Retrospect: Boothbay Harbor 1985-1987

Yesterday, I started a rough catalog of my life in honor of my 30th birthday coming up. Here's the second chapter: Boothbay Harbor, Maine. I was 5 years old when we arrived and 7 when we left. For the first year, we lived in the bottom of a big old house right on Main Street in downtown Boothbay Harbor. Growing up by the ocean at that age was a dream.

• I started school in Boothbay—Mrs. Williams was my kindergarten teacher and I loved her.
• I made a Christmas ornament at school: it was a little stuffed pillow that said "Soe 1985." I still have it.
  
• I learned how to swim—in the ocean and at the YMCA
• I learned how to read—Mummy would put a big blanket out on the front lawn and I would read through the Primers that we had sounding out words like "mat," "cat," "hat" and "sat "The cat sat on the mat!"
• Boothbay Harbor was such a cool town and it was all within walking distance from our house. There was a bakery nearby called The Crunchy Snail. They made glazed claw donuts called "Lobster Claws." They were my favorite. There was a restaurant that looked like a giant boat. There was a salt water taffy shop where you could look in the window and watch them pulling taffy. They were all different colors: green, pink, orange and green.
  
• There was also a old-fashioned trolly that went around town. One day when my friend and I were hanging out at the house and Mummy wasn't looking, we decided to catch the trolly and take a ride around town. Only thing was it was summer and we weren't wearing any shoes. The trolly driver thought we were orphan runaways. So he called a policeman who took us to the diner for a meal and then when we told him that we had a home, he brought us there. My mother was so worried—especially when she saw the policeman. The policeman was just confused.
• The second year, we moved out of the house on Main Street and into a trailer out on a country road. We were all pretty depressed about it, but Mummy built a gigantic garden in the yard (although I'm pretty sure it turned to mud) and we had lots of room to play.
• That was the year my birthday fell on Easter and I got a bunny basket for a present.
  
• That was also the year I took Hannah's bike and road it down the dirt road. As I was turning the corner, a car was coming in the other direction and it hit me! The bike went under the car and was crushed, but luckily, I just rolled onto the hood and didn't even get a bruise. The little old lady driving the car got quite the fright though.
• Oh yeah, here's another memory from the trailer. Hannah decided to have a "seance" in her bedroom. She made a bowl of eyeballs out of grapes or pearl onions or something. And another bowl of cold spaghetti was supposed to be guts. She made us put our hands in the bowl in the dark. When Papa found us, he was not happy. We were all grounded!
• Oh my gosh, there are a lot of memories from Boothbay, from the time we forgot Emi at the beach to the spawning jelly fish to playing with the sea cucumbers at the aquarium. All of the friends we had. All of the friends we left behind.
• Papa got a new preaching job in Pittsfield, Maine and so we left Boothbay in 1987.

Do I really have no photos of Boothbay? Mummy do you? I'll keep looking.