The Muddy Hillside

So. Frank E. Doherty Elementary School. There were two playgrounds: The Upper L and The Lower L. I don't know if L was spelled L or what. I'm assuming it meant level. The Lower L was for kindergartners through third graders and The Upper L for fourth and fifth. Now, Doherty is on a lovely plot of land in beautiful West Bloomfield, Mich. That sounds like I'm being facetious, but I'm not; most of West Bloomfield is really quite delightful. Doherty especially. You drive up a longish driveway lined by pine trees on at least one side. The other side might just be regular trees. Through the stand of pines on your right you can see the big field area of the rather massive Lower L playground. Then the school presents itself, nestled comfortably in the landscape. There's a cul-de-sac designed, my mother felt, by a mad man (once those buses were in there, you were trapped). If you go off to left of the school there's a small parking lot at the base of a rolling lawn (where we played kickball). It was a good place to park and neck when in high school. That lawn then melded with The Upper L playground which swept down to a fence, a river (stream?) and the woods behind. There was a path through the woods that led to a big field and then to a subdivision. Just before the woods ended and the field began there was a snowball bush from which I stole huge white puffs for my mother in the spring. They say the woods were haunted, but when don't they say that?

Why the hell am I giving you this tour, she muttered to herself. Oh yeah! Okay. In the spring it rains in Michigan. (In the fall, winter, and summer it rains in Michigan.) The Lower L playground had it's own hillside, a bit more steep then The Upper L's rolling lawn. And it wasn't so much lawn because it was more constantly covered with children. (Why did this subject come into my head this morning? Oh, I know. It was already 66 degrees in the house when I got up this morning. It's been raining (gleefully) in LA this week. This is a good thing. It makes my garden grow. And it makes me happy. The world looks good and smells good and reminds me of home. But it's been much colder in the mornings before today. And when I let the Wiener out the back door, the air was soft and it smelled just like my youth.) (This reminds me of a letter I wrote to a guy I had a crush on when I first moved here. A bit of a lyrical description of a moment in my childhood. I'll look for it. It might interest you.)

In the spring, the hill was mud. My best friend Jenifer (yes, just the one N) and I felt that we needed to create roads to help the water drain down the hill and out the front gate. It did not need us to do this. But my, it was oddly satisfying. We spent every recess (three a day) climbing up and down, dragging the heels of our boots to make canals that connected to other canals and so on and so on. It was a messy job. The mud caked high on my hand-me-down boots. They had zippers which became useless. For a while at least, that wasn't much of a problem because they were too big. I remember one staying sucked in the mud while I kept moving. Stepped right out of it. I stood there on one leg, my little white-socked foot waving in the air until Jenifer rescued me. She was good like that.

The tenacity with which we worked on our public works project was astounding. I suspect our tongues were planted securely at the corners of our lips, to ensure the world of our determination. It was so satisfying watching our girl-made river rush out the front gate as directed by our heel-dug troughs. We may or may not have been yelled at by the recess monitors. And our mothers, for that matter. And, truth be told, this might have just happened on one day. But I don't think so. I think it was an epic project, like the Big Dig. I think our work was never done.

From the Corners of My Mind

I have warm fuzzy feelings about the memories of my youth. I'm not idealizing my childhood. It was all well and good and all, but certainly not ideal.

Youth is crap; I much prefer being an adult. Why, you ask? First off, children's priorities are all 'effed up. God, I remember stuff that as a child I thought was the end all be all most important thing ever! And that was crap! Needing the electronic game Merlin? I assure you, I did not need that game (I did get it, however, for Chanukah I think? Although, then we had to get batteries for it. Argh, the angst.).

Oh the things I thought were a big deal - that I prioritized worrying about! Being disruptive in school (talking, duh) and living in fear that the teacher was gonna call my parents. And if she did, it was certainly going to be the end of the world. Or when I was a little older, once I had my period, spending the entire freaking school day terrified that I'd bleed on my pants. You can have no idea how much time I wasted suffering over that, figuratively wringing my hands. All right, I coulda used Zoloft back in the day, but still! If only my future self could have visited me back then and said, kid, listen, chill.

And children have no power! Not that I would have wanted power. Can you imagine if I'd had power? That would have been bad. I mean, come on, my priorities were all wrong.

And you're a real live person (albeit with ridiculous notions) in a tiny body and no one takes you seriously (for good reason). But I remember feeling mighty grown-up as a five year old. And at ten? Sheesh, don't get me started. (Too late.)

Anyhoo, my point (lordy, I wonder how often I'm gonna say that during my life of blogging). I like to think about things and places from my youth. Objects that I had. Places where I spent lots of time. I like to wander through my elementary school in my mind's eye (I feel like after saying, "mind's eye," I should make some oooo eeee oooo noise. Dunno why).

I had a pretty snazzy elementary school. Frank E. Doherty, West Bloomfield, Michigan. They built it, gee, probably around 1969 (also when I was built). I like to stroll around there in my brain. Do you ever tour places in your brain that you thought you forgot? I recommend it; I find it very satisfying. Doherty's architecture was very open, with a large oval library in the center of the school. It was sunken! Like a living room! And it was ringed by shelves that were topped by Formica counters. So as you walked through the halls outside of the library, those counter tops were proper counter-top height. And it was just open walls into the library, and of course across to the other side. Alrighty then, this can make no possible sense to you, so I'll stop. Suffice it to say, nice school. Wait, not sufficient, I do want to mention the little nook down the little hallway off the gym/cafeteria. Near the incinerator, the janitor (I want to say Mr. Booker, but that sounds suspect to me) had a small cranny (though he was not a small man). I think it was even decorated and had a TV and a wing-back chair. Not sure why I ever got to go back there (never for nefarious reasons, I assure you), but I do recall it being a cozy wonderland.

Seriously now, do you ever do that? Can you ride a bike through the streets of the neighborhood of your youth, in your brain? And just as you think you couldn't possibly remember what's around the next corner, you ride along and there it is, your memory of the next corner?

Go think about something pleasant that you haven't thought about in years. Report back.

xo

Jo