The Porch Railing of My Childhood

Mrs. Peligio was a swearing machine We would run and throw ourselves in the crawl space under the shed pretending to look for a softball when we saw her and this included our mother. Our neighborhood was small. Normal families with a dad, and one-woman-one-non-playing-child family, which was strange for a small town in Middle-Earth United States in the 60’s. Our front porch had the tallest railing in the world around it. I was always on that dare-devil railing, doing plays for the other kids. My sister refused to be a boy, so I had to play Peter Pan and Captain Hook, jumping up and down off that high railing, over and over to change my outfit. We had to pretend to see the other one. Once upon a time, I dragged my three children to the old neighborhood. Mrs. Peligio, wandered by to see what we were about. She did not remember me. Not surprising as we had lived there from birth to high school graduation. One of my children pointed to something and yelled, “That’s the railing!” My three grown darlings were in heavy laughter now, laughing so hard they were clutching their sides and sobbing. The higher-than-the-tallest-cathedral porch railing I had told them about for forty years had completely replaced herself. A sneaky carpenter had taken off the sky-scraping railing and replaced it because it was no higher than a four-year-old child. Memories, nothing like them. Written 11-30-2018 Contest: My Youth Sponsor: Craig Cornish