# I just wanna.



## Chief Longwind Of The North (May 15, 2022)

I just wanna be 4 years old again, sitting on my Mom's lap while she plays guitar and sings "You Are My Sunshine" to me.

I just wanna be sitting in my grandparent's house, warm, with the soothing tick tock of the mantle clock, watching Mitch Miller, and singing along with the songs.

I just wanna be on the playground, in 7th grade, making the big swings go as high as I could get them to go, and launching myself to fly as far as I could fly.

I just wanna be 10 years old, fishing the Ancodash for brook trout, and hitting my favorite whole where there were always 5 or more brookies hungry for my night crawlers

I just wanna be 16 again, shooting my bow in my home built range, putting ten arrow in a 3 inch square at 60 yards.

I just wanna be 20 years old again, on my 1975 Yamaha DT250, climbing impossible hills.

That's all I want.  Is that too much to ask?  That's all.

Seeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North


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## taxlady (May 15, 2022)

Aren't you glad you have all those great memories?


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## lastmanstanding (Jun 11, 2022)

Rock Me to Sleep 

By Elizabeth Akers Allen



                                                                                                                                 Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight, 

Make me a child again just for tonight! 

Mother, come back from the echoless shore, 

Take me again to your heart as of yore; 

Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care, 

Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair; 

Over my slumbers your loving watch keep;—      

Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep! 



Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years! 

I am so weary of toil and of tears,—      

Toil without recompense, tears all in vain,—   

Take them, and give me my childhood again! 

I have grown weary of dust and decay,—    

Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away; 

Weary of sowing for others to reap;—    

Rock me to sleep, mother – rock me to sleep! 



Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue, 

Mother, O mother, my heart calls for you! 

Many a summer the grass has grown green, 

Blossomed and faded, our faces between: 

Yet, with strong yearning and passionate pain, 

Long I tonight for your presence again. 

Come from the silence so long and so deep;—    

Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep! 



Over my heart, in the days that are flown, 

No love like mother-love ever has shone; 

No other worship abides and endures,—       

Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours: 

None like a mother can charm away pain 

From the sick soul and the world-weary brain. 

Slumber’s soft calms o’er my heavy lids creep;—      

Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep! 



Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with gold, 

Fall on your shoulders again as of old; 

Let it drop over my forehead tonight, 

Shading my faint eyes away from the light; 

For with its sunny-edged shadows once more 

Haply will throng the sweet visions of yore; 

Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep;—    

Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep! 



Mother, dear mother, the years have been long 

Since I last listened your lullaby song: 

Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem 

Womanhood’s years have been only a dream. 

Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace, 

With your light lashes just sweeping my face, 

Never hereafter to wake or to weep;—      

Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!


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## Chief Longwind Of The North (Jun 11, 2022)

That's nice, heart warming.  I loved my mother, and remember sitting on her lap as she played guitar, and sang to me.  My childhood was complicated, with a father who was divorced by my mom, and for good reasons.  After she remarried a wonderful man, my stepfather, and we moved to the river, my mom's life was devoted more to her daughters. I was pretty much left to entertain myself.  My dad, for all of his faults, gave me the most attention.  My stepfather also spent a great deal of time with me, and taught me valuable life lessons by his example.  My paternal grandmother was the most nurturing, even after I was growing, and exploring the world (the neighborhoods we lived in where friends lived 4 to 5 mils distant).  By 7 years of age, I was walking alone better than a quarter mile to get to a friend's house.  Once I got a bicycle, I was gone all day, from morning until dark, in the summer.  It made me self sufficient, and independent.  And as I was the easy one to raise, who did what I was told, didn't dabble in things you're not supposed to be doing, and not a partyer, I was trusted to pretty much go anywhere I wanted, and do whatever I wanted to do.

But still, I fondly remember sitting on my mother's lap, her playing her Harmony guitar, and singing to me.  Those times were few, but are precious memories for me.

Seeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North


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