Personal Narrative

As my oldest son nears the age I was while living in a small town, I ponder what may be the best stories to share with him. Will he learn from them, think I was cool, and be hopeful not to do everything I did? Are they appropriate for his age or should I wait until he is maybe in his thirties? You see, when I was a youngster at age twelve my mom passed away suddenly and I moved to a small town where everyone immediately knows who you are along with your story. It’s safe to say, word travels approximately seven hundred sixty seven miles per hour, the speed of sound. This era takes place in the early eighties when kids could ride their bikes all over town and had to be home when the fire station whistle blew every night. A majority of the …show more content…
I used to picture their lunch table like a Norman Rockwell painting. This was not the case for me as I had very little parental supervision during this phase of my life. Every kids dream! Right?
It didn’t take long before I was making friends. A typical summer morning consisted of kids meeting by the town hall for a pickup game of baseball on the old school playground. It had part of a basketball court with black top that turned to a pea like gravel as you walked towards our outfield area. Way out in the outfield was a round, metal play structure that is rarely seen on playgrounds today. If you hit it, HOMERUN! Not too many girls in town so thank goodness I had a pretty decent swing. After a game, kids would go home for lunch and then it was either back to …show more content…
On one side of the proverbial fence was the love of baseball in the summer and football in the fall. We would play, watch, mimic, and trade the cards. Brewers were on an especially hot streak in 1982 and each of us could bat or play a position in the same fashion as our favorite players. On offense, I would imitate Cecil Cooper holding the bat high and off his body and defense would have me stretching my long legs at first base. When the guys had me playing the field, I chose center whenever possible so I could be Gorman Thomas. And who didn’t want to pitch like Rollie Fingers? On the other side of that fence was the sense of adventure and risk. You never knew what this group was up to or where the curiosity would lead us. My all-time favorite adventure started off as innocently laying pennies on the train tracks to be flattened by the trains. It didn’t take long before we needed more! That more consisted of hopping a train and riding in to the next small town about three miles away. Hanging on to the side of a freight car ladder as we rumbled down the tracks, picking up a little more speed as we went past fields, trees, and gravel road crossings. It was a long walk home along the tracks through the countryside but we loved every second of

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