Growing Up in Story Book

When my wife first got to know me, to her I looked like Tom Sawyer – or at least the way she imagined Tom Sawyer.  I think she imagined me as a boy, running around in a picturesque little town, barefoot wearing denim overalls and messy, curly red hair - like in story book.

Visiting, and now living, in Canada has only confirmed her imagination.  Seeing the Mennonites’ horses and buggies, rustic bicycles with large baskets leaning up against old, red-brick store buildings (without locks) and the little red-haired, freckled children (to her, we all look like we have red or blond hair) run around in the large, open, fence-less grassy spaces of our village has made her more convinced than ever that I grew up in a story book.  I didn’t grow in the village where we live now, but my hometown (Elmira) is still small, and to her still looks like it’s from a story book.

When I tell her that this is just normal life in these towns (until the kids become teens), and those who live here find nothing romantic about it, it again reinforces her suspicions; only those who grew up in a story book wouldn’t find it romantic - just like her grandparents, aunts and uncles find nothing romantic about growing up in an adobe house with a mud floor in Mexico’s isolated hills.  As you can tell from my blog posts (see “Grandpa”), I also think that their life was charming.

I haven’t yet been able to convince my wife that I wasn’t Tom Sawyer at some point during my childhood.