Thump-clink-THUMP! I woke up with a start to the sound of our 30 foot moving van working its way over a cattle guard, not that I had any idea what a cattle guard actually was at the time. “What do ya think kiddo!?” my father couldn’t stop grinning, as he turned off the freeway and rolled past a small green sign that read ‘Richfield’. He was a pretty young guy, as far as fathers of eleven and thirteen year old girls go, but I remember as a kid that he had always looked so old. He always seemed tired, bags under his eyes and sun burnt skin, always out of the house, off to work before we left for school in the mornings and never coming home until we were already in our pajamas. He was a serious man, with a stern face and a stiff hug. His thin hair had been going gray since he was thirty years old, his face bore the small white and red marks of a brief but intimidating battle with skin cancer and looking at him, it was hard to imagine that he had ever been a kid at all, but today, this was not the case. His eyes lit up like a little boy with his first shiny red bicycle underneath the Christmas tree, and I remember that day that he looked ten years younger than I had ever seen him. We were in his town now.
Richfield, Utah was the place of my father’s childhood. He spent every summer here with his grandpa as a child and it was his favorite place in the entire world to be. I, on the other hand, was only eleven years old, but a California girl, born and raised. I loved my big city, and I was loyal to the ways of a Californian. I was accustomed to the freeways each having their own number and each of my friend’s houses being off of a separate exit. I knew that if my mom was taking my sister and I out for dinner we could chose from dozens, if not hundreds of different places, and that looking for seashells on the beach was always a good Saturday activity, so I couldn’t help but wonder what my thirteen year old sister, riding in the car behind us with my mother, was thinking as we drove into our new home town.
“It looks… different” I tried to sound enthused, simply to help my father to retain the sheer childish joy that had taken over his face upon exiting the freeway. On my right all I could see was field after field, each separated by small wooden and wire fences, each containing some sort of farm animal or tall stalk of grass. To my left I saw houses lining the freeway we had just been traveling down. Richfield had been a place we had visited occasionally throughout our childhood, and I had always loved it. This was mostly because all of my cousins lived here and I found it so exciting that whenever we were in town we were allowed to walk wherever we wanted. (My parents wouldn’t even let me walk to school in San Diego, and it was about four blocks from my house) But now, I was looking at this town through a completely different set of eyes, as the place I would now call home, and all I saw it as, was a prison. What in the world would I do here for fun? How would I find friends? From the looks of this place there were probably more kids in my middle school than in the whole town
“Don’t worry kid,” My dad couldn’t wipe that grin off his “you are going to love it here! This was my favorite place to be when I was your age.” I just looked up at him and smiled, as whole heartedly as I could manage. I couldn’t be too hard on the old man, no matter how freaked out I was by this tiny little town. As we were packing up the last boxes in California before getting on the road, I remember asking my Mother why he wanted to move so badly, all of a sudden, from our comfortable life in sunny San Diego.
Her reply had been something along the lines of, “Well honey, I think what your dad is going through is sort of like an early mid-life crisis,”(Isn’t it amazing what parents will tell their kids when they think they aren’t really listening?) but as we pulled up to a red light at one of the only three stoplights in Richfield, Utah, and I looked to my right to see a large green farm tractor stopped next to us, I couldn’t help but wonder why he couldn’t have just bought a sports car like all the normal dads
We took a left off of Main Street, after driving the long 1.5 mile stretch of road that ran from one end of town all the way to the other end, and took a few right turns that led us straight to our new home. I remember getting out of the car and listening to my dad go on about how much fun this house was going to be for us. “Look guys!” he pointed across the yard to something in the ground “there is a trampoline built right into the ground! And the house has a loft you two can hang out in, and the canal runs right past our backyard!” Full of excitement he was off to unlock the front door for us and out of the corner of my eye I saw my mom give my older sister a little nudge followed by her voice
“That’s awesome daddy! I want to see the inside!” she ran up beside him and followed him into the house, and though I was positive she didn’t have any idea how a canal full of water nearby our house was supposed to be an exciting thing either, I followed suit and ran up the stairs and through the front door. After we picked our rooms and unpacked the basics, my parents told us to go play while they finished unpacking.
“What are we supposed to play? All of our stuff is in the moving van and we don’t know anyone.” My sister asked just exactly what I was thinking.
“Are you kidding me kid?!” my dad laughed out, “There is tons to do around here! Go make some friends!” My sister and I just stood there, amazed. This was a whole new world to us. In San Diego we weren’t allowed to be ten feet away from our parents in the mall without holding a walkie talkie that they held the brother to. We weren’t allowed to play with friends unless we had a scheduled play date and all of our parents had talked to one another, and we definitely weren’t allowed to just, ‘go make friends.’ We wandered around the yard for a while, jumping on the trampoline and talking about how much we hated this place and how crazy our father was until we turned and saw a group of kids walking up the driveway.
“Hey!” one of the girls in the front was waving her arm in our direction. They walked over to us and the same voice said, “Did you guys just move in? What are your names?” We were absolutely blown away
“Yea, we just moved from California,” my sister started talking to this girl, “My name is Randi and this is my little sister Kayleigh. I am in ninth grade and she is in sixth.” The girl introduced herself and Jennie White, and said that she was friends with some of our cousins. All of the other girls introduced themselves and it turned out they were all in the same grade as my sister.
“Well, do you guys want to come play night games with us at the park over there?” Jennie pointed to a park that was a couple blocks down the street.
“What are night games?” Randi asked, which received several shocked looks from the crowd of girls.
“You have never played night games before!?” One of the other girls asked, seemingly amazed by the fact. Randi and I both shook our head; I was starting to feel a little embarrassed. “They are lots of fun, I promise, do you want to?” she invited once again.
I don’t know if we can, Kayleigh, go ask mom and dad.” Randi nudged me towards my parents. I turned and walked towards the moving truck even though I knew the answer. There was no way my parents were going to let us go off with a group of kids whose parents they didn’t know and play on our first night here.
Mom, this girl we just met, Jennie, wants us to go play night games with her and her friends at the park right there. Can we?” I asked nervously.
Sure honey, just don’t be gone too late after dark okay?” my mom didn’t even stutter. Maybe life in a small town wouldn’t be so bad after all. When I told my sister the news she couldn’t believe it either, but we went that night and had more fun than we probably ever had, just playing games with a bunch of people we had just barely met. This definitely was a whole different world.
That night after the games were over, my mom and sister were inside peeling bubble wrap from around dishes and filling the cupboards with them, and I walked outside to find my dad, sitting on the tail end of the now half empty moving truck. I walked over and sat down next to him and he put his arm around me and pulled me in.
I know you didn't want to move kid. I know you loved San Diego. But you will like it here, I promise.” he kissed me on the head and stood up to continue carrying gray moving bins around the garage and placing them in the correct stack. I didn't say anything, Even in my angry little eleven year old mind, I knew he was right.
The truck got unpacked and as days went on we grew more and more accustomed to the freedom that came with living in a town like Richfield, Utah, and though it was still a little strange that you could have found the same amount of people at a busy stoplight in San Diego as there were living in the entire town we now lived in, we grew to love it’s homey feel. As hard as it was to ride into Richfield that very first day in the passenger seat of that moving truck, it wasn’t near as hard as driving out of it six months ago, knowing that I would no longer call that little town home.
No comments:
Post a Comment