Memories of the four-year-old became tangled within months of being made. Playing in a mountain stream in Vermont, walking up a boardwalk in New Hampshire and leaving sneakers on a rocky beach in Maine soon became, “I lost a shoe playing in The Flume.”
Growing up next to the posterchild of pollution, Lake Erie, the clear streams and unspoiled wilderness, miles of forest, had soaked into the child’s psyche. This was the way nature intended.
Fifty years later, the former vacationland now home, the events are more dictated by logic than memory, but that trip across the northeast still resonate.
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Word count = 100
Friday Fictioneers is hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. This week’s prompt is here and uses a photo © Dale Rogerson . Read more or join in by following the InLinkz “linky“.
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Yes, based on fact. As a child I would say, I lost a shoe playing in The Flume” often, even though I had been corrected a thousand times. I could remember the three events back then (now faded), but I didn’t care. The memory had little to do with truth. It was almost exactly 20 years later when I moved to the region. I remember the first times seeing those places again. How different from the memories, yet how much they were still part of me. And they still are. I will be a champion of wild places until the day I die…
Lovely childhood memories, nicely told. Good for you … “I will be a champion of wild places until the day I die.”
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Thanks. I love natural places and wished that we, as a society, valued them more than we do money… Oh well, I’ll try to do my part,as small as it is.
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I could put myself everywhere you’ve described. Even the Flume. It’s gorgeous country up there. Your piece is evocative, to say the least.
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It is beautiful country. Coming from flat northern Ohio, I love living in New England! Thanks :)
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And I came from flat southern Minnesota, I love living in PA where there’s a combination of rolling hills, farmland, and even some low mountains. I was born in Colorado, so that’s what I think of when I think of mountains. This land is beautiful, indeed.
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I love Colorado, and yes, those are true mountains! But some of the New England mountains are actually pretty big from base to top, if not as rugged or up at 14,000 feet… It is a beautiful land, from sea to shining sea, as they say.
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Nice sentiment in this Trent, I enjoyed it
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Thanks, Michael.
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Memories are like the mists of time 💜
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Yes they are. It is so odd those little fragments of childhood still lurking in unlikely corners of the brain…
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Some are good and some are bad 💜
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Yes, but i like to concentrate on the good ;)
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Always best too💜
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You illustrate very well how memories can be distorted.
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Thanks.
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Funny how people remember the same event differently. Your story conveys that well.
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I’ve read that when crimes are investigated every witness has a slightly different story. I’m sure if one witness is a 4-year-ols and is interview two months later, that story would be vastly different from the others ;) Thanks.
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Nothing wrong with using life experiences in these FF stories, Trent (I’m guilty way too often) and this was lovely.
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Thanks Dale. There have been many times that I’ve read one of your stories and have wondered how much “fiction” there was in your Friday Fictioneer ;) Usually a good thing, since I enjoy your stories.
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Phew!!! That you enjoy them ;-)
We get our inspiration wherever, right? I’m not that imaginative so there has to be something I can use as a starting point
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Most fiction is based in some way on personal experience or at least personal philosophy, you tend to cut it a little closer to the original source. And I think you can be plenty imaginative, whether you think you are or not.
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Thank you very much, Trent. I’m glad you think so.
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I always enjoy a good story based upon personal experience
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Thanks, Larry.
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Dear Trent,
Nice memoir. I could hear the water and feel it around my ankles. Nicely done.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Thanks, Rochelle. I don’t tend toward memoir often, but something about Dale’s photo brought the idea to mind.
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Memories shaping themselves into what one thinks they should be, very curious… and true.
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Yes, curious… but true. People do shape their own “truth”, but I think children do it even more than adults… Thanks
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Oh, I really liked this. And all the better for being true.
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Thanks. I usually don’t use life experiences this directly in my FF, but it seemed appropriate this week.
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This story read so true – and then I read your comments at the end stating that it was indeed true. Nice take on the photo prompt.
Susan A Eames at
Travel, Fiction and Photos
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Thanks. For some reason I couldn’t think of a story for this one, so when that old phrase of a much younger Trent came up (I lost my shoe while playing in The Flume), I had my story…
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