memories...owensboro, kentucky {november 1, 2021}

Many years ago my family moved from Wooster, Ohio to Owensboro, Kentucky. Owensboro is located at the crook of a bend on the Ohio River, 37 miles southeast of Evansville, Indiana. 

I was in 2nd grade when we moved to Owensboro and in 5th grade when we left. My memories are from the ages of  a 6 to 9 years old girl. What I remember are the days of running from house to house to see what friends were up to, not coming home until we heard Mom call for us. Playing kick ball in the empty field across from our house. Playing Ghost in the Graveyard. The streets flooding during downpours. Going to the locks to watch the barges move down the Ohio River. Mom taking us across the Owensboro Bridge into Indiana to a field to look for arrowheads after the river had flooded. Black-eyed peas almost every day on the school lunch plates and dousing them with ketchup to make them halfway palatable. The sweet gum tree in our yard.

There are a lot of sweet gum trees in the neighborhood where I now live. Many people don't like sweet gum trees because they are messy. It's a deciduous tree and each autumn it litters lawns with a quilt of colorful leaves that, in the minds of many, must be raked up.

However, that is just a portion of the mess the tree creates. Even some of the homeowners who can deal with raking leaves don’t like dealing with the thousands of spike-laden fruits the trees also drop on their lawns. The situation is acerbated by the fact that sweet gum balls can make walking in the yard seem like crossing a mine field. If that isn't enough, the spiny fruits have been known to cause people to slip and turn an ankle.

The prickly fruits are called gumballs, goblin balls, monkey balls...and more.

What I remember from my childhood is climbing the tree high enough where no one could see me for a moment of solitude or spying on people who walked by or scaring the bejeezus out of walkers with an ear-piercing scream. I was a barefoot child and those little spiky gumballs were painful on the feet. And of course, those gumballs were a great thing to fling at a sibling who had just pissed you off...

Funny how a spiky little ball can bring back so many memories of a time so far away.