The older I get, the more I find myself looking back at the pictures when we were children. It is strange how sometimes our minds stay younger while our bodies age. In the 70s, we were kids and worries weren’t ours to bear. Time and distance separates us now.
We had adventures back in those days, using our imaginations because technology didn’t occupy our attention. I doubt I’d be the writer I am, if such electronics had been available then.
When this Polaroid photo was taken, we had one of those thirty-to-forty foot antenna poles fastened to the back of the house. If the wind blew the right direction, we might get three stations. So comic books, drawing & coloring, and exploring the woods were things we did most often. Some nights we went to the drive-in to watch a movie, but other than that, we let our imaginations entertain us.
Years have passed.
In the top picture, our grandparents were with us. Now, I have two children and a grandson. In retrospect, this seems to have happened so quickly. Our grandparents are gone, and I hold memories of them like great treasures. Those early years shaped me in some ways. My two brothers often told stories that prompted my imagination to flourish. Our grandfather had volumes of stories that I wish I could have heard before he passed in 1984. My older sister was the one who prompted my interest in ‘The Witching Hour’ comics, as those were her favorites. My younger sister and I spent countless hours creating our own worlds with the Fisher Price Little People. All these events shaped me. I knew early on that I’d become an author. In my character I played with the Little People, I pretended I was a bestselling author, even though I was about nine years old. And two years after that, I wrote my first novel.
I have no doubt that my siblings helped spark my imagination at such an early age. I am so thankful for them.