Random Thoughts on Being a City Girl - Country Girl

I grew up in a rural area in an unincorporated part of northern Illinois. I loved running and playing outside all the time as a kid! We were outside from morning until night, literally! My Mom had to call us in because it was getting dark out. We'd lie in the grass during the day and watch the clouds go by and see how many different shapes we could imagine in them! When we had to come inside, at night, we'd lay out on the front porch and look up at the stars! We'd ride our bicycles all over the neighborhood and climb trees. Sometimes we'd walk down to the "creek" and dig for clams and pick huge bouquets of violets. Collecting butterflies was another fun thing we did, chasing them through the fields with a stocking net.

We loved looking for bird nests in the fields also and I can remember a type of grass that grew there that looked like it had sections to it. When you pulled on the sections, it would pop apart like the old-time "pop beads". Does anyone remember those? >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

In the summertime also, we'd have big family get-togethers and barbecues. My Grandmother would start preparing the food and everyone would help and we had a big barbecue pit that my dad built. There were picnic tables and we'd all sit in the shade and talk. Sometimes my Dad and some of his friends would get together and play music and sing. My Dad was great on the harmonica! I can still see them sitting on a picnic table and him playing the harmonica while someone else played a guitar. One of my other favorite memories were times in the summer when we'd open the house windows at night (we didn't have air conditioning!) and the soft summer breeze would blow in through a window and you could hear the sounds of the night. I especially loved listening to the crickets. I can remember another time when it had rained really hard and the ground was so muddy! My Mom made us wear our boots and we were walking over to my friend's house, and we got our feet stuck in the mud!! I mean really STUCK!! Trying to pull our feet out left our boots behind in that mud!! I can still remember my socks and feet being full of wet mud!

During the winter time, the wind would blow the snow across the yards and it would swirl and drift into huge mounds of snow and at night the moon would come out and it would sparkle like diamonds in the moonlight! It would get so cold that you could hear it crunch under your feet each step you took. My Mom had irises and daffodils growing all along the side of the house and they were so beautiful! I can remember running and do handstands up against the side of the house amidst the irises and looking down at them and smelling their beautiful fragrance. When it rained in the summertime, we didn't have any sidewalks and I can remember wishing we lived in a place that had sidewalks and vowing "someday" I'd live where there were sidewalks. I can still remember my Grandma walking across from her house to ours and it was so muddy that she put down boards and walked across the boards to get there without getting into the mud. Memories ..... and there are so many others.

Now we live in the city and although I love our house and sometimes the convenience of being so close to all the stores and shopping, etc., I dearly miss those summer nights and the winter snow sparkling in the moonlight. I miss the sounds of the crickets at night and the smell of freshly-cut grass. Now we hear the sounds of sirens and semi-trucks passing in front of our house every few minutes throughout the day and night. It's not unusual to be downtown and see a homeless person sitting on the side of the street or asking for some change. We have to have fences and locked gates now to keep things from being stolen from our yard and porch. We have a very small yard now and the houses are all sitting on top of each other it seems, and yet no one is ever at home, unlike when we were kids in the neighborhood and everyone's mom was at home during the day and everyone looked out for each other. Now it seems people have bigger houses but they're never in them to enjoy them. Progress. How much have we given up to have progress and bigger paychecks and more possessions? The really important things? Just my opinion but sometimes it seems so.