Bike Riding, Captivating Childhood Memories Appear

The morning sun emerged while I was working in my yard. A gentle breeze brought me wonderful reminders of gardening in my mountain homeplace many years ago. Such a heartwarming experience.

Later in the day we were out riding our bikes on the Huckleberry Trail. I heard faint chirping of crickets beneath the now fading, fall influence of the woods; birds were flitting about, and I was able to recognize the Sparrow’s chirp, the Cardinal’s beautiful song and the Blue Jay’s loud squawk. There was a lingering fragrance of the Honeysuckle vines, the Mountain Phlox and the damp earth beneath the beautiful mature trees presented its own unique backdrop. The sounds transported me to the summer days of my youth. That time in the mountains when we had been freed from classroom confinement; we exchanged the smell of the chalk dust on the blackboard and felt erasers resting in the tray for the wonderful mountain potpourri of damp earth and blooming Mountain Laurel shrubs graced by wildflowers dressed in orange and scarlet red.

Oh, it was not just one experience of summer imaginations. No. It was my momma holding my hand as we walked the street in town to the hair salon and boarded the bus as we journeyed farther to another coal camp community, it was a picture of Daddy with his dinner bucket and cap light leaving for another day of work.

My reminiscence as those bike wheels rolled was weaving the scene once again. I was traveling again, across the winding, rugged roads as I made my way to my childhood home. Each of us from those mountain and coal camp homes can warmly remember "the times" of our childhood and youthful experiences.

You're welcome to come along. I occasionally treat myself to mental drifting on what I call, ‘Nostalgia Creek’, a fictitiously named location in West Virginia, where the cold stream of mountain water runs, babbling over sharp and smooth stones, the same ones on which our all-summer-long bare feet walked. It's the same place where we watched elusive minnows swim as we tried to catch them with our bare hands. It's a good place to sit on a rock now and remember--- girls barefoot in shorts, little boys and no shirts or shoes. We go to the creek with empty tin cans. One never knows what small creatures (minnows and crawdads fascinated us), will appear and we are prepared. Sitting on the creek bank, totally oblivious to our surroundings, we could talk for days about many things.

The bridge on the Huckleberry

Memories.  Sometimes wandering and sometimes weeping…but forever cherished.

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