Ok — now a little bit more about my childhood

We lived off of a dirt road off of a dirt road off of a dirt road off of a dirt road.

In fact we lived so far out in the country – if you wanted to do something spontaneous you had to plan it 15 minutes in advance!

I told you earlier that all the property around us was state land. One side we had Hartwick Pines State Park and on the other we had the National Gaurd training camp named Camp Grayling. The main road out to our house was actually the tank trail for the first 5 years we lived there until the built the new tank trail 1/4 mile behind our house.

Nothing like driving down the road in a little Dodge Duster trying to avoid the tanks.

Oh I forgot to tell you the range we lived near was the impact area for the tanks. Yes you read correctly. Tanks. On the road – shells in the air.

But wait there is more. We were right in the flight path of the helicopters. Yep tree top level over our house. The first time they went over we freaked out.

We decided to have fun with our living situation – when helicopters would fly over slowly or hover – we would pretend we were being blown around on the ground and hold on to trees.

In the 70’s streaking was really big. D and our neighbors decided to streak the tanks. There were about 5 guys. Well when the tanks started to come down the road d and 3 of the guys put their hands on their belts like they were going to pull their pants down but they did not — but the third guy R – did. AND he streaked the tanks!

In the winter – there were times when the military could not get back to the range so we allowed them to camp on our property.

One thing we really enjoyed was collecting the MRE meals that the guard left behind while they were out in the field. We would go out on our “4 mile” walk (a loop that took us onto part of the new tank trail – there were only certain times you could go on it – such as when they were not using the range – they did not want anyone getting hit with shells) and look at their old campsites and look for the boxes and cans. We would save up all the MREs until the end of summer and then have a little celebration that the noise of summer was over.

You have no idea how loud it was by out house. BOOMs and Bangs all the time. SO strong it would shake the windows and the light in the kitchen would swing. After the first few weeks you almost do not notice it but when they do stop at the end of the season – it sure gets quiet.

This brings me to my mom’s (Auntie Anxiety on OD) surprise she had for me and my sister Net. Auntie Anxiety went for a visit aunt BES. She had BES ship down some MREs down to her. She had Net and I come over (with our family) and uncovered a Grayling meal. 🙂 lol

MREs, blue berries (we had tons of wild blueberries growing all over our hills – our dog, Henry, would eat them off the bushes. More on Henry later), and goats milk. (we had goats- lots of goats. more on goats later too)

Well that was Auntie’s surprise. She thought I was not too excited about it. I was surprised. 🙂 It was very nice. I did not eat any of the MREs though. It is not the end of summer yet!