1983 – My first “forgemory”

August 5, 2009| Jason Michael Reynolds|1 Minutes
August 5, 2009|By Jason Michael Reynolds|1 Minutes

1983 – My first “forgemory”

My first tangible forgemories occurred sometime between the age of 2 and 3. I only remember that because we lived in a very bright yellow house in Yelm, WA until the summer of 1984 and for most my childhood, my favorite color was yellow.

1983, Yelm, WA I am making sure Daddy’s chair doesn’t slip as he paints the house.

I remember my dad had an old (1940’s) blue truck that was parked on the street between the towering maple trees that fanned out over our yard in front of our house. My sister (who is 21 months older than me) and I used to love to jump in the piles of maple leaves my dad raked up in the fall. You could only jump in the leaves on a sunny day. Wet leaves were no fun because they soaked you to the bone. Also, there were bound to be great big slugs amongst the leaves.

There is no greater party killer than jumping into a slug-infested leaf pile.

I still fondly remember the smell of maple leaves in the fall. I’m sure my dad didn’t mind raking the leaves up twice for his kids to play in. I’m sure I wouldn’t…much. It’s a shame we don’t have giant maple trees in front of our house now. Even more a “shame” that there are no maple leaves for daddy to rake up every fall…over and over again. 🙂