I am daydreaming about my youth today!

       I have been exploring these thoughts all morning, what else carries over from our youth, under ten our “formative years”. Friends that I made then are still in my life, they know me better than most even if we only talk so often, when we do it is as if we never missed a beat. This theme has repeated itself over the years, particularly when the situation was immersive, school or work even the neighborhood that I lived in.  My opinion is that we begin to form our character early on. The way we will react to adversity or kindness.This also shows up in what our expectations from our parents and friends. We learn what we expect or feel is deserved to us may not be not reality, so we begin to live and we learn. The innocence of youth is what is most missed by me and many, of course you have to be self aware to know you are no longer innocent.

         As a kid in Brooklyn, then Queens the financial status of my family was lost to me. We could have been rich for all I knew, my Mom and Grandparents gave me everything that I wanted (food mainly) seriously toys and love. Who cared then about a backyard or swings we had schoolyards or the terrace, mostly there was so many kids to play with. That is what stuck the way we interact with each other that started at a time when we were like clay pliable and thick. Summers were the time that I looked forward to, the day when my Mom took me to that yellow line of busses in the Bronx. It started before that day, shopping for my trunk, the clothes that she sewed my name into or stamped on the sheets. Fishing pole some new sneakers. Not one of these things did I come home with, usually the clothes had some one else’s name on them everything else broken and lost to the great wilds of Copake. Camp friends are different than others, we had a bond that formed around some core issues, no parents having shacks with girls on the other side of our units. Camp counselors always seemed so much older than the kids that they were.

         I learned some things about camp that are so amusing to me know from the parents that sent us there for 9 weeks year after year. First thing is as soon as that last yellow bus turned off of Pelham Pkwy, our caring loving folks erupted into cheers, some going to celebrate their coming weeks of freedoms with cocktails and lord knows what else. Secondly the ones that I spoke to about this as an adult told me that they were so happy with the freedom that we were barely an afterthought for most of the summer. Back then the fears that we have now about safety, crazy bad things that happen to kids or so many modern worries simply did not affect them.  That ride to Copake is the longest two and a half hours, riding upstate watching the urban concrete of the Bronx fade into rolling hills of green grass kept me looking out the window in amazement.  

         These days there is not much that matches the emotion of wonder, with one exception, put me on a plane and drop me off in a different city. Then let me wander the streets, find the little haunts that that city holds dear all the while not really knowing where I am exactly.  With some more thought I will come up with some other stuff that might come close, but sadly my friends and I will never be divided into bunks, cabins or shacks again. Hey maybe we can just get some connecting suites at the Venetian, stroll around sin city and get tickets to Cirque de somehohahe.

Scott VS Liver Cancer

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