I remember when my family moved from the Air Force Base that we lived on to a place out in the woods when my dad retired from the military. It was a big move because he had offers for two good positions, but because he didn't want to be separated from his family or didn't want to raise us in a big metropolitan city he chose to retire.
I've always appreciated that but I do remember being very sad because I went from being able to ride my bicycle everywhere on sidewalks to having to ride in our dirt driveway and very short concrete driveway where the car was parked.
I went from riding my bicycle with baskets on either side of the rear wheel to school to having to walk down our long dirt driveway to the two-lane road and then walk down the two-lane road a ways to the corner of it and another two lane road and wait for the bus early in the morning and walk all that distance back when it dropped me off in the afternoons, rain or shine.
I went from being able to ride my bicycle to the Jiffy store at the back end of the base to get comic books and cokes and bubblegum with my friends to playing with my brother all the time. Dad put up a basketball goal out in our dirt driveway we would go out there and get filthy with the sandy, dirty sand on the basketball. It was wobbly so it didn't work really well. And my brother was younger than me and so he would always cry when I beat him or yell that I cheated or something. Which I usually did, but that's beside the point.
I remember as I got older my parents allowed us to start riding our bicycles out on the two-lane road, but not very far. The closest Jiffy store was five miles away and my mom said we would not be able to ride that far and then ride back. I was ready to try but I also knew that sounded like a really long distance.
But we did get to where we would ride our bicycles up and down the two-lane road and pick up beer cans for the aluminum. We would crush them and save them in garbage bags. Every few months mom and dad would take us to the recycling place and we'd get a couple of dollars for our aluminum cans.
One time I think I got $10 which was amazing. We'd save our money for the toy store so we could buy something the next time we were taken to the toy store.
I love where I grew up but that transition from living on base as a kid to having my wings clipped and having to worry about snakes and trucks and crazy people was a hard transition.
But I survived it.
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