10 Childhood Memories

I was tagged by virtue of reading some fellow LID's Blogs, so here goes:

1. My sister and I climbing a mountain in Manito Springs(?), Colorado while my brothers went off to climb Pike’s Peak. We ended up climbing up the steep face of the mountain when we lost the trail. We were quite happy to make it to the top and slid back down afterwards. I was 16 and my sister was 12. It was a huge accomplishment, but we were kind of scared at the time. Later my dad said he could see us from the cabin. It was nice to know he was watching.
2. Exploring with my brothers and sister and the neighborhood kids. We explored along the Mississippi River and in the river when we were in grade school. It was always fun. We’d catch crayfish, dig up clams, collect turtles, and explore the island. Sometimes we’d walk the other way to what eventually became our back yard, but at the time seemed to be all wilderness to our eyes.
3. Camping at Little Mantrap. We went there almost every year. We loved walking around and finding wild flowers. There was also a patch of wild strawberries that we always liked to pick. And they were so good! I also caught my one and only fish at Little Mantrap.
4. Piling into the back of the station wagon with our pajamas on on a Friday night after my dad finished work and driving to my Grandma’s house 4 hours away. We’d get there around midnight and she had always baked cinnamon bread and caramel rolls for us, so the house always smelled so good.
5. Sitting around with my family on a cold or rainy Saturday or Sunday afternoon and watching ABC’s Wide World of Sports as a family.
6. My all day bike hikes. We went on two of them, one between 4th & 5th grade, and one between 5th grade and 6th grade. The first one was with my brother and some of each of our friends. We went like 50 miles. We went out to a Lake Mariah State Park and then turned around and headed to Elk River stopping at the farm of a family we know. The next year I went with a friend. We rode 10 miles to Buffalo, riding our bikes on I-94 before it opened. Both trips were a lot of fun. We packed lunch, snacks, lots of water, and headed out. I can’t imagine letting a 10, 11 or 12 year old do that in this day and age.
7. Going to visit my mom’s grandma’s farm. Guess that would by my great-grandma. They had no running water in the house. They still used an outhouse and they had an old-fashioned pump in the middle of the kitchen which to a kid was so cool!
8. Visiting other older relatives on my mom’s side. There was Aunt Helga who lived on a lake in town and always threatened to make “fish heads” for us. There was another Aunt who always asked us if we wanted “nectar” while my dad always said “that’s Kool-Aid, say yes”. And there was one more Aunt and Uncle (of my mom) who had taxidermied animals in their house. Most of the time we had to play outside. Most of them spoke Finnish which my mom understood but my dad didn’t. Anyway, its one of those memories from childhood.
9. Okay, don’t laugh. Playing with a friend, LuAnne, when we were in like 1st or 2nd grade. She had these poles in their basement. We used to listen to and talk about “The Monkey’s” TV show and pretend the one of the poles was Davy Jones.
10. Running back and forth across the street between my house and my friend Sue’s house to watch some big wedding that was on TV. We had a console TV and since neither of us knew what a color TV was, we thought our’s was color since it was a bigger TV. It wasn’t, it was black and white. I don't remember and never did find out who’s wedding it was. This was either right before we started kindergarten or between kindergarten and first grade. We eventually ran into each other in the middle of the street and just sat and laughed.

Anyway, now you're it!