Dusty Memories

 

Getting all kinds of feelings and thoughts from the latest reunion of my buddies from the old 12^th ward in Boise Idaho. It's so pleasing to link up with somebody who has firsthand knowledge of who you were in another place and another time and even better someone who can validate thoughts and memories I no longer trust. Memories I've fed on so many years that sometimes I fear I may have planted and nourished of something that wasn't quite there to begin with. I'm also having to cope with comments of other people's memories about me and us that I've kind of totally forgotten until now. Some of these memories are so foreign to me I want to doubt their validity but I have no reason to think my old buddy would make something up. In fact I have every reason to believe his thoughts and memories are as valid as mine.

Case in point one of the first thoughts that my friend Greg brought up during our messaging reunion was an incident of our first meeting at Primary – – those interested can reference an earlier posting for Primary, I explained Primary as a meeting held for LDS youth from about three years of age on up to 12. Usually held after school in our case Tuesdays at 4 PM which allows the kids who got out of school at 3:30 PM time to get over to the ward house. In the case of the kids from Campas school (where I went .we arrived on a big yellow bus and had to cross the street to the church. Those of us in the lower grades got out of school at 2:30 PM and then had to mess around at the church until the start of primary which seemed like forever.I should also note that our ward house was literally directly across the street from the church. The schools called Garfield and it was a huge building compared to campus school. Garfield was built around the turn-of-the-century and housed a bunch of local kids. Campus was a small elementary school super modern and used as a training site for cadet teachers. Our schools actually on the campus of Boise State University (in those days Boise Junior College). We were definitely interlopers to the kids from Garfield.

To paraphrase the account it was our first meeting at Primary, Tuesday afternoon probably in September 1958 or 1959. It was before the third grade so we would've been in that group of kids who had gotten to the church house right around 3 PM. What I recollect is that we pretty much just hung around the front yard screaming and yelling and that fervor of chaotic youth. And somehow Greg and I begin mixing it up and soon a fight ensued. I wish I could have a clear memory of such an event but I don't. Greg indicates we're fighting and rolling around on the ground even giving me the benefit of the doubt that I was getting the better of the fight. The fight resolved when we were called to meeting and I gratuitously turned and assisted my friend up off the grass casually indicating we were just having fun. What a great snippet of a story. Telling the story I'm kind of glimpsing a memory of something possible like that. Not that I'll spend a lot of time pondering the events veracity but it's got me thinking of maybe doing some short stories of just such times. I could enjoy that immensely.