Sometimes, as so many have said, you don't realize just how good you have it, until things change or you lose them. Even though we didn't have a lot of material things growing up, we had a lot of fun and experienced things many others did not .
Our property had been part of our Grandparents farm. There were still older buildings left, that, like our house, were hand built by Grandpa and other family members. There was also a small wooded area where farm junk was laid to rest, as was customary on most farms in the area. There just weren't any landfills to take stuff to or garbage pickups. This was a treasure trove of fun for young boys and girls. Wild plums grew there, which we picked and ate to excess, usually with results that were not quite so much fun.
Old broken equipment became our wagons as we traveled the old west or a ship as we sailed the seven seas. Once, with one of our neighbors over, we decided to chuck some rotten potato hand grenades out on the highway from our hideout in the woods. Just by pure luck, we managed to plop one right on the roof of a passing car. We were shocked and scared, as they slammed on the brakes and started back towards the driveway. We hightailed it to the opposite side of the yard and hid in the apple orchard. In a few minutes, we could see the man talking to our Dad, and Dad hollered for us to come up there. The man had been swearing up a blue streak, which didn't win him any points with my Dad. Dad asked us where we had been, of course, we said we were in the orchard just now, no, we weren't up by the road. Dad told the guy to buzz off, that we said we weren't there. We knew Dad knew we were guilty, but, he didn't want to give the guy any satisfaction after all his swearing, so he let us off.
We did have fun in those woods, but, after a few small accidents, Dad decided that it was not the safest playground for us, and had it bulldozed. Well, we found many other places in the nearby pastures to have our adventures as we grew older and were allowed to wander farther. Never a dull moment with our large family.
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