Childhood

I am pulling together photo albums for my kids with stories of their childhoods as a special Christmas gift. In my digging, I came across a diary from my early teen years. Oh, to read the meanderings of my boy-crazy thirteen year old self. It appears that I was "in love and would be forever" with a new boy on each page. Boys who I now, of course, can't picture, whose faces I can often not place with the names. Reading my entries is, to say the least, a cringe-inducing experience. I wonder how I'll feel about these posts in a few years.

I also came across a story written when I was thirteen. Or part of a story. The beginning is missing. Page seven begins:

"It was a prefect night for a runaway. The heavy clouds covered the misty moon and the stars gave her all the light she needed.
"She slipped down a secluded alley and gropped [sic] her way through it untill [sic] she came to an abandoned cottate. It was approximately ten feet squared and had a little thatched roof that, with another storm, would give way. Tere wasn't any glass left in the windows and the rickety door hun on by one rusty hinge.
"Raven slipped into the bare, one-roomed house and was surprized to find no rats. She was most astonished with this fact -- until she glanced up and saw a huge -- no -- massive cat glaring at her hrough wicked green eyes, as though she was another mouse to dispose of.
"Raven wanted to yell -- to scream, to get help but that was impossible under her conditions.
"She reached for her pack-sack, slowly ever so slowly and slipped toward the open door. When she reache saftey she ran with all the force her powerfull frame possessed.
"Raven headed straight for the Bristol docks where she could smell the mingling scent of fresh fish and salt sea air."

Our young runaway heads for a ship, The Fancy Free -- a pirate ship, I believe -- where someone named Jake is threatened with "a taste of the capt'n's friend, his pussy-cat, the cat'o'nine tails!"

Ah, youth.

What do you remember about yours?

Colleen