When I was a child, I liked playing games with the neighborhood kids around our house: Red Light-Green Light, Seven Steps Around the House, Kick the Can, and Kickball.

The neighhborhood kids used our house for the “running around the house” games. We managed to destroy our yard and killed a tree that, of course, we all had to climb - except Greg. I got to do all sorts of dangerous things against my mom’s better judgment because the doctor told her to let me go and specifically used climbing trees as one of his examples. I got to climb as high as I wanted. (If you are wondering why, it’s because I had a rupture when I was little. Not sure if that makes medical sense, but I loved the freedom and felt unstoppable).

Although the games were great, it wasn’t my favorite. I especially loved Terry Fellenz telling us stories. Terry was a year older than me. He was a boy who lived across the street and he loved to read books. He would tell us stories and put us in the stories!

We used to play in a little creek and pretend we were in the Swiss Family Robinson stories and Terry would tell us we were living there as a family and what adventure we were having.

Sometimes we would pretend we were different animals and Terry would tell us what we looked like and about the animals.

We played house with the Smith girls. They also would tell us what to act out which was never as fulfilling as Terry’s way which was all imagination.

When I was in first grade, I started getting attention for my art. People treated me special so I dove in. It quickly became my favorite activity through grade school and through the rest of my life.

I really had a rich childhood that way. There were 32 kids on just our one block (the parents counted), not to mention the kids from the wider area that would come to play.