Playing Pioneers

Those Innocent Days

My older brother, sister, and me. Photo taken by mom, probably. circa 1980.

When I was six, we’d play pioneers — my brother and sister and I. Scott was 10 and Sheri was 9. They played the dad and mom, because they were older. I was the kid, which was fun. I could be more care-free, and not have to worry about things like building the wagon and getting the wooden seat in the front just right. My sister would spend like twenty minutes trying to get that seat just right, and in the end, it was never the perfect height or stability. She had the mind of a perfectionist and architect.

I had the mind of an escapist. I was just like, “Let’s get this show on the road, and when do we get to start eating some of these snacks?!”

I was in charge of acquiring food for the trip, something Sheri and Scott would have easily forgotten, if not for me. I collected random snacks from the cupboard, like graham crackers and marshmallows. We didn’t have many sweets in our house growing up, but I knew how to find the ones we had.

I also collected little baggies of flour and sugar, along with cooking utensils, for making cookies on the trail. I’d dip my finger into the baggies for a taste test, and the flour never failed to impress me with how gross it was, but the sugar was very nice.

Sheri and Scott made a covered wagon by draping a white sheet over spokes of bent wood shaped in arcs, over our little red wagon. A large, brown teddy bear was the usual passenger, although I always tried to kick her out, and be the passenger. When I succeeded, I could never understand why the rides were so short, and why Sheri and Scott were so nonplussed to pull me.

Could it have something to do with the fact that I weighed 50 pounds, and they had to pull me across a field of dirt clods and wild grasses?

We’d travel the bumpy terrain that stretched between the strawberry field and “the Sester’s pond,” which belonged to the entire Sester family, including grandparents, kids, and grandkids. My best friend Hannah was the granddaughter of Bill Sester, so in some manner, she owned the pond.

I wanted a pond.

Thankfully, since the Sesters were in the meeting (the Christian cult I was raised in), and so were we, we got to go swimming in the pond. On those hot July days, when my dad…