"Kids, kids." I heard my dad's voice, but I wasn't sure where it was coming from. As I opened my eyes, I saw him looking down at me. "We have something to show you." I followed him through the house rubbing my eyes. As I walked into the kitchen, I noticed the potbellied stove in the corner with its coal-black stove pipe sitting next to it, not attached to the stove or to the ceiling. I don't remember it being cold without the stove, so it must have been warmer weather in the Colorado mountains. Marq, Stephanie, and I looked up into the round hole in the ceiling where the stove pipe should have been to find four eyes staring back at us. I wonder why they didn't scurry away when they saw us or heard three excited children. But, they didn't. They just looked back at us. There was a family of raccoons living in our attic. Wildlife was part of our lives. It wasn't an unusual experience to be woke up in the middle of the night, or at least what felt like the middle of the night to us kids. I have many memories like this.
Ah, the things we remember.
2 comments:
Yes, it's important to pass on these life stories. Today my cousin and I went through a box of photographs and letters that our grandmother had save. Unfortunately, most of them weren't marked, and we have no idea who most of the people were. We couldn't remember a lot of the details of their lives either. Since our parents and all their siblings are gone, there is no one to ask. We are the senior generation now, and if we don't record our memories, our children and grandchildren will face the same frustrating situation some day.
What a wonderful recollection! I too remember it as just yesterday. It seems that alot of interesting things happened during our 7 year stay in Pagosa Springs. Mom is certainly better at dates than I am, but knowing that Stephanie was born in 1972while we lived there, sorry about giving away your age Steph, puts our time in Pagosa some 30 years ago. Living along the Blanco River, some 6 miles south of town, had it pleasures and challenges. I guess that is what makes life worth remembering; kids eatin' out of the neighbor's garden after school, kids playing on the frozen river during the cold winter months, skinny-dippin' in the nearly frozen headwaters of the Piedra River in mid-July, ridin' an Appolosa-Purgin horse named Sarge, walkin' down that muddy road to see mom and sister after getting off the school bus, and so much more. An oh yea, the day we did our first prescribed (controlled ?) burn behind the house when mom was pregnant with Steph. And building that kitchen, and the bedroom, and the garage, and Marq hitting Mr. Wilson's pump house on his wild ride off the hill. So it goes!! Shellie, I'm glad you brought up the racoons! There's alot of stories to be told about that place. A little kinko biloba and I may remember a few myself. Love, Dad
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