storytime.

because i'm tired of writing about how bad everything is.

when i was a little girl, we had a hobby farm in oregon, and some of my best childhood memories come from that place. but not all -- when i was in second grade, we moved to montana, and that's where i grew up.

in montana, there was a campground behind our property. the land dipped abruptly down to a creek, and across the creek this great huge campground, filled with pine trees and places to explore. it had a playground with child-sized buildings to play in, like a little wild west town. the jail even had a secret tunnel escape route.

in the summer we would buy candy at the campground store and play in the creek. i had a friend who lived at the very back of the campground, in a teepee with her hippie parents. her place always smelled so good -- of leather and canvas and woodsmoke.

in the winter we would go sliding or skating on the bumpy frozen creek, and follow it further than we could go when it was running, past people's homes and pastures, until it went under a road in a culvert.

the best thing about the creek, though, and the reason i'm telling this story, is the fact that it had frogs.

i was very good at catching frogs. i could spot them where they hid, floating motionless in pads of algae, just their eyes above the surface. i could move quietly enough to position my hand just behind them, and them swoop down and snatch them up. after they struggled a little bit, they would just sit quietly in my hand. holding a wild animal like that was a magical experience. i never tired of it -- neither the exercise of my guile and skill, nor the wonder of feeling the breath and beating heart of that tiny creature in my hand.

we always let them go. it was neat to watch them swim away, and hide again.

that was my summer, before boys became more interesting than frogs. every summer, walking out to the long driveway of the campground, and down to the creek, and spending the afternoons along the creekside, looking for frogs, watching the other creatures that lived in the water, staying away from the slow-running spots where the leeches lived, inventing games and telling stories.

thank you, dear ss, for bringing that memory back to the fore.