A Child’s Paradise – Part 2

Another great memory I have of growing up on the PC campus is the playhouse that was down the hill behind my house.  We had so much fun in that playhouse.  It was a wreck when we moved in, but at least the building was still standing and sturdy.  We fixed that little place up.  We got some extra paint from somewhere (Renae, help me remember), and painted the inside, then we sponge painted a nice little border around it, and even hung up “pictures” (calandar pages).  We made some curtains out of some scraps my mom had and also got some leftover carpet pieces for rugs.  We also decided to paint the floor.  However, right when we were getting to the part of undertaking this task, we started to notice a really awful smell everytime we went to the playhouse.  With Lizzie’s help, we tore up the floor boards.  We then saw a sight and smelled a smell that I, for one, will never forget!  There was a rotting possum under the floor of the playhouse.  It was complete with millions of delightful maggots.  Ewwww!!!  Thankfully, Lizzie was there to save the day.  She got a shovel, scooped up the disgusting corpse and we walked all the way up the hill, across the road, through the orange orchard to the canyon on the other side and tossed the possum over.  Ever since that day, I can’t stand the sight of possums.  I get happy when I see them dead in the road.  lol  😛  We put the floor back together, finished the decorating and spent a bajillion hours of playtime in that thing.  It even had a really nice view out the window:  a giant cactus threatening to grow into the window.  lol  Good times.

Another great thing about campus was that there was lots of room to rollerskate and bike ride.  I loved it because this was right around the time that the helmet law was passed and because it was private property, we didn’t have to follow that law.  Score!  So, I rode helmetless and loved every second of it!  When we moved off campus, I stopped riding my bike because I hated wearing a helmet.  Guess I was a little spoiled.  The best though, was rollerskating.  This was in the era when rollerblades were becoming popular, but I had the old fashioned roller skates.  I was pretty good too.  Jen and I (and maybe Renae if we hadn’t ditched her by then – sorry.), would skate/blade down that huge hill that led to the back gate.  We would go sooo fast!  You could roll all the way up to Vaden without any effort just from the speed gathered from going down the hill.  It was sooooo fun!  I also would fly down the hill from P1 to the end – you just had to be even more careful of cars.  Jen, remember Philip McNulty?  lol  Sooooo funny!  We had some kind of skating thing (I don’t remember exactly) with the LBA students and Philip was all talk.  He was telling Jen and I that he hoped we fell on our faces on the way down that hill.  Of course, Jen and I had been down that hill a million times and we were not afraid of falling.  We had lots of practice dodging rocks.  Anyways, he thought he was all that and went down the hill on his rollerblades.  lol lol  WIPE OUT!  Philip had a big scrape on his face to prove it!  lol  You reap what you sow.  🙂

Speaking of LBA (CBA), we had great times in the Park on campus playing capture the flag.  That park was perfect for that as there were bushes and building to use to your advantage for the game.  We wanted to play that game all the time.  It was a blast.

The Park. Such an original name. lol

So many memories….too bad I can’t remember them more clearly!  lol