Now & Then

I grew up in a fairly typical suburban neighborhood a little west of St. Louis. From the ages of 8-15 I was practically inseparable from my neighborhood gang. From 10am till 12am we'd do everything together from jumping on the Schulte's trampoline, to building Lego homes at the Paladin's, to making music videos in the Lommel's basement. We'd spend an entire weekend planning our new dog walking company and then forget about it that next Monday morning. Summers were spent playing football in between the Schulte's and the Alford's house and then posting up at our lemonade stand at the end of the street. We'd annoy the hell out of our adult neighbors while playing Capture the Flag throughout the neighborhood all night long. I had my first kiss in a game of Truth or Dare with a neighbor named Ryan. I have permanent scars on my legs from riding on the pegs on the back of a Dyno bike that looked just like this one:

We represented a lot of different personalities and fought like brothers and sisters, but loved each other regardless. Whenever I see any of these people (some married, some in medical school, some now living very very far away) I regress to my childhood-self, and everything seems endlessly possible again like it was in those days.

My best friends out of the group were Jennifer, Heather and Lindsay. Heather and I were the same age, with Jennifer one year behind and Lindsay another year behind that. We always watched the movie Now & Then and then fought over who was who.

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We all even tried to save our allowances to try to get a professional picture like this taken, but all that money ended up getting spent at Rave on fake leather jackets. I always argued that I was the most like Roberta (Christina Ricci in the green) because she was so tough and such a hard-ass. They would quickly remind me that I was neither tough, nor a hard-ass, and that I was the most like naive, sheltered, optimistic Chrissy (in the pig-tails). Rude.

Jennifer and I would sleep over at Heather and Linny's house probably 5 nights a week in the summer. They had a screened-in porch that was perfect for the late-night giggles and Backstreet Boys playing in the background. When we were all laying down comfortably but still wanted to play Truth or Dare, we'd just play Truth or Truth instead... ahh the simple joys of being a pre-teen. We'd talk about what we wanted to be when we grew up and how amazing our lives would be, not stopping to think how amazing our lives were at that very moment.

Our parents all still live on the same block but we hardly see each other anymore. Every time we try to get together something inevitably comes up, as it tends to do with old friends.

What I wouldn't give to have one more summer of freedom, bike rides, and movie marathons with this gang. I guess not much has changed, I'm sitting here wishing I could go back in time because it was so perfect, and I can't see how perfect my life is today.


Our Gang (not really)