.

Dirt

When I was one and a half my mother took my sister, who was three and a half, and me to my grandmothers house a short drive from home. She went inside to talk with grandma and let us play outside. We were familiar with the back yard and all that it had to offer and soon found our favorite thing to do; dig in the dirt. There was a particularly soft spot of dirt over next to the east fence of the yard, it was a little darker than the surrounding earth but that made it all the more fun to play with as we would mix the lighter dirt with the darker. Soon our little hands were dusty and dirty as we enjoyed the dirt. Our clothes, shoes and hair soon turned a dusty black. In my sister's hair it was less noticeable because she had dark hair already but I had very light hair and the black dust clung to the hair and made me look very different. While we were enjoying the digging and playing in the dirt Grandpa came out to check on us. He noticed where we were playing and chuckled. He decided since he was the responsible adult he would add to our fun. He went to the side of the house and grabbed the hose. He turned it on and kinked it so that it would not splash to much as he brought it over to where we were. Then he let the water out. We, my sister and I, loved the water and it made the dirt even more fun to play in. We made mud pies, mud castles, mud everything. Our hands got blacker, our clothes got blacker, even my sisters hair, which was already dark, got blacker. We had streaks of mud and dirt on our faces, the had water and mud in between our toes. It was wonderful! Grandpa just laughed. I do not know exactly how long we were playing in the dirt and mud but it was to our great dismay when Mom came out to check on us. She saw us and screamed in horror, as most mothers so often do when their children have been having fun, asking the all to familiar question, "What are you doing?" Needless to say even at one and a half and three and a half years old we knew that we had to think of something quickly otherwise our bottoms would soon be a little red. We just smiled and pointed to grandpa, who was plainly not trying to laugh. Grandpa had a little more fun as he doused us head to toe with the hose to get us a little cleaner and then Mom took us inside to take a bath. We did our best not to track the mud into grandma's house and I am pretty sure that we had to fill the tub twice because of how dirty the water was the first time. I learned years later that the dirt next to the east fence was so fine and black on top because that is where my grandparents put the coal they used to heat the house in the winter time.

Driving

So, I drive through the state of Louisiana a lot for work. Today I went up to Natchitoches. It is a small town with a long history, 300 years old and counting. It also has Northwestern State University which is a small university, one of many in the state. It seems every small town has a university or two. I just finished listening to "Treason" by Orson Scott Card. It was a very enjoyable book creating a world that is profoundly different and fun to picture. I am now listening to "The Hobbit".

New year

So does a new year automatically make me want to be a better person? Yes! Why is it that new years, new jobs or new addresses make me want to change, to be better or try harder? I think it is because inside me I want to, not because I have to, or convention says I need to do something new...I want to be better! So today I will be better. I will be happier, nicer, neater, more dedicated, open minded, and a bunch of other stuff. I will be a better version of me.