Huckleberry Days: A Time That Was and Is No More

When I see kids today, spending their time with all the electronic paraphernalia, I feel sad. Will they, like me, have fond memories of youthful experiences that will last a lifetime? I hope so. It seems they don't know how to play anymore. Also, they don't appear to spend much time outdoors. My youth was spent in a suburban town in northeastern New Jersey. Our home was on the edge of town and bordered a tract of land that included fallow farms, woods and fields, ponds and brooks, the town water company property, and a county park. Our neighborhood was a great place for a spirited kid, and I had many adventures which are described here. I chose poetry, because I tend to be brief, and I enjoy writing it. The reader must use his imagination to fill in the details. Maybe some of my older readers will remember incidents from their own early years. Have a good read.

The forties era was a great time to be a boy. If you lived at the edge of town, where your house bordered a large tract of unused land, then even better. I lived in such a place and thought I'd share my youthful experiences through poetry. This is a strange way to write about boyhood, but it's more fun than dry prose. These poems are all based on my true experiences. Most of them occurred during the magic age of ten to twelve, when a boy is old enough to try a few things and not yet a mixed up teenager. I am a 75 year old retired engineer living in eastern Massachusetts. My true love and I have been happily married for 53 years. We have four married kids and ten grandchildren. Though I have done some crazy things and have been willing to try almost anything, I have always been lucky. This just may be due to my frame of mind, or maybe I have been truly blessed in life.