"The Way Things Were"
by
Alice Lynch

When I was a young girl I lived in a very imaginative world. We lived so far away from town that there was no one to play with, so I did the very next best thing, I had imaginary friends. The animals were my friends, I would sit by a tree that seemed to be a good home for the animals to live in and talk to them. Of course they never talked back, but it made me happy to know (in my imagination) that they heard me.

I had an imaginary friend named Mary. She was always willing to listen to me. I would call her on a cast iron play iron and make plans to meet her. We didn't have play phones back then, but that cast iron play iron was as good as any play phone. Mary never said a harsh word to me or hurt me. We had a very special bond.

I had put together a restaurant where I served my imaginary friends and some imaginary strangers too. I took their orders, cooked their meals, (mud pies of course), and served them and cleaned up after them too.
I spent hours working at my profession, and found the kind of peace that children do not find today.

In the winter, "up north" I would go out in the morning and slide in the snow all day until my wool mittens had that special smell they get when they get good and wet. I still get a special feeling whenever I smell wet woolen mittens. When I finally came in my hands would be shriveled, but I would feel so wonderful! I loved to slide in the snow, except when the neighbor's bull would get out of its fencing and chase me out of the field. I remember finding an old pair of skis, old wooden ones that you would strap to your boots. I would travel down the hill behind our house and pretend I was the world's best skier. When I look back I know I was probably the world's worse skier. Oh, but I was happy in my make-believe world. I remember sliding down that hill and landing under my father's car on the sled (if only that would have been make-believe).

When I misbehaved my mother would threaten to "send me back to the Indians." The funny thing is I really would have liked to have gone. I would make teepees in the woods and pretend that I was an Indian. I was so good at making teepees that one actually stayed standing during a hurricane!

There were so many things I remember, the milkman, the egg man, the bread man, even the fish man all coming to our home with trucks filled with mouth-watering morsels. We even had a ragman come to the house calling out r-a-g-s as he pulled into our driveway. I don't remember it, but I have been told we even had a man in kilts with a bagpipe that would come to our house to play for a nickel.

All the days I would walk to the bus stop in my sneakers and spend the whole day with wet shoes and socks. If I had regular shoes eventually they would have cardboard inserts to fill in the holes that were worn through, I guess I was just happy to have a pair of shoes, because it never bothered me. Maybe having imaginary friends helped, they were probably walking around with cardboard in their shoes too.

It's been a long time since I pretended to have imaginary friends, or pretended to be an Indian, or went sliding all day, or even made mud pies. I live in a "grown up world" now. Better? Not necessarily so, but that's what happens when one "grows up." Sometimes I feel I still live in somewhat of an imaginary world, living in that world can keep the hurts we feel from hurting us too deeply. Of course, as a "grown-up" we have to deal with the world and all the things that hurt us in the real world, but I like to look back and look at a better time when the world was different, when children could play in the woods and make teepees, and sit beside a tree and talk to the animals, and go slide in fields all day and no one ever worried that they would come to harm. When a child was lonely they could invent imaginary friends and no one thought anything of it. When a child could walk a mile to get an ice cream cone or to walk three miles to get to a swimming hole, not six feet to a backyard pool. When a child didn't have to be afraid, when life was so different than it is today. Even when a parent feels their child is safe in their own home they may not be. I haven't seen a child make a teepee or a mud-pie in many years. I feel a deep hurt that this wonderful time has passed. That children today will never know that "fairy tales can come true." That they don't need the game boys and play stations and the CD players or the computers to make them have a happy and have a wondrous life. What they really need is an imagination.