When I was seven years old my family moved from a small house in town near the railroad tracks to another small house in the country, notable for its proliferation of mouse droppings and cold winter drafts. Though a bit strapped financially, my father, always thinking of family first, acquired a small black and white television set. Undeterred by the fuzzy picture my siblings and I sat mesmerized as Pinky Lee, an androgenous little man in suit and bowler hat thrilled us with his antics and old cartoons.

I became friends at this time with Keith, a year younger, who lived on the neighboring farm. We spent happy hours in the farms’ large barn swinging from ropes into the loose hay in the hayloft. Keith’s mother, the very model of maternal care, would make us small afternoon lunches that we would take up onto one or another of the farm’s outbuildings to enjoy. Other days were spent on the shore of the lake just beyond the cow pasture, building forts from downed tree limbs, enacting various imagined scenarios.

All of the adults in our lives were caring and dependable, assuring these times were carefree and allowing us the freedom to enjoy our youthful naivete. One wonders, now, if the rich imaginative life we enjoyed then makes up in any way for our delayed ability to assume responsibility.