People hear a couple of my stories and immediately say, “You must have had the most wonderful childhood.” And they are absolutely correct. I grew up at a wonderful time, in a wonderful place, with a wonderful family...surrounded by astonishingly wonderful friends.

I was blessed. There is no doubt about that. But, let me tell you, it wasn’t all fun and games!

You take the Kit Carson book report for instance. You won’t remember those “Landmark” books that every classroom in the 1950’s had neatly arranged in the bookcase behind the clay modeling table. It was a simplified anthology of every significant person or event in American history.

You could read (on a third grade level) about everything from the landing of the Pilgrims to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. It’s where I first discovered Pocahontas and Captain John Smith, the Santa Fe Trail and the Wright Brothers.

You could walk to Oregon with Lewis and Clark. You could charge up San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt. You could die right there in the eastern Montana dirt beside George Armstrong Custer...

But I digress.

I picked Kit Carson because his book didn’t look as thick as some of the others. I read about his childhood in Kentucky and how he became one of the most famous frontiersmen, mountain men, fur trapper, Indian fighter and scout for the U. S. Army. He was fearless in battle and a gentleman in all things social.

Those Landmark books always overstated one’s good qualities and usually skipped completely over the bad ones...

I knew everything there was to know about Kit. But when I stood in front of the class and looked at all the eyes staring back at me, I couldn’t get any of it to come out of my mouth.

I stood there. And stood there. AND stood there. Miss Belle was nodding encouragement from the back of the class. But I couldn’t get started. The silence was screaming like a runaway freight train crashing into a ten story glass building. I stood mutely in front of the WHOLE class for two days and nights!

There wasn’t nothing wonderful about my little childhood at that particular moment!

I guess the sun doesn’t shine on the same dog every day.

The fight up at the Skyway Grill was not a Hallmark moment either. I didn’t start it. I didn’t even know what was happening until I heard the roar and Lester Brown landed on my cheeseburger. It seems one of those Huntingdon boys had insulted Rollin Trull. Well, you know ole Rollin...

He answered with a roundhouse to the offending party’s left temple. Everybody in the place went to fighting. I was crawling out on my hands and knees when I got stepped on. And someone turned a table over on me. I might have accidentally hit Lester with my Coke bottle before I exited through a side window. Johnny Horton was still singing on the jukebox as I started sprinting towards town.

I wasn’t worried about the police. They could only stick me in jail and take away a few rights. Daddy would put me six feet under if he got wind that I was involved in such a melee!

Nothing wonderful about that memory; except maybe knowing Rollin didn’t take no guff off anybody!

My entire junior high career was one embarrassment after another. I was old enough to be cool. But too young to know how to go about it! I got run over at football practice every day. Classes were hard. And it was a bit awkward to speak to a girl with acne sticking out all over your face.

No one ever said “wonderful times” are lump free!

Most of my pimples had dissipated by my senior year. Mary Hadley Hayden didn’t seem to notice them. We were standing on her front porch. I was trying to get up the nerve to kiss her. It was, after all, our ninth date. But I didn’t want to misstep here. The silence eclipsed my attempted Kit Carson book report!

It was like Charles Dickens said, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity...”

Nobody skips through those growing up years without monumental ups and downs. And I, along with you, rode that roller coaster like my life depended on it! It was some of the greatest highs...but you could find yourself so far past the bottom you thought no one else on earth had ever been so low.

Mr. Dickens seemed to verbalize that better than anyone else. He undoubtedly spent some of his youth up at the Skyway Grill with Rollin Trull.

Respectfully,
Kes