Back in those growing up days...

The life my brothers and I lived seemed "normal" to us, naturally. Yet it is a pretty frequent realization as I grow older that many of the normal or common experiences of brothers growing up in the mountains or as newcomers to the community...well, times have changed.

Can you factually remember how many "rock fights" you've been in? (For those who may translate that differently, this is where someone picks up a rock and throws it at you and sometimes hits them, and they throw a rock back and this continues until someone strikes a blow that makes the other run off. That ended the fight and only if you were a sociopath would a victor continue throwing at the fleeing injured.

Personally, I can't remember but there were many. Commonly with a brother. But I do remember be so uplifted in spirit when kids from the other mountain came into our forest...to have a real life enemy to throw rocks at, shoot bb guns at, sling rocks out of slingshots at, build pits in the forest trail and covering them with thin twigs then the twigs being covered with pine needle to match the forest trail.
Tying a flagging marker to a limb nearby to signal us when to jump...which came in handy a few times while being chased. Though the sharpened sticks we had in the bottom of the shallow "trip me" hole didn't actually work as far as I know...they recovered from the fall and resumed the chase too quickly.

I most seriously doubt that I will ever forget the most spectacular sling shot accuracy imaginable. When one of the "enemies" had the nerve to come all the way to our area and steal one of our bicycles...I was dumbfounded. Had no idea people actually stole bikes, though I had heard of it...it was just kind of out there in a realm of "doubts" for some reason. Yet now it happened...and the kid was getting away!! I couldn't catch him on foot though I was climbing down the rocky bank to get to the road as fast as I could, he was going downhill on a bike!! Our bike!! From what had to have been over a hundred yards away my eldest brother drew our new surgical tubing slingshot back, angled it up into the air...and I'll be dad gum if that thing didn't come down and bean that kid in the head, knocked him CLEAN off that bike, course I was getting near in foot pursuit of the bike then...this kid takes off for home holding his head and letting out all kinds of promises of our death. When he fell off that bike I looked up at my older brother in complete shock but I remember his face being plain as if no shock, that was what he expected, it was what he did, why he shot it..so of course it hit him. Unbelievable.

Wish we had a book composed of all the stories from days gone by combined, though with time our Kid-fuzz on our memories is pretty variable.