Mud holes and snow forts

This was a fun day! What more could you want than a muddle puddle and two good friends? I'm not sure how my mom felt about the looks of my swim suit after this adventure.  When you've found a great mud hole, who cares about things like that?

This apartment complex was a great place to be a kid.  In addition to mud holes, there was the sandbox which we played in most of the time, unless one of the neighbor boys was going through his "this is my own personal litter box" phase, along with a playground which was great for all the usual reasons playgrounds are great--climbing, swinging, sliding etc. Then there were the speed bumps that we fun to ride over on a bike, unless your toes got stubbed while going over (barefoot of course because who would actually wear shoes when it was summer?).

One year we had "the snow".  School was cancelled for a week because there were no snow plows in the state of Oregon apparently.  My best friend and I built an igloo that was massive for a few days.  Then it was slightly less massive as the weather warmed up, but still really, really cool! From what I remember it was as big as a living room with bench seating all around the perimeter.  We probably could have fit the whole neighborhood in there....or at least 3 or 4 small kids.

All this childhood wonder took place in what had formerly been army barracks (if I remember right). We probably should have been deeply offended that we were living in such low income circumstances but somehow, we survived without any psychological damage.  Life is quite wonderful when you're a kid.  Especially if you have the occasional mud puddle to spend the day in.