6 STORIES FROM MY YOUTH

Met a man when I was like 12 or 13. My Dad knew him in Regina, and he moved there to work in a plant that was making farm implements. Before he came here, he was an engineer In a German tank factory in WWII.

When I was probably 10 years old, we went to Banff National Park and stayed in a cabin we rented. There was a vendor where you could buy pallets to feed the deer. We put them out in the box outside and the deer came to eat it. It was the first time I was ever that close to a wild animal that was not in a cage.

When I was 9, I fractured my spine and came close to being paralyzed by it, or so the doctor said. I spent months in a body cast after that. I was not allowed to do a lot of things for months more after the cast came off. I gained weight and never lost it again, even though I went back to my normal level of activity after.

When I was young, I cannot remember the age, but less than 12, we rode out bikes out of town and down a dirt road. We found a large muddy puddle and decided to play in it. We did not want to get our clothing dirty, so we took it all off. We ended up covered in mud and well, the water was muddy as heck as well, so we could not get clean. We did not get away with it because of being covered in mud when we came home.

When I was about 8, my brother and I filled a bucket with snakes we found at a pond. Mom was terrified of snakes and we seemed to have forgotten this when we took them home. Well Mom lost her cool and started to scream. My brother dropped the bucket and snakes went all over the kitchen. Mom was standing on a chair screaming while we recovered the snakes and took them back to the pond.

There was this time, and I do not remember how old I was, we found a path threw some thorn bushes. The bushes where about a foot tall and kind of thick. It was in a valley between two hills. We decided to ride out bikes as fast as we could down the hill and threw the bushes. Well the guy in front fall off the bike and into the bushes. The second guy hit the first guys bike and went into the bushes. I hit the second guys bike and went into the bushes. We looked like we had been murdered, we where covered in blood from the many holes punched in us by the thorns. Mom was rather upset when I showed up at home bleeding all over and crying.

Me age 12