All your children will be taught by the Lord, and great will be their peace. Isaiah 54:13
A friend of mine writes a blog, don’t we all? We grew up together in a trailer park when trailer parks were still cool! Our trailer park was on the outskirts of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, although it has now been absorbed into the confines of Winnipeg. When I lived there it was out in the middle of nowhere or in the sticks! My friend, Blair, and I have not seen each other in many years and life changes for all of us. Recently I was rereading a post of his, and it made me cry all over again for the things that we lose as we age. The link to his blog story is: Trailer Park Kids and I am sure Blair would love if you’d give his blog a follow too!
I am sure we all have those childhood memories that just linger, and hopefully, they are good memories. Most of my memories from the trailer park are good. It was in this place that I made some really good friends, and many of them today are friends on social media. Occasionally a name will pop up and I will think that it has been years since I have thought about that person. Or, sadly, I will hear of someone’s passing and wonder why I didn’t reach out sooner.
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But enough sadness, let’s look at the good points. It was in this trailer park that many of us had our first kiss and found our first love, and for some, it was even the only love as it endured for years and years. It was also in this park that we flew kites in the wind, and launched model rockets, some of them with very unsuspecting creatures that fell back to earth on parachutes! We played with toy cars and rode skateboards and bicycles around the quiet streets. We swam in the community pool, or for the more adventurous, we skinny-dipped in the secluded ponds on the “monkey trails.” It was also on these monkey trails that we rode our bikes and had many adventures, we built forts in the trees and got lost for hours in our games.
It was a time before cell phones and our parents never knew where we were or what we were doing, in some cases, it was probably a good thing! We set up tents in the various friend’s yards and had sleepovers all summer long, staying up long past our normal bedtimes and maybe, just maybe, enjoying raiding the neighbourhood gardens for a late-night snack!
We left the trailer park occasionally to head to downtown Winnipeg in a gentler time! We would stay downtown on Friday or Saturday nights until the last bus and take it back home again. We never worried about our safety, we were smart and brave! On other weekends we would go moonlight bowling and arrive home long past midnight! And in the fall and winter on Saturday nights we would be at the local community hall for the kid’s dances. It was here that we’d sneak a kiss occasionally, much to our parent’s chagrin! It’s amazing that I will hear a song from the 70s or 80s come on the radio and it immediately takes me back to those days!
Life has moved on, and I am pushing toward 60 years of age. I had a close encounter with death a few years back and wonder where the time went. I think about the fun times we had when we were younger and how we didn’t really appreciate it. I think about during that time and how all I wanted to do was be an adult so I could do whatever I wanted to do! Boy did I get that wrong! Take me back there and let me stay that age a little longer. Life was so simple back there without many cares. All we can hope for now is for better days ahead.
God Bless.
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