Comfort...Foster Style.

Lately I have been thinking about my childhood. I am not going to pretend that I am old; I am only twenty two years old...god willing I have my whole life ahead of me. But for those of you who are more experienced in the game of life than I am, I am sure if you think back to twenty two, you will remember a time of changes. I will say that up to this point I have never experienced so many changes in my life at once. Sometimes I just sit on my bed in my dorm, throw some music on, and remember the good old days. I can remember cold November days at Capt. Issac Paine school, playing football with all of my friends in the field next to the playground. The ground was hard and tundra like, and the sky was cloudy...but good cloudy...snow cloudy! We would pick teams, and then spend our ten minutes competing for bragging rights and maybe for a glance from the girls (which we would never admit at the time). When we weren't walking in the footsteps of our gridiron heroes, we may have been causing all sorts of mischief underneath the many walkways of our large wooden playground. I will fill you in on a little secret (if you have ever been a teachers aid at Paine School, you already know), but many children have been burrowing tunnels underneath that playground for well over decade. With some stealth one can navigate his or her way from the sandbox, to the tree in the center of the playground (a distance of about ten feet) all underneath the very wooden platforms our elders walked on. If you were caught however...it was to the princpal with you..for long interogation sessions (some of which ran a whole 15 minutes!). Then I think to the South Foster Fire Station holiday bazaar. I remember when it was held in the old fire station in Hopkins Mills. I remember seeing Grandma in her red ladies fire auxillary shirt, and my mother buying me tickets to put in the cups. The best part was getting a few dollars to buy some cookies or some hot chocolate. Although I like the new fire house, there was something about that old basket mill-turned-firehouse down in the mills which made the bazaar something special. Then there was summer time. Shortly after my parents were divorced, my dad started a short lived (but in retrospect great) custom. We would go to either Shady Acres, or Expresso's pizza in Johnston a few nights a week, followed by a swim in Shippee Mill Pond (Whilloby's to locals). It would be dark but the moon usually lit up the pond enough where my dad would hold onto me and swim. It is one of my most cherished memories. When we got back to our house, he would put me to bed, and I would fall asleep to the sound of distant hooting and hollering, and the view of a soft glow on the tree line from a bonfire. Foster's future adults were enjoying their summer nights in the traditional Foster way. Many times I think about Ponaganset High School. I think about the many crushes I had, the smell of the woodshop, the heat of the upstairs rooms, and seeing the number "79" spray painted on the guard rail in the parking lot...a relic of the graduating class of 1979. To me that seemingly insignificant grafitti was like a picasso or something...it held the memories of the class my mother graduated in...it was almost like a time warp. Since then the numbers have been painted over, and the school has changed dramatically...but thats the beauty of memory...those feelings will be with me forever...and I only need to walk into Country Builders in order to get the smell of the woodshop again. I think of these times (among others) and realize that those memories are not the end of the line. Change always happens no matter who or where you are. I am so happy and thankful that I spent my childhood in Foster, where my mom grew up, and where; if I can manage, I would love for my children to grow up. For now, I look forward to creating many more memories in Foster as I will be returning in December as a college graduate!