The Field

My friend Sally Basmajian was recently awarded a prize from the Gulf Coast Writers Association (Florida) for this short memoir about her childhood. (Yay Sally!)

The Field

In the ʼ60s, Kingston, Ontario seemed as exhilarating as its gray limestone buildings. Our dads left every morning, headed for the university, or the Alcan plant, or the penitentiary. Our moms stayed home but worked ten times harder. As soon they got us out of diapers and imparted a few rudimentary survival skills, they kicked us outdoors to play with the other neighborhood kids—totally unsupervised—in the sweet, green anarchy we called The Field. 

It was a landscape made for adventure: a pussy willow marsh, an abandoned apple orchard, and a pond populated by a choir of boisterous frogs. Out there, we performed every daring stunt we could dream up. We dammed the creek. We built forts in the tall grasses and waged war. We poked groundhog holes with sticks, and watched in awe as monarch butterflies took their first jagged flights over the milkweed patch.

My big sister was The Field’s reigning belle. It certainly wasn’t her looks—she had the same hideous bowl haircut our dad gave all three of us—but she packed muscle. The neighborhood boys were equal parts smitten and terrified.

“Eat this.” My sister waggled a lanky weed. “Root and all.”

Today’s victim panned his eyes to me, seeking rescue. Being a mere hanger-on in my sister’s entourage, I shrugged.

He grimaced. Then he began to munch.

Later that day, he barfed gouts of multihued slime. Holding true to The Field’s Code of Honor, he never squealed.

Read the rest here

Sally's novel, So Hard to Do, debuts in January 2023.