Thoughts from Chief Sjolander... Radio Flyer adventures... Heres my second Radio Flyer story. I hope you enjoy it... I moved around a lot when I was young. It seemed like wed be in a town for a year or two, then wed be off to the neighboring town. I lived in towns like Minnesota Lake, Austin, and Mapleton. Austin was bigger and we always seemed to end up back there. Minnesota Lake was hard on me and was the last town we lived in as a family before my siblings and I went into foster care. As far as friendships and good memories of my childhood go, Mapleton was the best. We lived in a couple of different houses there, both were by the football field. The first one was green, small, and was owned by the neighbor next door. He was a nice guy who fixed radiators in his garage. I believe he was killed years later in a vehicle crash... We then moved to a house around the corner and down the block. I remember it was winter and not having a vehicle meant we carried items from the old house to our new house by hand, on our sled, or we loaded up the Radio Flyer and made what seemed like a hundred trips back and forth until everything was moved in. I remember making friends, building forts, riding bikes, and playing football for the middle school team. I was not very good at football and the couch suggested I try something else. He was right, and I ended up running track and cross country later when I was in high school. Things at home were not going well and Id try to be gone as much as I could. My siblings and I would take our Radio Flyer on many adventures around Mapleton. We took it to the woods down by our place, uptown to get groceries, hauled snow to and from our latest fort or jump we were building, or trips to the street by Bartholomews House where wed spend time going up and down the hill there. That little red wagon brought me so much joy and fond memories now that I look back at it. Thats one of the gifts of getting older. Being able to look back at simpler times and realizing that while things werent great, we made it through those tough times and hopefully came out as better people because of them. Stay safe, Lee
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 16:50:02 +0000
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