My earliest memories are those of childlike wonder and imagination. The pure ecstasy of childhood is still swirling around my brain. My younger years were full of adolescent adventures and elementary escapades. Perhaps the most exciting for the young Javen was the adventures into the houses being built in the neighborhood.
At the summit of the hill that my house was built on was a street occupied by houses that were not built. These hollow behemoths were the prime location for exploration, and I was just the adventurer to journey into the empty residents and extract their treasure: fun. I assembled my team, a group of 5th graders who wanted to mess with me, a 2nd grader, and we began our decent into the bowels of the skeletal home. The first trial was the front door. The cement had not been poured in to fill in the sidewalk and doorstep, so we crawled by ledge around the bottomless pit of despair. We lost one boy that way. He slipped and fell into the pit and was never seen again – until his parents brought a ladder to get him out of the 6 foot hole 20 minutes later. Our numbers were now down to six, with more tribulations on the way. Once we made it inside, we headed up to the second floor, where I was assured by the older kids that unfathomable treasure awaited. However, the only thing unfathomable that awaited me was trechary. Upon arriving upstairs, I was forced to walk the plank off the unfinished deck onto the ground several feet below. I was aghast! I was taken aback! As my traitorous crew attempted to throw me off the edge, I managed to cry out one last exclamation that would remain in their hearts and echo in their ears. However, it got caught in my screams of terror, so they never got to hear it. I may not have obtained the treasure that day, but I did manage to find another treasure: revenge. After telling the older kids’ parents about how they terrorized a young boy, they were all grounded for a week. I was also grounded, but for exploring in a construction site where I could have been seriously hurt.
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My Earlist Memories