Growing up on Dry Run Road, in Pierre, South Dakota was just like the scene in the movie The Little Rascals from 1994. All the little guys line up to buy lumber for their new clubhouse. Each has brought his wagon, wheelbarrow, or bucket for loading all the wood. Spanky, the club leader, lays a handful of coins on the counter at the lumber yard and tells the man, “Give us all the wood you can for this much, please.” The man looks at Spanky, hands him a quarter-round piece, and says, “Paper or plastic?”
Down our dirt road, the houses were spread out on individual acreage. There were about four houses where all the kids might be located. There was, however, one main house that seemed to serve as our headquarters most of the time.
We were determined to start a club one summer day, just like the little rascals. To do this, we needed a clubhouse. Pat and Jane Graham’s storage shed seemed to be the perfect place. Therefore, we proceeded to empty it and stack it’s contents in the yard. There must have been ten of us kids, all in a single file line as we unloaded the shed- piece by piece. We did manage to make a fantastic clubhouse until Jane came out and saw what we had done. Very happily, she had us put everything back!
After our failed attempt to create a clubhouse, we decided to earn some money for our treasury box. The neighbor had an apple tree with ripe delicious apples ready for picking. We had a marvelous idea! We knocked on the door and asked him if he would like to purchase a homemade apple pie. Of course, he agreed. Who could resist young kids and their eagerness to take your money?
Saddling up horses and waving so long was as usual for us as mail to the postman. We would be gone until supper time—packing sandwiches for the day. A few times, a morning ride turned into a trip to town on our horses; we decided the Mcdonald’s drive-thru would be our lunch of choice. We did our best to keep to the quieter streets as we navigated through our small town, but some higher trafficked roads were unavoidable. People would smile and wave as we passed by. Our horses, however, acted as if it were commonplace.
It never entered our minds that this was not the usual life for everyone.
Sleepovers and backyard campouts were highlights of weekend fun. When I was about ten or eleven, one campout stood above the rest. We decided to run through the pasture and up “the big hill,” as we called it. I could feel the cool night air biting my face and hands. My breath was beginning to freeze in my chest. We all collapsed at the top of the hill, laughing and giggling. In wonderment, a hush fell over us as we looked up into the sky and saw millions of twinkling stars whispering in our eyes. One of us said, “What could be better than this.”
Relationships are what life is all about. The lifelong friends that our children meet are indispensable. My parents were choosy whom we were allowed to associate with. Mom told Brittney and me, “You are who you hang around.”
Leaving friendships to chance is not a chance I am willing to take. The companies my girls cultivate will influence their decisions when we, the parents, are not around. Who pours into them as a youth starts in the young years. The people my husband and I associate with will affect my children as life goes on. We had better be choosy.
After church one Wednesday evening, Eva was playing on the playground. All the children were blowing bubbles. The lesson had been on Jesus washes me clean. I was leaning against the fence when an older woman said, “I had to come down and see all the children. I am eighty years old, and it still seems like I was raising my three boys yesterday. Oh, how I couldn’t wait for them to grow up and start school; then they did.” I asked her how that made her feel. She replied, “Sad. How I missed them.”
She told me to enjoy my girls and not rush it all away. Little did she know how I was feeling that evening.
It was a wild ride trying to get Charlotte ready for bed, handing her off to Chuck when he came home from work, and preparing myself and Eva for church. Most preparations for leaving the house sound like, “Eva, put that down!” “No. We are not going to hammer that into the wall.” “And Charlotte, for the fifth time now, get that ducky out of the toilet!” “Oh, Eva, I think I have to put Charlotte in a life jacket for her love of the toilet.” “Get your shoes on so we can go!” It looks like organized chaos, but we do manage to make it out the door.
Leaning against the playground fence, my attitude changed. This lady of eighty years had a longing in her eyes. I was living in the present, but she was lost somewhere in the past.
God has a way of finding us, even outside the church walls. He reminded me that my little rascals were worth cherishing. I might lose at some point during their teenage years, but I will be selective about who I lose to. My girls will never see it coming.
