"No Boundaries"

I re-watched Michael J Fox's Still earlier this evening, and his no-boundaries story about the two-year-old Mike reminded me of my own story. The two-year-old Greg (or maybe three) did not run out the front door, like Mr. Fox. Mom had some shopping to do, so put me in the car and took me with her. My little brother was still a year or two away from entering this world, and my big brother must have been in school that day. So little Greg got to go to the department store.

I loved exploring, and I loved going inside things--things like a cardboard box fort built for us by my Dad, or in later years a cave or old building. In this particular case, what was available was a circular clothing rack at the White Store in De Pere, WI. I ducked under the shirts or pants, or whatever garments were hangng there, and I played. After a while--I have no idea how long--I decided to go find Mom and see what she was doing. I wandered around the store a while but could not find her.

I did not know where she was, but I knew where she was going after she finished shopping: home! So I decided to meet her there.

We lived in a small hoose on Suburban Drive. I don't the distance from store to home, but I knew the way. I don't remember the walk being difficult or stressful in any way. When I got home I saw that the car was not in the driveway. I probably tried the front door and found that it was locked. So I did thie only thing a kid could do--I played in the front yard until Mom got home.

It was not until many years lateer that, as an adult, I brought this up to my Mom. She remembered the event, but her memory of it was a bit different from mine. Her memory was of a frantic search for a missing child, of wondering what the staff and customers at the store must have thought about her parenting skills, about what the police would say, and about what my Dad would think. She remembers being in tears all the way home. She remembers getting home, getting out of the car, and hearing me say, "Hi, Mom!"

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