Nostalgia Sandwich

[Luthien]

Not too long ago, I got a craving for a toasted tomato sandwich. My mom used to make these for me as a child..mmmmmm.

It's the tastiest treat, and super simple. Toast some bread, put mayo on both slices, add sliced fresh tomato, salt and pepper, add top toast, slice in half from corner to corner (yes it matters, sandwiches are easier to eat and taste better this way ;p)

Yum...my perfect sandwich. So anyway, I was eating my sandwich and my brother, Joel, messages me on MSN.

I asked him out of the blue, "what is your favourite nostalgia sandwich?" To which he replied "do you mean what is my favourite sandwich to eat for nostalgia's sake??"

Yeah, that's probably what I meant..but it sounded so much cooler my way.

'Turns out, Joel doesn't have a favourite sandwich, because he loves them all equally.

I'm writing this blog as a new thing. I've decided to take a piece of advice I found on tesh.com (very cool sight with daily tips added into several categories. They call it "Intelligence for Life"...my new fav site)

Today's tip was to take a trip down memory lane in order to be a happier person.
Apparently it makes you more cheerful, and people who write about the past are more happy that people who write a blog about their present.

Since I do so much writing about my present, or exploring the darker areas of my past, I've decided to make my own nostalgia sandwich on here...maybe it will make me more cheerful, and remembering the good certainly can't hurt.

Periodically I am going to comment in this blog about neat little stories from my life, or particularly great experiences. My hope is that I'll create a balance between the tough stuff, and all the good things that have happened in my life.

We all have to have some time for the good :)

 

[Luthien]

The Bottom Bun...

One of the greatest experiences in my life, to this day, is a trip my family took to Earl Rowe campground in the Collingwood area when I was about 6 or 7 years old.. It is one of my most vivd memories, and my brother and I both agree, we're pleasantly haunted by memories of this week.

I'll never forget the trip there..you know how when you're a kid, it seems like a half hour is forever, and a 7 hour drive would seem like days? That was how long that trip seemed for me. One of the nicest things about the trip up was this wonderful, mindblowing park that was off the highway on the way there. We stopped there for a picnic lunch, and Joel and I had a hayday playing on those wonderful climbers. To this day, I have no idea where this park is, or even what it is called, but I'll never forget how it looked to me that day.

When we arrived at Earl Rowe, while our parents were setting up the camper, the kitchen tent, and preparing a firepit for the night's bonfire, Joel and I went tree climbing. Somehow we got our little paws on dads fishing net, and got it stuck up in a pine tree...lol. That was a funny one. I don't think we did manage to get it down and it might be there to this day.

I remember the walk through the woods that evening just after eating supper, and how we found the "biggest puffball my mom had ever seen". Joel and I had never seen one, and were totally blown away by it size...we were told they make great eating, and we were going to take it back to the campsite to cook it, but Joel thought smashing it would be more fun...it was pretty funny how it exploded in a billion pieces when he threw it on the ground.

After that mom and dad talked to us about wild mushrooms and how many of them are very poisonous. They then told us ways of knowing if a mushroom is safe to eat. We found some raspberries bushes just full of yummy ripe berries and we sat there until it got dark filling up three sand pails full of them.

That night we had a bonfire, and actually every night while we were there. The second or third night, I remember sitting at the fire and all of a sudden hearing a terrible commotion from a nearby campsite...it was a bear, and I was sad we didn't get to see it...lol.

It is also on this trip that for the first time n my life I discovered magic...real, beautiful, unexplainable magic. The kind of magic you only ever see in a forest, and only in perfect conditions.

Dad, Joel, and I were going for a walk. Mom had stayed behind because she wanted to clean up the campsite. We were walking through the dirt paths that led from one area of the campground to another, when dad decided to take us off the beaten path. We went into the woods and walked until we came to a big strange path through the woods, remembering it now, it doesn't even seem like it was real..we took this path and walked for what seemed to be forever, only not, because time had stopped.

I don't know if anyone else has ever experienced this magic moment where time actually seems to stand still, but there we were, and the sun was cascading through the trees in such a way as to create a mist over everything. The leaves stopped their rustling, the birds ceased their activity...only we were capable of movement, but then, you never can move at times like those, when it seems you're connected to the world in an ancient and inexplicable way. And you almost have to believe in God...ever fairies and elves don't seem so far-fetched.

