Okay…my favorite childhood farm memory….
I LOVED the Boxcar Children book. I read that thing over and over and acted it out over and over when I played.
One day when I was around 9 or 10 years old…my cousin Carie and I were playing outside at Grandma’s house. We ventured into territory we had not explored yet AND YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE WHAT WE FOUND!!!!
Tucked away behind some trees was an old boxcar I KID YOU NOT. I about wet my pants..and my cousin Carie was pretty excited too.
Okay, and it gets better!
We went and asked Grandma if she knew it was there (of course she knew it was there) and if we could look inside it. She said we could.
GUESS WHAT WAS INSIDE THE BOXCAR???!?!?!?
There were a couple of rooms….and in the biggest one….my grandpa had put someone’s old kitchen cabinets and countertops and it even had a kitchen sink!!!!! The boxcar had a KITCHEN inside.
Okay, now first of all…I’m thinking: HOW DID GRANDPA FORGET TO MENTION THIS GOLD MINE TO ME?
Carie and I were running all around and jumping up and down and shouting with excitement over this treasure. I mean…who finds a BOXCAR to play in…and one that has a kitchen inside it to play with?!?
We kept running into the house to tell Grandma more that we’d found….and she’d chuckle in delight at us. She gave us some old dishes and rags and we spend HOURS fixing up our little boxcar. We rigged up some kind of table and chairs and beds and fixed up our kitchen.
It was THE most fun I ever had. Everytime I went to Grandmas for the next several years (when it wasn’t 11 degrees outside), I’d play in “my” boxcar. It was always more fun when one of my cousins was there…but oh, it was fun anyway. I wonder how many hours I clocked in that thing.
The only disappointing thing I remember about the boxcar (okay, two disappointing things):
Once we found mice scampering about the boxcar (how dare they)…and it really just ruined our fun for the day.
And another day…there was a big snake curled up in the window that completely freaked us out and made us run faster than we’d ever run before. And Grandpa…the nerve….wouldn’t even kill it for us because he said snakes were good for eating mice. I’m pretty sure he did get it out of the boxcar and fling it somewhere else, but still. We were too freaked out to go back in it again that day.
Oh, but I loved that boxcar. I have warm fuzzies now just thinking about it. Hmmm, and now I also miss my grandma. Oh it’s so good to have such wonderful memories.
Laura, surely you know that the Boxcar children had a whole series?!? Of course, they got all commercial and had somebody else write a bazillion more after Gertrude Chandlier Warner stopped, but hers are all great.
That is so neat!!! Your “own” boxcar!!
My daughter liked that series too.
Yes, I guess I didn’t mention it in the post, but I did read most of the books in the Boxcar Children series. LOVED them. Now my kids read them. I wish I could take them to my boxcar… :)
That’s so cute! What a fun childhood memory. I’m sorry about the snake *shudder*. We were cleaning out an old A frame in the backyard of a new house that we had rented (my dad was in the military and we moved every three years). We were pulling out old wood and stuff, excited about our new hideout, when we uncovered a wasps’ nest. I was stung many times on my arms and face–no fun! Thankfully Dad did get rid of them for us, and we enjoyed playing in our “cabin” quite a bit.
My twins LOVE Boxcar Children books and they dream of finding one. They’ve asked their dad if he would buy one for the back yard! They are always acting out the books after they read them – so much fun!
Ooooooh.
I was so jealous of kids like you.
Boxcars, it seems, were staples in pastures, and unfortunately, none of our pastures had them. There was one farm very near our house and I remember looking longingly at it every time we’d pass by, imagining how much fun I could have in there. Other kids would talk about playing house in their boxcars while we were at school…. and I just wanted one so, so, so bad.
So bad.
I may need a little therapy now. That’s a memory I had totally repressed! ;-)
I’m just now catching up on my blog reading for the last month or so.
Jealousy is exuding from me incase you can’t smell it from here. The one Christmas gift I hoped for, for years and years, and years was an avacado green metal kitchen. They were the in toy about 39 give or take three years ago. I wanted one so I could play house. You know, ‘real’ house. I had to play ‘fake’ house because I didn’t have a kitchen. To find a treasure like you did at your grandparents would have been a dream come true. WOW!! I think finding it would have been as much fun as playing in it, until snakes and mice showed up. I’d go back after mice, but snakes would keep me away for nearly ever.