Life Review: Looking back

 Kierkegaard famously observed, "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."

In my old age, there is plenty to which to look back. I think back to my own childhood and am surprised at some of the things I still recall.

    I once put a smaller cooler inside a larger cooler and placed a Popsicle inside. Yep, didn't work.

    We camped a lot in the backyard and the woods directly behind our house. We hunted squirrels, explored, enjoyed.

    We had bb-guns from a young age, and yes I was once shot in the eye, but the bb bounced off the uppermost bone surrounding my eye and remained lodged under the skin until Dr. Looper removed it.

    Once my next younger brother and I were shooting bbs into a paper wasp nest under the front door awning. It was a popular place for wasps to build nests. My unsuspecting brother happened to come out that door. The wasps took out their obvious irritation on my poor brother, who had no idea that David and I had stirred them up. Once he made the connection, he chased us a good distance.

    Amazingly I don't think I ever broke a bone, and neither did my brothers. Though, I did once break my dad's ribs. He was playing football with us in the front yard. He went up to catch a pass, and my shoulder was positioned right under his left rib cage.

    We did most everything the local Southern Baptist Church offered for youngsters. We did Vacation Bible School, RA's, graded choir, Sunday School, Morning and evening church. Baptist Training "Union". I carried a 1957 KJV Bible with my books to High School.

    Our little town was "dry" with no LEGAL alcohol sales. But one night we ran out of gas and happened to coast into the little two-pump gas station about 1.5 miles from home. Fortunately, the man who ran the station was awake and sitting in his station, but had just ran out of booze. We got enough gas to do us for free..in exchange for taking him to the local bootlegger to resupply. But that was about exciting as life got for us.

    Thanks be to G^d for a peaceful happy childhood--a privilege denied to many.