I think I can consider myself having had a very lucky childhood.
I remember for the first six years or so after my parents moved us to the new house when I was about eight. We lived half in the wild. That was how it felt. The strips of land around our row of houses had not been developed and were littered with construction waste: single bricks, unused bits of pipes, and lots of wood, planks and beams and pallets and trestle. The terrain had been agricultural land: fields and a cherry grove. It had then served as storage for construction material, parking for machines and now it was abandoned.
I remember for me and other neighbours' kids the place was a treasure trove of stuff and of possibility. The gully left by some digger became a river and we used planks to build a bridge. Seeing our enthusiasm our parents allowed us to use hammers and saws for building. Once in a while someone's dad would come out and help us with heavy stuff. We used the trestle and some beams and boards to build a long, narrow shelter/ship/castle (depending on the game it would be repurposed). We went through a pack of nails in no time. And still there would always be more lying around to improvise anything from guns to furniture. Eventually several dads worked together and built us a full-blown house on stilts complete with windows, a porch and stairs leading up. It was to be our club house, HQ, base of operations and rain shelter for years after.
I remember the savage cherry grove and how it doubled for Sherwood Forest, tropical jungle and alien planets. It was overgrown up to the chest with brambles except for a few lanes that had been trodden flat. You could tear your trousers or nick your arms or legs quite nastily on the thorns. There were a few hideouts that were completely shielded from the outside and we took pride in knowing them all. Some had bricks arranged ready to sit on and hold council. We tried to build a tree house but the cherry trees were not strong enough.
I remember late summers when we would climb the trees and pick the cherries we could reach. Most were tiny, dark and bitter. And all the shrubs were full of blackberries if you could pick them without snaring on the thorns.
I remember there were lots of animals. Bugs and spiders, naturally. Locusts. Their rasping would fill the summer air but when you got close to a source of the sound it would always stop. Snails. We used to collect those and make a zoo for the afternoon before throwing them back. There were mice and rabbits. The area was riddled with rabbit holes. There were so many rabbits that once in a while hunters with dogs would come and shoot at them. We'd be furious. A, they were on our turf, B, they were presumably killing innocent rabbits! I think I remember seeing a fox once in a while. And there was definitely a buzzard or small bird of prey. We looked for but never found its nest.
I remember the field near near the main road. It was overgrown with high grass and thistles, brambles and some stalk of a plant that always seemed to be dry and brown and shed tiny, spiky husks of seeds of some sort that would stick to your clothes. I remember the colours of that field were pale yellow and brown and green. The wind would hiss through the dry stalks. The growth was so dense that it was hard to navigate at all, let alone play there. So most of the time we stayed away and treated it as part of the backdrop.
I remember playing there at once. A friend and me were looking for insects or something. We found lots of small locusts and one huge green one. We hadn't thought that such big ones even existed in Germany because you always read that large insects only occur in hot countries. It was almost as long as my finger.
I remember tripping in a rabbit hole and falling flat on a cushion of stalks. My foot hurt because I twisted it but for a moment the only thing that mattered was the spider in front of me. It seemed big as close as it was. It felt like I could make out every detail before I scrambled back in fright. It had its web between the stalks and its abdomen was coloured yellow and black - almost like a wasp. Then my friend was there and helped me limp back home. My parents and I were really afraid I had broken my foot. An x-ray, however, showed it was only sprained, and rest and some ice would make it better.
I remember if the weather was at least dry there was always something to do. And if it did rain we'd run for shelter in one of our huts or we'd go home and adjourn until later. Somebody would always be ringing at somebody else's doorbell asking, sometimes imploring parents if so-and-so would come out. In mid-afternoon we'd stop at somebody's house and their mum would hand us cold juice from the kitchen window. And at the end of the day parents would get infuriated calling us in, calling again, calling for the last time and then kids leaving muddy footprints on the front walk.
I remember us getting excited whenever a plane flew overhead (that was still something special then). We'd scream and shout as loud as we could: "Where are you going?"
Today the spider and locusts and tall stalks are all gone. The grove has been cut down. The earth mounds levelled and the brambles torn out.
The house was the first thing to go. Some older kids from school tore it down on a whim. We had never seen them before and never saw them again. It remained for a while as a ruin. We hadn't played in it for a while but it was still sad to see it go. Soon after they flattened that entire piece of land with bulldozers. Time had caught up. The land had been bought and was being developed. A big office block with fenced off grounds was built in place of our hut.
The field where I sprained my foot and found the locust of my life is now a parking lot for the nearby office block.
Now the last bit, the land formerly occupied by the grove is being developed, as well. The last remaining trees, the overgrowth of grass, brambles and garden refuse have been bulldozed into piles and trucked away. It has become a bare wasteland of memories. I walk across it and my mind superimposes scenes from long ago. It's almost like augmented reality because, of course, nobody else can see those images. I walk around remembering how the grass used to smell when now all that's in the air the odour of wet earth. I still sometimes feel that I own the place in some way.
Nowadays I read Calvin & Hobbes and I realise that this author, much older than me, from the other side of the globe knew how I now feel. More than that, he managed to put this feeling down in words and images that are just spot on. Summers never did last long enough. It always felt unfair to have to come in while it was still light out. We didn't play Calvinball but it sure wasn't your holidays if you didn't spend the day doing something adults considered completely pointless. I realise now that exploring that patch of wilderness and with all those games of make-believe I got to be a Calvin for this time that seemed like it would never have to end but was over so quickly.
Of course, I didn't appreciate it enough when I was there. But right now I am grateful.
