A little while ago I was editing some rather dry correspondence when, out of nowhere, I got a picture in my head of little path that ran through the narrow side yard on the far side of my parent's neighbor's house. When I was little, we used to play all over this neighbor's yard with the little boy who lived there, Jason. We walked through that side yard many times, but there's not much to it. Barely wide enough to be called a side yard, it was just stepping stones on a dirt path that ran right against the house. If you strayed from it, you'd be in English ivy that grew on the short, steep slope to the fence.
Anyway, this struck me as weird, because that neighbor moved when I was nine years old, and I haven't been there since. I really don't know the last time I thought about that piece of yard. I can't think of any time I've thought about it since I was nine, but it's certainly possible I thought of it sometime later.
So there was this little part of my brain that had that memory, lying dormant for a quarter-century or more. Then, for no reason I can discern, it pokes its head out right when I'm reading, "The aircraft remained in CAT 3 status after the 35-day Auto Land requirement had expired."
I guess that part of my brain was going to be over-written, and this was a pop-up asking, "Are you sure you want to delete this memory?"
No, I'm not.
Which neighbor's house are you talking about? On Goddard or behind?
ReplyDeleteI first read your post quite hastily and thought you were writing about the side yard of your parents' house, the one that your bedroom window overlooked. "Odd for Mark not to have played there since he was nine," I thought, and started over.
I haven't thought about your parents' side yard for about twenty years, but hey.
Fondest memory thereof: you putting several small pieces of paper through the window fan in order to see them shoot out into the open air above that little side yard....
Is that what passes for a fond memory these days? I'm sorry that I didn't offer you more entertainment. You weren't there when I spent several days leaning out my bedroom window and shooting the neighbor's yucca full of holes with a spring-action BB pistol. Or we could have dug up the hostas that grew amid the ivy, and replanted them in a little garden elsewhere in the yard, and sipped lemonade and wondered why we weren't gettin' any action from neighborhood chicks.
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