Per the suggestion from my lovely boyfriend (whom I've kept secret from my loyal readers until now), whose pseudonym will be.......the Englishman, suggested I write about the early years. He is not British, although I think his family's ancestry originates from the Great B. He wanted his pseudonym to be Barracuda, probably from the song "Ooh, Barracuda"...but I don't want to be too outlandish. Plus, it's my blog, I can pseudonym if I want to. Anywho, the Englishman wanted me to write about my childhood memories for my next blog post. I have A LOT of memories. Childhood and otherwise.
Let it be known, I was probably the funniest, most precocious child ever. I was very independent too, and bossy as a wee little one. It probably made parenting easy....or hard, one or the other. Either way, you're welcome Mom and Dad.
One memory that I had was one where I would play the game, 'Let's dig to China.' And how you played the game was, Erica digs in the back yard until she reaches China. Knowing very little about geography (nothing much has changed since then), I figured China was straight down. Straight down, hang a left, pay a guy ten bucks for a road map and then BAM, here's China!
So as a kid, I sat in my backyard for hours digging and digging and digging. With a spoon. That poor spoon. We (and when I say we, I mean our digging team: me and the doggy who wasn't much help) had like two indestructible spoons for digging and I am sure one is still in some mound of dirt in our old backyard. As a city person, (aka, I lived in the suburbs of St. Louis), I sure was handy and knowledgeable when it came to holes, especially outdoorsy holes; the best kind.
But, here's the thing: 1. I never got anywhere. 2. The hole never made it to deeper than a foot. 3. I gave up on some holes and started new ones, thus never making it anywhere. 4. Most of the holes made looked more like craters than holes.
My mom never checked on me either. She never asked what I was doing, she never came into my office (the outdoors) to ask me what the holes were all about.
And from that, I always thought it was my own secret. I always thought maybe she was a laissez-faire, hands-off mother who didn't know that I dug holes, even though she gave me supplies to do the job (the Indestructible Spoons and Cherry Kool-Aid).
It took me a while to realize that she probably was either sleeping off the exaustion I'd caused her from the day, she might have rejoiced that I was out of her hair, or she probably got the washer and dryer warmed up for when I came back into the house still in my dirty clothes. My mom coulda went to Mommy-paloza while I was digging, or she was probably taking snapshots of me and my weird habits. I'd like to hope that she didn't call all of my relatives to tell them about Hole 101, instructor: Erica Wiley, age 6.
I think I do have a photograph of a little me wading in a pool of muddy rainwater with my infantchildsister (yes, one word) staring at me while I'm exploring the path to China.
My mom still brings it up my old pastimes to this day. Thanks Mom.
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