Just Close Your Eyes...

Do you ever see a picture and it takes you back, you can shut your eyes and you are there.  This is one of those pictures.  Even before I shut my eyes I have such a feeling of freedom, of happiness, of innocence

The picture was taken in 1959 so I was 2 years old, and we moved to Schiller Park when I was 7.  I consider this to be my childhood home, where I spent my formative years.  I spent a lot of days just running in the yard with my dog, we were inseparable.  

 

If I close my eyes, I can hear laughter, we always had family gatherings, dinners and parties. Cousins were always around; the little hill in the picture of my dog and I, we thought it was huge.  Funny how when you grow up things are never as big as when you were little. We would roll down it over and over again laughing harder each time.  In the back there was an orchard and we built a fort around a tree that had blown down.  We would play out there for hours.

The house had an upstairs, then an attic.  We had a ping-pong table upstairs in one of the front rooms.  Of course back then we did not have air conditioning and there were no screens on those windows.  One particular day mom had went to the store and left me at home with my brother and our cousin Butch.  They were playing ping-pong and lo and behold the ball went out the window.  It caught on the edge of the roof, the porch roof, so me being the littlest was nominated to go out there and get the ball.  Can you imagine the look on my mom’s face when she pulled up the long driveway and seen me her 3-yr old on top of the porch.  It scared her to death, I wasn’t scared until I seen how scared she was.  I thought she was going to kill my brother.  Maybe that is why I am scared to get up on ladders now.  Lol

I remember birthday parties and Easter Egg Hunts and Christmases.  I remember sneaking in early Christmas morning and sitting on the stairs with Tom looking at what Santa had brought us.  Tom got a go-cart and I got a Kitchen Stove, Sink & Refrigerator.  We must have been really good that year.  When cousins were there I remember playing ‘Tag, You’re It,’ ‘Simon Says,’ ‘Red Rover, Red Rover,’ ‘Ghost, Ghost Come Out Tonight,’ and oh the list goes on and on.  I remember the older kids had a club and they would put on shows for us.  They said we were to young to be in the club but they let Debi and I be toy soldiers guarding the door.  We would walk back and forth with our guns saying over and over, “We are toy soldiers, you can’t go in, you can’t go in.”  We really thought we had an important job.  

What fun memories…it is good to go back once in awhile.

I love this song, the first time I heard it I cried and all I could think about was the farmhouse.  It is Miranda Lambert's song "The House That Built Me."  If you would like to listen to it click here.

Do you have a picture or song that takes you back?

until next time...nel

'Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established: And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches.'   Proverbs 24:3-4