Neighborly Memories

When I posted this photo on Facebook, I never expected to hear from childhood neighbors.  But happily I did!

Margaret, the oldest child of a family up the street, commented on the photo: "Your Dad remembered everybody's name and called out to us all.  Have downloaded and sent to my brothers and sister and my cousins. He was so very special."

In response to the email, Julian wrote, "It was a sad day for me when Bibba and Robin told me he wasn't the real thing."

Bibba addded this, "We were beyond fortunate to be  brought up  with such imagination....I remember Doodle and I and Brooks when he was over, playing in the creek below this ledge...by coming all the way down Shannon Lane through the huge drain pipe under Memory Lane, no pun intendeded but there it is, even after a summer's deludged of rain....it astounds me even now that we were so free to live, die or be seriously hurt, common sense grew with each episode of exploration. The little elves that were placed there in nooks and crannies surprised us each time...and our imaginations soared as to who they were, how did they get there, and did they come alive when we were not looking. Doodle and I spent hours together hunting crawfish, which I was later to enjoy eating (had I only known), slippery critters, and Daddy Long Legs and water spiders glilding on the surface of a stagnant pool of water. Occasional spears of light would pierce the thick tree foliage above and the running clear clean water would put on a show of twinkling lights hitting theswift flow as it folded over, around and under the rocks in this secret place where the creek widened and deafened our ears with its' water music as we continued wading barefoot lost in another world."

I haven't thought about the MacQ family in years, but these few responses brought back a flood of childhood memories, especially of the creek, the drain pipe, critters, and light.  I have written before about the magical place of my childhood (here and here and here and here) and I shall again, only this time with the knowledge that the Hood children were not, of course, alone.

Many thanks to the neighbors for their memories!