Memories...(of being eight)

One of my little nieces will be turning 8 years old next week, and that has got me thinking about my own childhood, and about the memories that stand out most in my mind from that time.

Especially during the summer months, I feel nostalgic for the camping trips my family would take at least once a year. I'll bet my family has been to just about every National Park in the Western United States...at least once, but we'd also go to lesser-known spots. One of my favorites was Goblin Valley (photo: left) in Southern Utah. It's a State Park, and it's basically in the middle of nowhere. Most people don't even know the place exists now, but in the 70's it was even less known (most people didn't even know about Moab or Arches National Park in the 70's!). This park must be about the closest thing to Mars you can possibly find on the planet Earth. I also loved going to Bryce Canyon, (photo: right) which is a lot like Goblin Valley in a lot of ways, only on a larger scale. Wherever we camped, my two brothers and I would play and explore for hours. My parents probably gave us too much freedom, because inevitably my older brother would climb too high on one of the rocks, or go too far on one of the sheep trails, and then adults would have to rescue him. I recall this sort of thing happening at least a few times on various camping trips. Anyway, these were the curious landscapes I grew up in, and probably the reason why I have a very active imagination.

I also remember quite clearly when I first really began to pay attention to music...when I was about 7 or 8 years old. My best friend at the time was a girl named Jenny who lived down the street. She'd just moved from California, and she was a couple of years older than I, but that didn't seem to bother her. Every weekend we would go to the rollerskating rink, and one of our parents would just drop us off there on Friday or Saturday night (I guess my parents really did grant me way too much freedom as a child!) The place was full of kids who were much older than I, as evidenced by clouds of cigarette smoke that filled the place, but I didn't mind. I wasn't even a very good skater, but I loved listening to the music they played... which was everything from Blondie, to the Police, Queen, Devo, the Cars, Abba and the Clash. There was still some Disco being played at the time as well, but not too much. My absolute favorite band at the time was Blondie. I knew the words to all of the songs on the albums Parallel Lines and Eat to the Beat. I thought that Debbie Harry was probably the coolest person in the world, and I wanted to be a singer when I grew up.