NaBloPoMo Prompt 16: Leaving Childhood

What is the moment that you leave childhood and enter adulthood? (Guest Post by Catherine Gildiner, author of After the Falls)

This is an interesting question.  I think that when we are lucky, we may enter adulthood in a positive way and continue to maintain a part of childhood that sustains us and keeps us young-at-heart.  I guess that is a little bit too whoo whoo. The truth is that many of us enter adulthood when a something jolts us out of our innocence.  For others, it is a slow, gradual process.

For me, I think the thing that defined my entrance into adulthood was when Roby found out he had HIV.  That was sort of a defining moment in my life in so many ways - it was the first time we had to really face our mortality, the first time I didn't believe my life would work out the way I'd always thought it would. It was the first time I gave up on dreams I had had since my early childhood.

At the same time, the jolt into adulthood allowed me to understand and value the moments I could still access my childhood, my child-mind, my enjoyment of simple joys. Knowing that it can all be taken away at any moment helps accentuate the appreciation of those things.

I don't know if this makes any sense at all. It has been a long week and I'm tired, so maybe that's just where my brain is today.

Childhood Memory: "Captain America"

Here is my memory of "Captain America" from my childhood:


The lyrics:

When Captain America throws his mighty shield,

All those who chose oppose his shield must yield.

If he's lead to a fight and a duel is due,

Then the red and white and the blue'll come through.

When Captain America throws his mighty shield.

When we moved to Germany, I was six years old - a time when kids are most likely to like cartoons, especially on Saturday mornings. In the U.S., we watched "Bugs Bunny" and the other Warner Brothers cartoons. We watched "Scooby Doo" and other Saturday fare from that time. In Germany, they had the "Armed Forces" television channel (one channel, no commercials, shows from all the major network channels mixed together, black and white). The channel had a single hour of cartoons on Saturday morning, I think from 9:00am - 10:00am. They alternated weeks - one week an episode of "Captain America" and "Thor" and one week more "girl-oriented" cartoons (they had "The Little Matchgirl" and some other thing...I don't think they had a "regular" girl cartoon they showed.)

Anyway, when I heard that they were making "Captain America" into a movie, I was practically the only person I know who even REMEMBERS the cartoon. I was hoping they would have the song in it, but they didn't.

I'm going to stop going to see any comic book movies - they are too one-dimensional for me, and frankly, most of them are boring. So far, the best series has been "Iron Man". If they do "Wonder Woman", I will see that, but I'm done with "Spiderman", "Superman", "Batman", etc. I don't go to the movies often enough for this to be worth it. I know I'm not the "target" demographic for these movies, so I just accept that they aren't my thing.

Images from Simpler Times

I was cleaning today and I found a booklet I drew when I was in kindergarten. The teacher make the books for everyone and we drew in them. I have saved it all these years. I know most people my age are posting the books of their children, but since I don't have any, I thought I would post for my inner child. :)  I was actually pretty good for a little 5 year old.

I am particularly impressed with the sidewalk in front of the house, the jungle gym and see saw in the playground. I was visually detail-oriented when I was a child.

Stop, Drop and Roll

 This will probably seem out of left field, but I have been thinking about this recently.  They show people on TV catching fire or running out of burning buildings and whatnot and I always think to myself, "Hey - Stop, drop and roll, buddy!"  I don't know if they still teach that technique to kids, but I think it EVERY TIME.

 Here is a little clip from a local TV news channel that I found on YouTube. I expected to find some old 1970s video, but I didn't see anything like that in my search.