Eventually the moment passed, and we were somehow back at our camper. I don't remember how that happened...but I know I experienced something magical on that path...something that awakened a part of me that I didn't know I had. A connection with life, and nature, that has never left me to this day. Joel and Dad felt it too...we've talked about it since. I've also experienced it afterwards...always under the same conditions

The rest of the trip was no less adventurous and wonderful. We visited the Blue Mountain Pottery factory, and were allowed to pick a piece of the pottery for ourselves. I still have my small bunny...We swam and made sandcastles at the beach and watched the stars (stars like I'd never imagined) by night...

And then, there was the storm. One of the best ones I've ever seen. I love Thunderstorms...always have. I feel the energy in the air and get a supercharged high that goes right through my body everytime. This storm was awesome...Howling winds, torrents of rain, flashes of mad lightning, and the retort of crashing thunder. It went on for at least an hour..an hour we spent trapped in the kitchem tent, while everything flooded.

At one point I could hear the dog at the campsite next to us barking like crazy...and thank goodness I talked mom into letting us go see what was wrong, because the dog was tied to a very short leash that kept him trapped in his doghouse...as the water rose, so did his panic. He would have drowned had we not saved him. At the end of the storm, there was about 3 ft of water covering everything, and Joel and I were allowed to swim in it..super fun times

This whole trip, while seemingly nothing very special was one of the most memorable weeks in my life. There is a special place in my heart that is reserved especially for that place (which I never did return to) and the memories of that week.

This has been the bottom bun of nostalgia sandwich (said in a cheesy news anchor voice)

...remembering really is a wonderful thing :)

 

[Luthien]

I've just stumbled in here, I don't even remember writing all of this..I LOVE LOVE LOVE it though.

This is possibly one of the best ideas I've had, and now that I've remebered it, I am going to continue with it.

Today's story, The Attack of the Longhorn Cattle, and trough swimming.

When I was 11 or so, we lived on a beautiful 1000 acre farm. It was unworked, and part of the land was rented out to others, for stock. Joel and I loved this place so much, it was our Wonderland.

When I was a kid, I don't know if things were just different than they are now, or why my parents were fine with letting us out of there sights for hours at a time, but Joel and I had all the time in the world to explore our lands.

There was a small abandoned barn about three fields back from the house that was full of old hay, and Joel and I made it into our fort. We'd always head there first before carrying on to our latest adventure. One day however we decided to take a completely different route, and see what there was to see on the other side of the fields.

We walked for what seemed like hours before coming to an old stone fence. On the other side of this was a field full of Texas Longhorns that were being borded on our land..well, of course at our age, the funnest idea we could think of at the time was to use them for target practice. We picked up small rocks from the ground and let fly. Well, let me tell you throwing rocks at cows, not a good idea. They stampeded.

Joel and I took off running towards the side fence, one of those stacked log ones..we were over it in a matter of seconds and figured we were safe, well the cows just ran right through that fence...the only reason Joel and I are alive today, (and for the life of me I can't explain it's presence) is that there was an old culvert pipe laying above ground in the middle if this field.

Joel and I crawlled inside and cowered, for what seemed like forever, until the cows had settled.

We were terrified, and the noise of the cows stomping and trying to get to us was deafening, but inside, we were revelling in this latest adventure.

Eventually, the cows gave up, and Joel and I were free to go. We headed back the more direct way towards our house, and midway there came upon a giant mud pit.
As kids are bound to do, we had a mudfight and were completely saturated from head to toe before realizing that this pretty much signed our death warrant when we got home.

We headed home cautiously all the while trying to come up with a viable excuse for our condition...well we were saved by the trough..in a field about 2 away from our home, there was a full water trough. Looked great to us and we climbed in and swam in it until we were clean (or at least un-muddied)

I don't even think we made it home until we were dry...we probably headed wet for our barn fort...in any case, when we got home, mom was none the wiser. We were safe for one more day...lol.

