NaBloPoMo: Who did you play with as a child?

I am particpating in the NaBloPoMo challenge for May. It should be a fun one. It is titled: Play.

Today’s topic is who did you play with as a child?

I grew up, well at least until the second grade, in Huntington, West Virginia. My mom was a college student at Marshall University and my dad was in the “sales” business.

Back in the 1970s we did things a bit different than today. I guess it was a different time back then. Now some of the innocence is lost from childhood. That is sad.

My two best friends were Roy who lived across the alley and Micthy who lived down the street.

Our curfew was the street lights and my mom didn’t call my cell phone. She just yelled down the street, “time to come in!”

Micthy, Roy, and I played outside making forts and playing football. Not sitting in our rooms online with one ear-bud in our ear.

We got dirty and we had no idea what hand sanitizer was. Even though we were REQUIRED to bring two boxes of Kleenex to school at the start of the year, I never used them. Not once.

I rode my Big Wheel around all around town chasing my two friends down the block. Eventually I even rode my bike WITHOUT a helmet.

Micthy, Roy, and I would drink out of the hose and we even walked to school in Kindergarten. We didn’t worry about the boogyman and we weren’t afraid of the dark.

None of us were diagnosed as being hyper-active and we all ate too much sugar. In fact I was allowed to ride my Big Wheel to the Stop n’ Go and buy my own candy. I used to take in a dime and buy 10 pieces on the rack closest to the floor.

Now here it is 35 years later and I sometimes wonder what ever happened to Roy and Mitchy. I haven’t seen them since I left all those years ago but I am betting they turned out alright. Just like me.

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Robert Forto is mushin’ down a dream in the wilds of Alaska. He and is wife are raising two teenagers at Forto’s Fort. 

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• Play in May (thinspiralnotebook.wordpress.com)
• Join Us for May’s NaBloPoMo and Write Every Day (blogher.com)