After coming across the great photos from
yesterday's post, I've become slightly sentimental about growing up in the Midwest. In my warped mind, instead of thinking about riding my bike through the streets of
Mission Hills and playing in the yards of the huge
mansions, where all of Kansas City's elite live, I like thinking about class trips to
Dustin Dolginow's family farm for hikes down to the stream and playing on huge haystacks. I like daydreaming about a little
Hollister perched on a bar stool eating livers and gizzards at Duke's, my Aunt's bar in
Benedict, Nebraska, a town with a population of 278 people. I like to think this is how we spent our childhood -- in overalls and playing in the water.
Growing up, we spent all our 4th of Julys at our grandpa's house in Lincoln, Nebraska. He lived right by a lake where he'd take us fishing and make us touch the bait worms. His backyard had a great old-fashioned clothes line and a beautiful garden where the world's most delicious tomatoes and cucumbers grew. He'd use those cucumbers to make us jars and jars of pickles every year. On the 4th, we'd always grill and eat watermelon and then sit back and watch the fireworks go off over that lake as our aunt told us ghost stories.