This is only one of of our many death defying adventures, and one of the more memorable ones. It was only a couple of weeks ago., while telling my youngest sister about "The Adventures of Joel and Luthien" (actually, at the time we were Minnie and Tiny, but that's another story, or book...) that my mother even found out about this whole day of adventure. I suppose it's for the best, because I am sure at the very least a grounding would have been in store for the cattle incident.

This has been the mustard, on the bottom bun of Nostalgia Sandwhich....

Gotta love childhood escapades.

 

[Luthien]

When I was in grade one, my teacher taught us a new word.

I don't remember why she was teaching us something that should have been so totally over our heads, or even what the lesson was, but I was certainly paying attention.

The words was Paleontologist, and she described it to us as a person who digs up, and studies, dinosaur bones. Well, from that day forward, I was going to be a Paleontologist. I read everything I could about the subject, collected dinosaurs toys, books, pictures.

Now, it was around this time that my parents were making plans to kidnap my brother and sister from their evil "real mother". Yes, actually kidnap. They would have gotten in lots of trouble for the plan they eventually carried out, because they just sent my sister a plane ticket, and picked her up at the airport when she arrived, with her mother having no knowledge of it...it was all a big elaborate secret.

Well a few months later, they had my older brother come for a visit, and he never returned back to his "real mom' either.

Now my older brother and sister were 15 yrs old at the time, I was seven, Joel three, or four. I had a serious case of sibling worship going on. I had missed them for years and here they were. Home. Of course I wanted to spend every waking moment with the two of them, but as you can imagine, at 15, they both had better "big people" things to be doing than hanging out with Joel and I.

Eventually my parents set up a daily play time for the four of us, where no matter what was going on, at 4 pm every day, the older two had to drop what they were doing and play with Joel and I for an hour.

Funny thing is that once we got started "Playtime" was always two or more hours :)

We'd play Barbies, or Dinosaurs, or Cars, or Barbies and Cars (that was a new one for Joel and I).

Well, one day, we took "Playtime" to the local quarry with mom and dad, we wanted to swim more than we wanted to play. When we got there we swam, had a picnic, and then went for a walk for the obligatory rest period, before getting back into the water after eating.

Now the quarry was right beside a big farm, and we'd often go walking through The farmers fields on our visits to the quarry. One day as we were walking through, we found cow cones all over the place. They were old ones, completely dried out and sun bleached.

Now to my seven year old mind, these were DINO bones. I convinced my parents to bring them home with us, and when they agreed we headed home.

The bones stayed in the backyard, and I would half bury them and play Paleontologist on my own, or with Joel if I could convince him.

Well one day, sometime after, it was my turn to choose what we did for "Playtime" and I chose "Paleontoloist"

We all got dressed up like explorers, and went out into the jungle of our backyard searching for monster bones.

We were out there for HOURS...and only came back in after being called and called for supper.

We only played Paleontologist once...the magic of the moment could never have been re-captured, as for those few hours, we really were seasoned explorers, in a jungle terrain, carefully uncovering dinosaur bones. Even big brother and sister got lost in it.

When my father passed recently all four of us children spent a week together, in a hotel up north. There was nothing better to do than to drink away our sleepless nights, reliving the wonderful memories we all had of our past together, and with dad.

This Paleontologist story came up and we all sat there going over the whole day as though it were yesterday, bringing it to life for my sister-in-law, the only one of us who hadn't been there.

As we sat looking back on this day, we remembered why bringing home cow bones, and getting lost in a game such as this wouldn't have seemed weird to any of us...The reason was dad, who could take anything and make it into something else.

I remember countless family walks with dad, where the object was to find neat rocks, sticks, and animal bones which would be brought home and turned into works of art by our father, who really was the most talented person I have ever met.

As we sat there grieving the loss of our dad, all the bad stuff fell away in the moment, we sat remembering all the good, the wonder, and magic of our childhoods together and apart.

I never did follow my dream of becoming a Paleontologist, for a few years later, when I was in grade four, my mother told me "paleontologists are assholes". I never did find out what she meant by that statement, but my obsession with dinosaurs, and paleontology, was quickly traded for an obsession with "pog", and dreams of being a Vet, an actress, a singer, a storm chaser...this list goes on.

The Paleontologist years were over, but never forgotten.