Comments on: My West Coast Childhood

By: Mary

Mary — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 15:53:32 +0000

Thanks, Holly! It was wild! And even wilder the way mom prepared it…ever eat dehydrated octopus? Try chewing rubber first!

By: Holly

Holly — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 13:18:27 +0000

Mary, what wonderful memories! I simply can’t imagine the octopii in the sink! WILD!

By: Mary

Mary — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 20:01:12 +0000

Ah summertime! Warm weather is flirting around with us, can’t wait till spring is here to stay…

Dh and I have always wanted to visit New Zealand…and Scotland. It looks so beautiful, and we’d love to see the home of the Border Collie!

By: jen

jen — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 07:04:35 +0000

I love the sea and sea food.

I grew up in a surburb in Auckland New Zealand
Favorite memories playing in our backyard in the summertime

By: Mary

Mary — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 20:32:05 +0000

That sounds heavenly, Amy! My girls have never seen a real beach. They’ve had fun in the sand at beautiful lakes…which will have to do for now!

By: Amy

Amy — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 19:37:42 +0000

What a lovely childhood you had! Seafood galore - yum! I grew up in the big city, far from where I live now but it was good. My parents were ok (another story in itself) but here in nz you don’t have to travel far to get to a beach, any beach so we lived about 10 mins walk away from the nearest one that we went to all the time in the summer

By: Mary

Mary — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 15:06:04 +0000

Teresa! Thanks for commenting and for those adorable pics you emailed! Your girlies are growing up so fast!

Yes, yes, good memories of 7th grade Eng. Lit, having to quote The Jabberwocky with an English accent. We had such great teachers, huh! I fully intend on making my daughters do the very same poem, accent and all!

I love your childhood memories! Everyone’s have been so good, they’ve all brought a little bit of mine back to me…yours reminded me of frolicking in the irrigation ditches with my cousin Joanie, ‘course we had swimsuits on! Aren’t we all blessed? We can only hope to recreate some of these for our own children, despite how different culture and daily life is from our own growing up years.

By: Teresa

Teresa — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 14:51:33 +0000

‘Twas brilling and slithy toves
did gyre and gimble in the wabe
all mimsy were the borogoves and the mome raths outgrabe.

Didn’t you love that poem??!!

I don’t remember much of my childhood. One of my fondest memories, however, was when i was about 5 years old and my cousin and I decided that we wanted to play outside - it was pretty hot in mexico on that day. My grandma sripped us down to our underwear, let us loose in the backyard, and we proceeded to play a game of “you-can’t-catch-me-with-the-hose!”" It was fabulous! How i wish i could strip down and run around in a backyard, with water from a hose splashing me!! Thanks Mary, what a great memory about the octopus.

By: Mary

Mary — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 14:08:37 +0000

Don’t you guys love my mom! She has the perfect scripture and poem for every occasion, I have many running through my head thanks to my gem of a mom! That was a new one to me, though! I’m sure glad you shared it. I think that’s a deficit in my homeschool, and probably in many schools these days. Kids just don’t memorize poetry! When I was in grade school we had to memorize a poem each week. Sadly I don’t remember any but The Jabberwocky, and In Flander’s Fields. In any case, I love my memories of visiting Wyoming as a child. Touring the Bad Lands in Uncle Richard’s pickup truck–watching wild stallions fight it out and collecting “ant money”. Not to mention Yellowstone and Buffalo Bill’s Lodge…and counting antelope to pass time in the car.

So, Deborah, I fully agree that any travel/exposure to the beautiful states is a memory to be cherished. I was hoping you’d share about your childhood, since I knew you’d lived in many neat places. I would have never guessed you’d be terrified of mountains! I think my mom’s love of them translated over to me–I never thought about falling rocks or such, just enjoyed the view. (Hey that last sentence would be a good theme describing my life! Ha.)

Ann! I want to hear more about what it was like growing up in a communist country! Please blog about it sometime– :). Have you ever read, “Good-bye Is Not Forever” by Amy George? It’s the story of a Russian family torn apart due to communism, and how she was reunited with her father like 50 or more years later…such a good auto-biography.

Colleen, so you grew up in gator-ade country! I, too, had best friends on the same street and would walk unchaperoned down to their houses to play all day under their lilac bushes with baby dolls, etc. Those were the days! And like you, my family home is still in the family! My big brother is raising his family in it, so someday I’ll make it back there and walk my children down memory lane…

By: mom

mom — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 12:37:38 +0000

Now, Mary, here we are 25 years later and you have a memory of how an almost-expired octopus feels when it clamps weakly onto your arm! My memories take me back to a basin in Wyoming where my Dad homesteaded in the early 1930s. Any direction we looked, there were mountains. They can be scary, Deborah, I grant you that but we lived 45 or so minutes from the nearest so we just enjoyed the beauty. “Thy righteousness is as the great mountains”, the Psalmist said. In “Psalm of David” Spurgeon said, “Yon Alps that hold their lofty heads above the clouds and hold familiar converse with the stars, are dust, at which the balance trembleth not, compared with His divine immensity!: That whole poem is awesome. “Earth’s ponderous wheels would break, her axles snap, if freighted with the load of deity!: I love it!