Memories from Millrock
Often times when I tell stories of my childhood, people do not believe that I'm telling the truth. If you were not born and raised in the cornfields of Iowa, especially a small town Iowa, it is hard to understand the close-knit bond that holds together people in small town Iowa. As an adult, I had no idea how the people of my childhood would shape and mold me into the person I am today. The phrase, "it takes a village to raise a child" is profoundly true in my life.
I grew up in a small farming area outside of Baldwin, Iowa called Millrock. Baldwin is small, but Millrock doesn't even show up on the map! The google car didn't even trek this back road area. Not much remains of this old country town but a few houses along a dusty gravel road and the old Millrock School House. Describing Millrock is easy, yet difficult. It is surrounded by rolling pastures, Bear Creek, and hilly corn fields. If you listen at night in the summer, you can hear the howls of coyotes and the croaking of frogs. Most evenings the sun sets over the hills and graces the skyline with the colors of the Heavens. It is perfect in every way. I didn't always see it this way, but after 33 years on this earth I see life quite differently.
Chapter One: Childhood Memories
Most children of the 1980's remember the basics: Saturday morning cartoons, He-Man and She-Ra, and some of the best toys on earth. My childhood included all these basic principles, but added a few twists. I should first specify that I was a tomboy mutation. I say mutation because I loved to explore and to get dirty, but I always preferred to wear a dress or prairie skirt while doing it. I was like the Laura Ingalls Wilder of my neighborhood.
When I go through my pictures of childhood I can verify the following 6 things:
1. Big plastic frames were cute
2. Big hair was in
3. I was destined for braces
4. In 60% of the photos, I am wearing some sort of dress-up clothes or my Laura Ingalls Wilder bonnet.
5. I was super cool. Hands-down. ;)
6. My parents sometimes dressed me in my brothers hand-me-downs. (What girl doesn't want to wear a muscle shirt with a motorcycle on it?)
Ugh, as cute as my Mom thought I was, I have to disagree.
Rad Bike Club
In our neighborhood, riding your bike to everyone else's house was the prime form of transportation. And I'm not talking about the nice bikes we see at Wal-Mart today. I'm talking about bad ass bikes with banana seats, steal frames, and sissy handle bars. You could run over our bikes with a car and they would still be rideable. My bike had the cool plastic spoke noise makers, a front zipper fanny pack, and fancy streamers that came out of the handle bars. I'll say it again, BAD ASS bikes. You add in some L.A. Gear shoes and you have yourself some unstoppable awesomeness.
Any child of the 80's knows the 1986 movie "Rad." If you have never had the extreme privilege of watching this cult classic, I will sum it up for you. Cru Jones wants to be a BMX bike racer and qualifies to race the Helltrack course against the famous BMX rider Bart. This movie is epic and when your seven watching people do bike tricks, it may quality as one of the top movies EVER. Queue the song "Send Me An Angel" and begin trick riding.
Well, every kid in our neighborhood watched this movie. A lot. I know we had the hijacked off back to back VCR copy. I can still see the title written in my Dad's all capital letter handwriting. So what do you do after watching BMX riders dance on their bikes to music for an hour and a half? You try and do it, on gravel! That is always a great idea. I can still remember attempting to get enough speed to be able to stand on the seat of my bike and coast the length of the gravel in front of my house. I can also remember face planting because I hit the pot hole in the middle of the road. Several of the kids in the neighborhood would cruise the strip of gravel in front of my house "trick" riding. I think the closest we got to trick riding was popping wheelies, laying bike tire skid marks on the bridge down the road, and making ramps from pieces of wood. We even attempted to make our own HellTrack.
Ugh, as cute as my Mom thought I was, I have to disagree.
Rad Bike Club
In our neighborhood, riding your bike to everyone else's house was the prime form of transportation. And I'm not talking about the nice bikes we see at Wal-Mart today. I'm talking about bad ass bikes with banana seats, steal frames, and sissy handle bars. You could run over our bikes with a car and they would still be rideable. My bike had the cool plastic spoke noise makers, a front zipper fanny pack, and fancy streamers that came out of the handle bars. I'll say it again, BAD ASS bikes. You add in some L.A. Gear shoes and you have yourself some unstoppable awesomeness.
Any child of the 80's knows the 1986 movie "Rad." If you have never had the extreme privilege of watching this cult classic, I will sum it up for you. Cru Jones wants to be a BMX bike racer and qualifies to race the Helltrack course against the famous BMX rider Bart. This movie is epic and when your seven watching people do bike tricks, it may quality as one of the top movies EVER. Queue the song "Send Me An Angel" and begin trick riding.
Well, every kid in our neighborhood watched this movie. A lot. I know we had the hijacked off back to back VCR copy. I can still see the title written in my Dad's all capital letter handwriting. So what do you do after watching BMX riders dance on their bikes to music for an hour and a half? You try and do it, on gravel! That is always a great idea. I can still remember attempting to get enough speed to be able to stand on the seat of my bike and coast the length of the gravel in front of my house. I can also remember face planting because I hit the pot hole in the middle of the road. Several of the kids in the neighborhood would cruise the strip of gravel in front of my house "trick" riding. I think the closest we got to trick riding was popping wheelies, laying bike tire skid marks on the bridge down the road, and making ramps from pieces of wood. We even attempted to make our own HellTrack.
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