Outdoor memory
By Russell Gienapp
My brother and I were always outside. We watched plenty of TV, but screen time was just a small portion of our lives, which the broadcasters dictated. Sat morning cartoons were mainly for fun and to give parents a break in the morning while weekday mornings and after school was mainly educational show. Even the PBS lineup of educational children’s shows ended way too early for my young desires by the Mcneil Lehrer Report or some other boring old guy or news. But when that happened I went outside to find something else to do…
Excluding Christmas, I cannot recall up one special memory of my childhood that wasn’t set outside. I try to go back in my memory to remember the first. The horses and the farm… No, I can go farther back than that. Scrambling with my brother on the rocky shore of Lake Superior… No even farther.
My first vivid memory was of me in our backyard in northern Minnesota. I must have been around three years old minding my own business doing whatever a three year old does. I remember the light and the intense green of a full on summer. I remember the bugs flying in the air glowing in the late afternoon sun against a dark stand of trees. Then I noticed my brother, 7 years old, playing with the Huka twins in the vegetable garden. Even then I remember the great joy my older brother gave me. Only he could imagine a life without me simply because he walked the earth for four years before I showed up. I know I couldn’t imagine life without him.
It was a glorious summer day, saturated in so much sunlight that even the mosquitoes looked beautiful. I watched my brother playing with his friends and looking at me and laughing. My smile grew every time he looked at me. My brother wasn’t a god, but he was so damn close he might as well been. I watched everything he did with amazement. Then he bent down in the garden. He had something in his hands as he rose, paused, and he smiled at me again. Did he call me to come closer? I don’t remember. Then the wind-up and he let lose the most rotten, drippy, barely recognizable tomato in the garden. It was a beautiful, high arching throw and the fact that it was in my direction didn’t seem to faze me in the least. Bits and pieces of the lush, soggy, tomato comet orbited the main tomato body. Held together by sheer luck and the first law of physics from a fellow I wouldn’t know about for 13 more years. The object hypnotized me as it went into the sun.
The next moment my wide eyes sloshed in an explosion of juice and tomato flesh. The shock rippled through my body as I tried to decide if I was hurt. I wasn’t… Until I looked back at my brother who at this time was falling down, probably peeing his pants he was laughing so hard. The outdoor gods christened me with an ungodly tomato and not only had they betrayed me, they were laughing at me as well. There is only one thing to do when the gods betray a three-year-old… Run and tell his mommy. I don’t remember really getting any justice from her that time.
It may not sound like a good memory, but I smile every time it comes to mind. Every outdoor memory doesn’t have to be perfect sunsets or micromanaged events. Magical moments and lessons can’t be scheduled as the outdoor classroom is as full of bruises and scraped knees as they are filled with wonder and joy. I learned many of my early life lessons outside.
I wonder where your first memory was set?
Russell Gienapp is an international freelance cinematographer and feels lucky to make his living doing what he loves in life. Being a cinematographer in the film and television industry, demands skills both creative and physical. His office ranges from the steamy tropics to cold arctic conditions. Russell is also the other part of Activekidsclub.com and he lives our motto, “No bad weather, just bad clothing”, everyday when he is on the job or outside teaching his daughter Nature’s little secrets.
