The Ditch

As I was saying the other day in another post Passing Down Heritage, we have memories from our childhood that make us.

As I told you, we lived on a cul-de-sac. Behind some of the homes, ran a piece of land that you could dump and burn your trimmings. It wasn't big enough for a home and had no access except through the side of the homes that bordered on it. It also had a "ditch" that was probably a natural run off and had perhaps six inches of water at the very most.

Here, at the ditch area, we had a favorite place to play. But, we were banned from going down to the ditch because it had water, and that water was probably enough to drown in (!) You have to know that my mother was deathly afraid of drowning and the water situation to really appreciate this. Reprimands didn't work for long, back we would go when we could.

We dug holes for "forts", mapped out how our future homes would look. We made stew with ashes, water and crushed piracatha berries. We gathered polly-wogs to take home and watch anxiously to turn into frogs. We gathered tulle bush tops and as they dried out, they would make such a lovely shower of giant dandelion like dust. We loved it.

Little by little my mom became more comfortable with out sneaking down to the "ditch". We moved away when I was about 12, I don't remember having many restrictions about going at that point, but then I had probably outgrown my need to build forts, or make weird stew.