You get to be my age, you spend a lot of time thinking about the “good old days.”
Truth be told, I’m not sure they were any better days than today’s days, but I think we always want to think things were “better” at one time or another, right?
I was thinking about the house I grew up in on North 18th Street in Tacoma, Washington. We moved there when I was five. I lived there until my mother remarried when I was twenty-four. Almost twenty years in that home and yes, there are some great memories associated with it and yes, there are some painful memories as well.
I think when I was about eight or nine my dad put a basketball hoop in the back yard. The hoop was attached to a sheet of plywood, and he attached the whole thing to the back porch.
Allow me to set the scene for you: the basketball hoop attached to the back porch overhang, above the cement patio. At each corner of that patio was a fruit tree. I remember we had an apple tree, a plum, a peach, and a pear, and when that basketball hoop was originally hung those trees were maybe five years old and not an obstruction at all.
That changed with each ensuing year. Each year saw more and more branches stretching skyward, sometimes at odd angles, so eventually it became necessary to either cut off some branches or learn to shoot the basketball around or over them. I chose the latter. I learned to shoot at odd angles. I learned to shoot with a higher arc. And I learned trick shots which came in very handy when friends of mine would come over and we inevitably played competitive games like “Horse.”
I was practically unbeatable at home, the ultimate home court advantage, thanks to those four trees.
Yes, that all happened, but it could also be used as a metaphor for those of us who are writers and/or creative types. The interesting thing about metaphors is they quite often mean different things to different people.
Think about it! There’s no need for me to state the obvious to you very smart people.
Have a great week unless you’ve made other plans.
Bill
“Helping writers to spread their wings and fly.”
Billybuc
Artistry With Words 