I was think­ing the other day, (one of those things it is some­times dan­ger­ous to do) and I got to think­ing about mul­ber­ries. Yes Mul­ber­ries and summer.

When I was Young.

I grew up in Hills­dale Michi­gan. A small mid-western town with a lot of heart and for a kid a lot of great expe­ri­ences. I lived most of my youth in the house you see here. It was on a won­der­ful tree­lined street and came with a whole block full of adventure.

Before I tell you about the adven­tures I would love to talk about the peo­ple. We had the Hemry’s that lived next door. Mr. Hemry looked like the guy in the Amer­i­can Gothic paint­ing. Mrs. Hemry looked like every­ones favorite grand­mother. They had a gar­den and giant mul­berry bushes and a secret pas­sage­way to the adven­ture, but we’ll get back to that soon.

Across the street a friend named Cindy, down the street Greg, one of the best spoons play­ers I know, across the street the other way were the Crandle’s and later the Gentilly’s, and no tea party in the neigh­bor­hood was com­plete with­out Mrs. Zilch.

Next to the Crandle’s lived an older cou­ple who’s names escape me right now, he had Parkinson’s but he pain-stakingly built these won­der­ful vic­to­rian bird­houses. They were detailed so very well and he would tell us sto­ries of their owners. These are some of the peo­ple I was for­tu­nate enough to grow up around and have fun with.

We had a swing set in our side yard, the one with the gate, we had base­ball games and ran around with he dog, but when we ven­tured out of our yard there were secret places to be found and adven­tures awaited.

Find­ing Adven­ture all around.

As I said the Hemry’s had  really big Mul­berry bushes in their yard. They were across from the gar­den and next to them was a tall hedge row. One day Mrs. Hemry came out to scold us for eat­ing the mulberry’s and we ran straight for this small whole in the hedge row. When we popped out the other side there was a hol­low, com­plete with a weath­ered old barn.

There next to the barn stood a huge weep­ing wil­low tree. We were small and light and able to swing from her branches. We tried a few times to get into the barn, but it was locked, but there in the Hol­low we had our adven­tures. We could play all after­noon and no one knew we were back there. It seemed hid­den from all of the houses, it’s own lit­tle hide away, per­fect for play. At the end of each day the bell would be rung on our back porch sig­nal­ing dinner.

Where did Bram­ble­berry Hol­low Come from?

When I started writ­ing the books for the bud­dies I started to add all of these won­der­ful places to their map. The Hol­low had the cabin for the bears, a lit­tle stream for them to fish, a weath­ered barn for Miss Moo to live, a small vil­lage where the bud­dies work and play. Then it hit me, I was giv­ing them my child­hood mem­o­ries. I was recre­at­ing my home town.

We write what we know.

Hav­ing had such a rich neigh­bor­hood of friends, and such a won­der­ful and safe place to live and grow up, it comes through more and more as I con­tinue to develop the sto­ries and the buddies.

A nod to the past.

I have fond mem­o­ries of grow­ing up in Hills­dale, vis­it­ing my grand par­ents in Indian River, and going to Mack­inac Island in the sum­mer. Sum­mer swings on the porch with Mrs. Hemry and Mrs. Zilch and games of tag and base­ball in the side yard with my dad, mem­o­ries that will shape the sto­ries in my books, and the adven­tures my bud­dies will take.

To all of the won­der­ful peo­ple I grew up with I would like to thank you for the mem­o­ries. I wish you all noth­ing but the best.

Do you look away from your past or embrace it in your every­day life? I have found a way to incor­po­rate some of my his­tory into my future. I hope you can do the same.