As I was encouraging my Creative Writing class today to recall memories from their childhood, I couldn't help but brainstorm some of my own:
1. Learning how to skateboard down the driveway and throwing the wiffleball so hard my arm hurt in an attempt to impress the boys down the street.
2. Walking home from school or the bus stop and never quite learning the lesson that what goes up must come down, and, because of that delightful law of gravity, those silly plastic lunchboxes will break every time they hit the concrete sidewalk.
3. Dropping a neighbor off at his house only to start backing the car out without realizing that he was still half in, half out of the front seat. Amazingly, I did this multiple times, quite by accident.
4. Praying for a miracle that our neighbor Sue, and not her husband, would answer the door to give us the blessing to cut through their yard, saving us approximately ten minutes of walking time on our route to Dairy Queen during the summers.
5. Participating in leg wars, name-calling tournaments, or what if you were in both the United States and Canada at the same time? games with my sisters.
Not the most exciting memories, perhaps, but that's part of the joy of writing: finding the fresh or significant approach to everyday happenings.
