Stomping Grounds

Tonight E.B. and I helped my aunt celebrate her birthday with a small gathering at her home. My aunt never married and she and my grandmother played a very key part in my upbringing. I spent everyday after school at their house, including summers when school was out. One of my very best friends lived next door and she and I spent many, many days playing around in their yard.

My favorite part of their yard was the tree I climbed nearly everyday, which had a branch that curved just so that it made a perfect sitting place without worry of falling out. It also had a branch that jutted straight out from one side that was perfect for swinging from. I climbed a lot of trees during my childhood, but that tree was the best. I even decorated it’s branches with pretty drawings with my crayons. My grandmother never got onto me about it, either.

In the backyard sat an awesome old grill which really resembled a short chimney. My friends and I pretended to cook on it and it even made a terrific spot sometimes for hide and go seek. Across the yard from the grill and down a small slope was a storm drain. We took great enjoyment in poking sticks down inside it and pretending to fish in it. There was also a tall tree near the fence in the backyard where my grandmother left table scraps for the stray cats I never saw.

After eating our cake and ice cream, E.B. was showing signs of meltdown so I took him for a walk outside around the yard. He loved the old brick “chimney grill”, he gravitated without prompting to the storm drain, and we even saw that elusive stray cat, although I know it’s not the same one from when I was a child.

My grandmother passed when I was 13 and the tree I spent so many hours decorating with my crayons is gone, but this walk with E.B. around her yard was a wonderful small trip back to my childhood, and one I felt proud to share with my son. It was a reminder that the very simplest things in life once made me so very happy and I wish that for him, too.