Our youngest son Jase was invited to his first sleepover at a neighbor’s house this week. And although he was only a few houses down from ours, our own house seemed a little quieter with his absence. I know he had fun with his new friend, but I admit, I was happy to hear his feet running back through our kitchen the next morning.
We are blessed with a neighborhood full of young families with children, many within the same age group as our own. And Jase recently connected with another boy his age, and their friendship is taking off at full blast.
It brought a smile to my face when his new friend knocked on our front door this weekend, asking if Jase could come outside and play with him. It reminded me of the same group of friends I had in my own neighborhood growing up.
My younger years were spent at my grandparents’ house on a dead-end road in Monticello. The small town itself was only a few miles away from us, but the gravel Nobles Road was the only world we knew as children.
There were seven kids in total on my road, and we were lucky enough to all be the same age. We made many memories on that gravel road and seeing Jase create some of those same memories warmed my heart.
As children, we did not even know cellular phones would be in our future. The idea of not having a landline would have seemed impossible to us. But to be honest, we never really called each other on the phone. When any of us had a desire to play or roam the nearby woods, our method of communication was seeing what house our pile of bicycles was sprawled out at. That was how each of us knew whose house to gather at as soon as the sun made its journey midway in the morning sky.
And oddly enough, our parents or grandparents never worried about where we were going. It was always an understanding that we would never venture off our road. And if stayed away from poison ivy, we were allowed to roam the woods surrounding our houses.
Those younger years were the best times of my life. We would ride our bicycles up and down Nobles Road for hours. We played sandlot ball in the vacant former garden site behind my house. We would double-dog dare each other to explore the abandoned shotgun shack in the woods. We would pile under a carport during a summer storm with Stage Planks and pitchers of Kool-Aid. We would exchange comic books and trade baseball cards. We set up lemonade stands, and once we even had a rock sale. About once a month, all the little boys would have a camp-out, and all the little girls would attend a sleepover. We prank-called each other. And a few times, we would just sprawl out on the cool grass and look at the clouds.
I will never forget the disappointment when a For Sale sign would show up in one of our friend’s yards. Eventually, we all got older. Some moved away. And as we exchanged our bicycles for car keys, we all drifted apart. I will never forget how hurt I was when I knocked on my friend’s door one day, and they didn’t answer.
I returned to Nobles Road a few years ago to show my own family the house that I grew up in. My tire swing was long gone. And the sign of my beloved dog’s grave had long rotted away. And none of my childhood friends could be found. We had all grown up, started our own families and begun our own chapters in big cities and large towns miles away.
I thought of those childhood memories as I watched Jase and his new friend walking down our own road for their own adventures. I wondered if they would take a bicycle ride. I was curious to see if they would build up the courage to explore the woods. I could almost taste the fruit punch and snacks I am sure they get. And hugging Jase goodbye for his first sleepover, his little back was damp with sweat from a hot day’s worth of playing.
I hope he soaks up every minute of this chapter. For one will never forget those dead-end roads, those wild adventures, and the friends you thought you would know forever.
