Guest Blogger: Jenny from the Block

I have often talked about having no memories of my childhood. Lucky for me, Jenny enjoyed my last post so much, she sent me more of my childhood recently.

Let’s take a walk down memory lane:

I was really amazed to hear you say you did not have that many memories from childhood, because you are in a mountain of mine! Okay, let’s see what else I can come up with for today.

I’ll start with your backyard today. Do you remember when you had a plastic pool in your backyard, it was big and blue and round and had a sign that said No Diving? Like we are going to dive into three feet of water. You and I and Sarah [Jenny’s little sister] and Karrie [my little sister], whom we called “The Little Ones” would all play in the pool in our swimsuits. We would march in circles around the edge and sort ourselves into all kinds of crazy orders, oldest to youngest (me first) tallest to shortest (always your favorite, being the tallest), alphabetically, tannest, etc. Karrie was usually the tannest. Sarah had the longest fingers. Remember this phrase? “MOM! The Little Ones are following us around!”

Do you remember your next door neighbors who had a German shepherd? We used to climb way up this huge pine tree near the edge of your yard and it hung over their yard, I think their house was a sage green color, and we tormented ourselves with the thought that if we fell out of the tree that huge dog would eat us up. We would climb down, covered with sap, and each dare the other to go higher.

I remember those wild strawberries that used to grow in both our yards, and we would play for hours and hours and eat those berries and then wonder why we were still hungry.

Near your front door there was this brick planter type thing that ran in front of your bay window, and once I saw this brilliant green thing slither along in the planter bed there, and I thought it was a green worm like in the Richard Scary books, so I brought it in to show your mom and she screamed and hollered in German and made me take it back out. It was a little green snake. You laughed at me so hard and I did not know what was funny because you understood what she was saying and I didn’t, but I figured out it was “Get that out of my house!”

She used to stand in the doorway of your backyard and yell for us to come in, and we would try to pretend we could not hear her, and then you would get in trouble and she would yell, Eins! Zwei! Drei! And I only knew how to count to three in German cause that’s as far as she ever got before you made it in the door. Except it was the ultimate insult for us to call the Little Ones “Schtuppen Dummkopfs” when they we following us around.

I remember roller skating in your driveway with metal skates that fit on over top our shoes. I remember you teaching me how to do a hula hoop in your front yard, boy, we were good at that! We used sidewalk chalk on the driveway and drew pictures and hopscotch grids. We would drink out of the hose in the summertime when we got thirsty because if went in they
might make us stay in. Why risk it?

If it was really hot our parents would let us run through the sprinkler on the lawn. Usually we would play in the sprinkler for a while, then, when the grass was a totally wet soggy, muddy nasty mess your mom would come out and move the sprinkler to a new place so the grass might have a slim chance of coming back.

I remember learning how to ride a bike, and tie my shoes, and I remember that you learned how to do both those things first and it aggravated me so I would just take my shoes off so you would not see how slow I was tying them.

I remember both our moms giving us lots of homemade cookies, and dumb as we were, we thought the “boughten” cookies, the store bought ones, were the special treat!

I remember your mom breaking popsicles in half on the edge of the counter for us to share and sending us outside to eat them in the hot summer evenings. Also she gave us juice mixed with 7-Up and it would be in a metal shiny glass in these nifty colors, but we were allowed to take the metal ones outside because they would not break.

I remember I thought the soap in your house was so elegant because in one bathroom it was the kind of clear glycerin soap that has many colors in it like a mosaic. And I think your toilet seat might have had sea shells in it, clear plastic with shells inside. [Aimee note: EEKS!]

I remember that your dad could hear a piece of music on TV and then turn around to the piano right there in your living room and play it. Even stuff he had never heard before. Even when I was little I knew that must be pretty unusual and gifted.

I remember that when your Oma came to visit if I managed to snag a dinner invitation to your house I would get all kinds of great German food and probably that baked apple thing with ice cream for dessert.

I remember taking the little honeysuckle flowers apart, if you pinch the end just right and pull the flower stamen out very carefully, there would be a tiny drop of honeysuckle honey. There were lots of these bushes down near where your parents kept their sailboat. That was fun too.

Back in the good old days when we only worried about sunscreen at the beach, which is probably why we were all 4 platinum blonde and brown as nuts by the end of the summer.

Will that tide you over for a little while?

Love,
Your Childhood Best Friend
Jenny