Sunday's "My Life Story" entry No. 8

Where was a special place you liked to play as a child.


Until recently my parents lived in the same house for over 30 years. 3308 North 350 East was the address my parents brought me home to from the hospital and where I grew up. Shortly after moving in my parents put in a sand pile and built a playhouse with swings. They planted a garden, an apple tree and a cherry tree. Like our family, the cherry tree grew to be a big and beautiful. It not only produced years of juicy red cherries but it endured many hours of climbing, jumping and swinging among it's branches. It was the perfect tree to play in. The branches were strong and sturdy; easy for a kid to maneuver through and it's limbs provided shade from the summer heat. My sisters and I would spend a few hours some days setting up house among it's lofty branches. Our bedroom on one branch, the kitchen on the other. We were really good at using our imaginations. It was also among those branches I mastered the skill of day dreaming.

A couple of years before my parents moved the cherry tree died and sadly had to be cut down. I told my mom it was a sign that it was time to move on. They kept a section of the trunk to remind them of the years of joys it provided to them and their children. The tree is long gone, but the memories it provided live on.