not my picture…
The recollections of the childhood years, translated…
Remember when I was little, the best thing in the evenings for me was, watching the cartoons, until now, all the cartoons I’d seen as a child, I’d cherished them very much, like “The Little Frog”, “The Bees”, “Young Tarzan”, “The Seven Fairies”, “Baby’s Adventures”, and “Dragon and His Loyal Dog”, etc., etc., etc., both my younger brother and I really missed the time we’d spent, watching the cartoons, and we could both hum a little of the theme songs of all the cartoons we saw a bit.
Of all the cartoons, my favorite was, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”, it was about a naughty boy, Tom and his good friend, Huck’s adventures together, especially when they’d built that huge tree house, rode down the river on the raft they’d built together, it’d made me long for that kind of a life, and so, my younger brother and I, plus our next-door play buddy, Jun-Xing, we’d decided, that we would, have an adventure all on our own too.
And, just so happened, that there was, a river in front of our house, back then, the other side of the river was undeveloped, it was, a huge forest, the three of us snuck out with grandpa’s saw, hammer, nails, and steel wires, and started scouting out a tree, fitting for our tree house. We’d found a very huge sycamore, picked up a few pieces of wooden boards, and stabilized the boards with the steel wires on the trunks, it’d felt sturdy as we sat on it, we’d even stashed away some treats and snacks too. That year during the kids’ time off, the adults were busying over the harvests, nobody was watching us, the three of us hid out on the sycamore tree, and kept an eye over what’s going on with the adults over there. We’d even dug a few holes, as traps, layered with the fallen leaves, to set up other kids who’d come to find us to play with. And, as someone stepped on the traps and fell, we’d started, laughing very hard about it.
A few days later, we’d decided to be like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, to have our adventures on the rivers, to commemorate this year’s vacation we’d shared with each other. It took us two days to chop down the bamboos, to make it into a raft, after the raft was finished, the three of us, under the envious looks of the other children, slowly, pushed the raft into the river, for the virgin voyage. I sat dead center on the raft, with Jun-Xing and my younger brother at each end, with the homemade row, we’d floated along on the rivers, our hearts were filled, with excitement.
Everything seemed to be going well, but, the very next second, accident happened. As the raft got to about two, three meters away from shore, because the bamboos weren’t tied tightly enough, plus it wasn’t, completely, dried yet, without the needed buoyancy, it looked like it was, about to fall apart, the three of us quickly, used our thighs to keep the raft together; and, all of a sudden, the raft had, flipped over, and we’d all, fallen into the river. And gladly, the waters weren’t that deep, and all the other kids who were watching us on the shores were all, laughing so hard. My younger brother and I, as well as Jun-Xing held our breaths, swam, really hard toward the shores, such a close call. Naturally, we’d gotten, completely, wet, and because we’d feared that mom would find out, we’d rushed home, took our clothes off, and soaked them in the tub, and, as mom saw, she’d called us, well-behaved too.
And now, we’re all, in our middle age, and, whenever we’d mentioned this collective part of the past we’d shared, recalling how naughty we all were, we’d all, start, smiling toward our own childhood selves.
So, this, would be the adventures of your childhood years, and, although you almost got caught, but you weren’t, and, this incident became a memory that you all cherished.s
Life, the Obstacle Course 