I grew up in a small southern Indiana city until I was fifteen. We had four decisive seasons each year. The autumns would give countless hours of fun. My friends and I would gather, then pile up leaves, and jump into the surprisingly full, leafy hills that shed from our neighborhood frees. We would later burn the piles, cautiously watching, lest we torch our front and back yards. While I never saw a home burn down due to negligent leaf burning or ash disposal, I am almost certain stories floated around about a local business, a house of otherwise that was raised by carelessness.
The summertime consisted of heat and humidity that would leave us a sticky, sweaty mess with ever-clinging clothes and never-drying bodies. As a chubby child, the specter of clingy clothing made for more discomfort than sweat ever could. Vanity, or the lack thereof, was relentless in its pursuit of dissatisfaction from an awkward, pre-teen body. A cold shower might give a few minutes of relief, but not for long, and not much relief. That said, nothing would spoil our fun.
We were a movie, a postcard, a vignette of small-town Americana in the 60s and 70s, with flags, short haircuts, and ice cream. Wearing striped shirts and jeans, we rode our bicycles like a gang of hoodlums with cards that fluttered rapidly between the spokes of our tires to make “muffler sounds”. We chewed gum tirelessly. We snaked down neighborhood streets, driveways…Read More when you purchase the book Not Afraid of the Dark.