Five Fond Memories From Childhood

Sean tagged me for this meme a few days ago. The topic is the five things I miss from childhood.

Here are my five fond memories or things I miss most from my childhood.  These aren't in any order.

1. First of all I miss the freedom from worry and responsibility.  During grade school years, we would come home from school, play neighborhood football or baseball and wander the woods without any worries.  In the summer, we played capture the flag in the evenings and even ran with abandon as they sprayed our streets for mosquitoes.  For all I know we were playing in DDT, but in those days it didn't seem to matter.  There were lots of friends and sleep at night was deep and peaceful.
2. Next I miss Saturday mornings when nothing seemed to matter but sitting back and watching cartoons.  It was a time when rules were suspended and your imagination could run free. Anything was possible.  The good guys always won and even Wiley Coyote seemed to bounce back from his misadventures.
3. I miss the time with mother on Saturday evenings and Sundays.  My father wasn't with us when I was  young and my mother worked very hard during the week, often working late in the evenings and not even having time to join me for meals after I got old enough to take care of myself.  She would work until Saturday at lunch and then we were together.  Often we would go out to dinner on Saturday night.  Her favorite restaurant was one in Winston-Salem.  It was called Staley's and mother loved their fried onion rings.  Sunday morning we would go to church and then come home and have fried chicken for dinner.  Then most Sundays we would visit with relatives in Yadkin County.  We would often sit under the shade trees at my Aunt Molly's and Uncle Austin's house and eat homemade ice cream or watermelon.  There was no way you could spend that much time with mother and not feel loved.  Sometimes on the way home, we would stop and get a hot dog for dinner at Poplar Tavern not far from the Yadkin River.  You could order in your car and they would bring the food right over to you.  Then we would head home and park her dark blue 1952 Ford in the driveway ready for another week.  My mother was an independent person and her ability to go anywhere and do anything made not only me, but her many nieces and nephews feel secure and loved.
4. Next I miss the outdoors and the camping that were so much a part of my life.  I was a Boy Scout and going camping on weekends was a wonderful experience.  It was magical loading all our stuff into packs and surviving for a couple nights on our own.  Then there were the weeks at Camp Raven Knob, swimming in Lake Sobotta which was named after my dad.  What I remember most of all was the chill of the lake as we jumped in each morning and the exhaustion at night when we collapsed into our beds.  We learned that we could make almost anything and take care of ourselves.
5. Finally I miss the time fishing with my best friend Mike.  Somehow my mom would find time to take and drop us off to fish in my Uncle Henry's ponds which were not far from the Route 67 bridge across the Yadkin River.  We would fish all day, sometimes barely saying a word.  I can remember catching my first bass. He made the mistake of being visible while guarding a nest of eggs.  I finally tortured him for what seemed like forever with lures until he hit .  I can even remember fishing there with snow coming down.  That kind of quiet companionship and friendship is one of the treasures of youth.

If you remove the rambling narrative the five things are:

1. Freedom from worry and responsibility
2. Time for imagination to run free
3. The unconditional love, strength, and independence of my mother
4. The experiences in the outdoors that taught me to be independent
5. The companionship and experiences that can only be shared with a childhood best friend