Exciting Places

I grew up in a small town. Small towns are happy places in many ways, and in those days, very safe for children. My siblings and I spent many summer days roaming our neighborhood and my mother never worried. In the process of exploring the area, we never considered that our neighbors would be displeased if we used their yards as a shortcut to somewhere else.

My favorite shortcut was on the property of neighbors who lived across the street from us. Their house was set back from the road with a long driveway which led straight to the front door. Some of our friends in the neighborhood told us that there was a shortcut behind this house which would take us to the town center, and one day they showed us the way. We walked down the long driveway straight to the house, then around the house to their backyard, and onto the path which took us through the woods. It seemed to me that first time that the woods went on forever, but we finally burst out of the shade and into the sunshine of a dirt road populated with a few houses and a lot of barking dogs. We followed the dirt road to the end, and arrived at our destination at last. We were thrilled. From then on we frequently took that shortcut whenever we had the urge to go downtown. When my mother found out, she wasn't pleased and told us to get our neighbor's permission. Of course, we never did and continued to use the shortcut. But the constant risk of being caught and hollered at by our neighbor only added to our fun and made our excursions to town delightfully exciting.