More little snippets for your Sunday…
My kids have always loved hiking in the mountains, in the woods. I remember when they were little, Becca was fascinated by ferns. Whenever we passed a glade of ferns, she would stop us so that she could pet them. I couldn’t imagine anything cuter than a little three-year-old stopping her whole family in mid-hike to toddle over and gently, tenderly pet the green ferns in the dappled shade of the mountain forest.
I was fortunate that our family didn’t move around a whole lot when I was growing up. If I walked to the back of the high school went outside and through a little gate in the fence, I would be in the parking lot of the hospital where I was born. When I was born, we actually lived in a small village outside of town, but when I was too young to remember (before I was two years old, I think), we moved to the first house I remember living in. And we didn’t move until I was in grade 7.
That year, we moved within town. We didn’t need to change schools; in fact, we were now living next door to the elementary school I’d attended since junior kindergarten. This had good and bad points, but getting rid of the half-hour walk to school was good. This was also the house where I first had my own room (even though it was barely wide enough for the bed and a path to walk alongside it).
What I remember of this move was a lot of people helping. We had relatives and neighbours offering a hand…and even a priest I didn’t know yet. (I didn’t realise priests could be that young!) But it was only about a half-mile from one house to the other, so we had pick-up trucks and car trips. I don’t know, I may have even pedalled my own bicycle from one house to the other.
Then, my father got a new job, and during my last year of high school, he moved midway through the year, and we followed just a day or two after I finished high school. And I was about to experience living in a different town.
