I remember playing as a child on top of the chicken coop on the
ranch where I grew up. It was built on skids, and was really more of a
mini-barn than a chicken coop. We must have been seven or eight years
old then. It was a lot taller than we were, us four, my sister, I and
two friends. The thing was secured to the west fence with barbed wire,
so that the strong Chinook winds wouldn't blow it over. Sort of
dangerous for us kids. One of us fell off and got tangled up in the
barbed wire on the way down. Some nasty cuts. Then somebody found a
rotten egg.
I remember the hill we lived on, how good it was for
toboganning. One Christmas, some cousins were out and after dinner, in
the dark, we decided to go sledding. We had a riot. The hill was steep
enough to be exciting, and the adrenaline rush was enough to convince
us to lug the toboggan back up the hill for another ride. A gravel
road rounded the hill below us, and most of the time when went over
it. We're lucky there wasn't somebody out driving around, checking
cows or something, because they never would have seen us sliding
across the road in front of them. We wouldn't have been able to stop
either; toboggans don't have brakes, the best you can do is bail
off. We went inside for hot chocolate.
I remember when my best friend from elementary school died. The
last time I had seen him, it had been a happy accident. We were both
in town with our parents, and came upon each other in a little food
court in a small town mall. A koosh ball was transacted. That was the
last time I ever saw him. He died after flying out of a truck when it
was broadsided in an intersection. I remember the sorrow, the pain, and the loss.