by Barb, enjoying a Maine summer
And now a word from our sponsor
Folks, we don’t do this often, but our July newsletter comes out tomorrow and we’d hate to think of you missing the Wicked news. If you’re not signed up for the newsletter, follow this link to make it so.
Back to our regular programming
Our theme for July is Hangouts & Hideaways. At the end of the month we’ll be celebrating two Wicked books that center on places where people gather. But before we get there, let’s go back in time. When you were a kid, did you have a special place where you would escape to when siblings and parents and friends got to be too much? Maybe a place you could stick your nose in a book? Indoors or outdoors, cozy or the wide-open spaces? Tell us all about it.
Edith/Maddie: Can I cheat and say it was the book that was the hideaway? As the third of four kids, I didn’t really have a place where nobody could find me – except in a story. I have such fond memories of sitting outside in a southern California summer under the peach tree with a homemade chocolate milkshake and a book. It might have been something by Jules Verne, something in the Borrowers series, a biography of Jane Addams, or one of the Mushroom Planet stories. It didn’t matter. I could hide away and be lost until someone brought me back to earth.
Liz: It was always books for me too – and usually in the summer I would find a quiet place somewhere in the yard where no one would bother me. When we got a pool, I did like to float around on the floating lounge chair with my book – that was awesome. It was a small above-ground pool so there wasn’t too far to float, but still!
Sherry: Oh, how I longed for a hideaway! A playhouse or tree house or secret passageway like the kids in my favorite books had. The two closest things we had were an old set of bunk beds in our basement where we hang a blanket from the top bed to cover the bottom. That ended when a student at the junior high where my father taught house burned down and my parents gave that family the beds. We also had a big box that something came in — maybe our ping-pong table — that we’d set up in the basement to use as a house.
Barb: We moved a few times when I was a child. Each house had its own hiding place. But the common thread throughout my childhood was trees. I was always up in one. Reading, watching, or just hanging out, I was happy above the earth, among the branches.
Julie: We had a playhouse and lots of woods when we were kids. That said, like Edith and Liz my escape hatch was always a book. My sisters used to make fun of me because they could talk about me in front of me, but if I was reading I didn’t hear them.
Readers: Tell us about your childhood hideaways.