Experiencing a few days with her oldest friends brought back so many memories. In the past few days she had sorted through them, trying to find a way to make sense of it all.

With some of them there may never be any resolution, but some had become bright and shiny reminders of what could have been. They seemed to glisten in the new light of the reexamination.

She had to go way, way back. Not all the way to the earliest memory, which was of falling on the grass too near the road that ran by the grandparents' house in Portland. Not that far, but close.

It was back to a time when gender difference was not yet a known thing...back to a time when she was forever and only He.

Oh, mostly it didn't come up. He was just a kid. Occasionally the kindergarten class would have to line up with the girls over there and the boys over here, but that was rare. He always felt more affinity with the girls, but it was best to keep that to himself.

When it was time to go outside and play, on weekends and the like, there were limits to the world. His neighborhood was bounded by the bullies: Butch Watson lived on D Avenue between Sixth and Seventh. Don Smith lived on Sixth Street, between E and F. He found some solace within those confines. He often visited Carol D, who lived up the alley that ran past the back of his house, perhaps with a couple of nickels in his hand to invite her to our local cinema: the guy who lived across the alley from him was the projectionist at the local theater and would charge a nickel for entrance to the upstairs room where he displayed his illicitly obtained cartoons: Felix the Cat. Chilly Willy. Sometimes even Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck. It was so unstressful to spend time playing with Carol.

Rarer, but still fairly often he would wander all the way over to Lloyce's house, even though it was across the street from Don the Bully.

Is it wandering if you know exactly where you are going and why? Now Lloyce lived only a block from what we kids called The Forest, with its many dangers: stinging nettles, cliffs, steep trails, bugs, snakes, blackberry vines, The Creek. Sometimes they would go play there. But he preferred it when they went upstairs in her house and played with Lloyce's toys.

The Summer opened up a whole new world...and a different direction. His family had a party line, as most people did back then. The line was shared with the Sheafe family, John was the same age as him, more aggressive, but not in a threatening sort of way. And in the Summer John's cousin Lisa would come for a visit sometimes. He and Kathy, who lived almost all the way to the end of C Avenue might be invited to come and play in The Woods. The Woods was just an uncleared lot on Eighth and D, but it was perfect for making forts and hidey holes, playing tag or hide-and-go-seek. We even once tried to build a soapbox derby racer out of broken wagon and some planks of wood, but we ere pretty unskilled at that.

John was okay, but he much more enjoyed playing with Kathy and Lisa. In hindsight one might say he identified with them, felt affinity with them.

Those days couldn't last forever, though. When the summer drew to an end, Lisa had to go back to her parents. Our forays into The Woods ended, outside of using the shortcuts through it that we knew so well.

And Carol D moved away way too soon. I think I remember seeing her at the local swimming hole a few years later, but that memory is cloudy. Lisa came back some other summers, but usually stayed with the Phemisters. They lived on the Lake. And John's family moved to the Lakewood area of town.

Life got a little lonelier. But then, he was also learning to read, so often the places he went were inside his head, where it was mostly safe. In his head he could safely be anyone he wanted. He never wondered about it then, but perhaps he should have noticed how much he wanted to fly a plane like Penny on Sky King...or how enchanted he became in later years whenever there was a movie starring Debbie Reynolds or Shirley MacLaine.

Oh how much did he want to grow up to be one of them.

But it was all so impossible then.

But she is thankful for those memories now, for the times she could just be who she was with no recriminations. They are the bright jewels in her childhood.

She treasures them.