Credits from top left to right: Jordan Whitt, Steffi Wacker, Old Chum, Brett Sayles
My Real Memoir
If adventure has a name, it’s Indiana La Mirada Jones Teemley. I know that sounds a tad over-the-top, but I had an insatiable hunger for stimulation; my mental motto at age 7 was, “The bigger the risk, the bigger the fun.” Hence, my favorite stories were adventures: The Three Musketeers, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Call of the Wild, and best of all, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. In my mind I was Tom and Huck rolled into one!
Outside!
Our tract homes were boring popcorn-stuccoed boxes, suitable only for eating, sleeping and watching Zorro or Leave It to Beaver. So, Rory, Jeff and I virtually lived outside. And “outside” mostly meant The Field, which a big cheery sign labelled the soon-to-be home of “La Mirada Creek Park.” Work was due to start any day! But when we moved away a decade later, half a dozen matching signs had come and gone, each sun-bleached and riddled with BB and pellet gun holes. (The park was built shortly after we left, so obviously we were the problem.)
Every other year or so, The Field would catch fire, and the streets surrounding it would fill up with singed field mice, disoriented gopher snakes, and indignant geese. Grown-ups complained non-stop about the dangers of The Field. But their kids rejoiced. We liked it primitive and dangerous — danger was our middle name!
Critters!
On The Field’s highest hill was our treehouse. Rory and Jeff and I regularly upgraded it. But other kids, mistakenly thinking it was their treehouse, kept altering it. So we switched to hunting for exotic critters like coyotes, quail, and cotton-tail rabbits. Alas, they resisted capture, but we regularly brought home pollywogs and crawdads from nearby La Mirada Creek. We would set the pollywogs free once they turned into toads, and find hubcap-sized versions of them a year later. But the crawdads quickly became gourmet meals for our feline family members.
I especially loved capturing trapdoor spiders! This was accomplished in five steps:
- Look for a telltale half-circle “door” hinged with spider’s silk
- “Knock” lightly to see if it was occupied; if it was, its occupant would throw the door open, and then finding no lunch, slip disgruntledly back inside
- Occupancy confirmed, dig down around its hairy hobbit hole with a spade
- Lift the captured section out, and put it in a jar
- Share it at school! During recesses, the class would capture bugs, then put them on the spider’s door and wait for it to attack! My teachers, um, loved it.
The Shingle Wars!
But the biggest buzz of all was “The Shingle Wars.” Kids from all over the neighborhood would climb up onto the rooftops of The Field’s two remaining, precariously-leaning shacks (left over from when seasonal flower-pickers lived there). We’d rip up chunks of asphalt-shingle roofing and “sail” them at the kids on the other rooftop! For weeks, we came home covered with cuts and bruises, beaming like gleeful little Vikings! But then a quickly-formed parents’ committee made the city tear down the shacks. No more shouting, “Today the shack, tomorrow Valhalla!”
Ah well, on to bigger and better ways to terrify our parents!
To read My Real Memoir from the start, click here. To read the next episode, click here.
It’s almost like God said, “I’m going to give Mitch the heart of an adventurer and he will never outgrow it.” 😊
I think you’re right, Scott. ;>)
😆
Those were the days, my friend…my books were Heidi, The Wizard of Oz, Black Beauty, The Little Ballerina, and I lived them out in the high desert pastures around my childhood home. People talk about walking on coals? I was Heidi walking barefoot through cactus and goat heads lol imagination is a childhood super-power.
It is indeed, Pamela. 🧡
I thought of Huck and Tom, all embodied in me, too
SO many boys did, I’m sure, Tom.
Regular renegades!
;>)
What a cool post enhanced by the photos. It was almost like being there & I could swear I smelled The Field in its rawness. The post is brief but full of the riches of what made the youth of those days (also my days) so very special. And we never even had a screen!
🧡
What a joy this was to read. You capture the wild, unfiltered magic of childhood so well—the scraped knees, the makeshift kingdoms, the sense that danger and delight were always holding hands. The Field becomes almost a character itself here, a place that shaped you as much as any book you devoured. It’s a reminder of how God uses even the most ordinary patches of earth to spark imagination, courage, and a lifelong sense of adventure. Thanks for letting us step back into that world with you.
My pleasure, Michael!
The trapdoor spider-eww! 🙂
;>) Actually, they’re quite fascinating, Nancy, and afraid of humans, for what that’s worth.
Good to know! 🤣
Oh my… I fell in love with the bunny!
I was sure I was following you, and may have been. It seems Follows go away sometimes and I have to re-follow.
Hopefully this does not go into Spam. I have had a lot if issues with it.
Thank you for the fun post and for your recent visit to Art Gowns.
Sincerely,
Resa
Delighted you decided to re-follow, Resa! Yes, I get auto-unsubscribes from WordPress nearly every day, due to programming glitches, I suppose.
A treehouse! It brought back such great memories of my dad. He built me one of those little houses. Thanks, Mitch, for this article.
My pleasure, Gux (just guessing on what to call you).
The way you told your story makes every kid ( or kid at heart) feel like they were there, too! But, it’s every mom’s nightmare.
;>)
My brother and I played with the neighbor boys in the fields behind our houses too. Fun memories. But I cannot imagine seeking out spiders. They scare the heck out of me.
I get that, Dawn. I’m leery about spiders too, but trapdoor spiders were just so fascinating to watch.
If you haven’t seen the comedy horror movie yet, “Eight Legged Freaks,” you’d probably love it.
No, I haven’t, Dawn. I’ll check it out!
I was going to say it was “Remo Williams” but that didn’t really pan out for the movie studio did it?
;>)
Parents are really boring 😆
;>)
Pingback: Where No Kid Had Gone Before! - Mitch TeemleyMitch Teemley
Great post, Mitch! And brought back some great childhood memories, too.
Delighted to hear that, Peggy.
Pingback: The Day I Ran Away - Mitch TeemleyMitch Teemley
My mom always called Dad and me her gypsies as we were always wanting to go somewhere new to experience something different. Keep you sense of adventure!
Will do, Bev!