Johnsenclan

Some of this retreads Five good childhood memories, but now with photos! The neighborhood I grew up in was pretty quiet, so I had the run of the place. My parents let me take off, and I went anywhere I wanted in the nine block area.

1. The Scout Cabin. Not that I was ever a fan of scouts or the scouting program. I was never into camping that much, and the earning the endless merit badges didn’t really appeal to me. The Scout cabin was pretty neat though. We’d climb that rock chimney onto the roof and jump off, or take pinecones up with us to throw at passing people and cars. There’s a field next to it that we’d play soccer and frisbee.

2. Heath’s house. He had a huge cherry tree in the backyard that we’d climb, throwing cherries at the roof next door. His backyard was enormous and had big barn that was full of mice and things to climb on.  He also had an amazingly tall pine tree that made it easy to get on a roof.

3.  The library.  It was only a block away from our house, and it’s wasn’t uncommon to make two or three trips a week to stock up on books.  Even before you take into account that I worked there for a few years, this is probably the place I spent more time than anywhere but school and home between the age of ten and twenty.

4.  The Church.  The Kaysville Tabernacle was on the same block as my house.  Those front steps are where we played tag and hide-and-seek.  The long sidewalk on an incline to the right of the steps is where I learned to skateboard.  There were enormous window wells (that are now barred over) that were perfect for hiding.  the parking lot was in the middle of the block, and was a perfect shortcut to get from one house to another, you could easily sneak into anyone’s yard by hopping a fence.  Inside it’s different than any LDS chapel I’ve ever been in.  The chapel itself has a second-story cryroom, where I once stood for what seemed to be an hour trying to figure out why this woman was covered with a blanket that had something moving under it wouldn’t take the sacrament from me.  It also has some scary stairways that we’d run up and down and hide in(the chapel wasn’t always locked back then).

5.  My house.  To the left is the backyard, it had a swingset for a while, the apple tree, the greatest sandbox ever, and a garden.  The front yard was regularly flooded for irrigation and we’d slide around on the grass.  That porch is where my dad gave me my first sex talk, and right inside is a curved staircase that we’d ride down on sleeping bags.  I rode my bike for the first time going right to left down the street, and there’s  a ditch that was deep enough to go up to my ten-year-old neck when it was full.  The kick-butt Lego Castle that I got as a kid was sitting close to that window on the far right when I came downstairs.

More lists of five.

Tags: five, Jeremy, kaysville, kaysville tabernacle