A Tree of Memories, Essay Example

There are so many quaint memories that I just cannot forget while growing up. Some simply touch my heart while others are mere tragedies that I am happy to survive. Most important memories involve relations with my immediate family and relatives that will stay close to my heart forever; and have shaped my personality and style of living.

The best times ever were when I was four and cousin John and I used to sit in Mom and Dad’s huge yard with the hose making massive water puddles. We would use these water puddles to make imaginative homes and farms for the ants. Sometimes we spent hours constructing these homes and farms and awaiting them to dry to insert some ants or simply wait for the nearby ants to habitat their new home. On some occasions, cousin Darrin age two then, would rudely come by and ‘stomp down’ our marvellous creation without a hint of remorse and have us to make it all over again. I don’t know if we were angered or quite happy to do the rebuild all over again!

One day cousin Jake, cousin Susie and I decided to go fishing off the peer behind our house. We went to a ‘non fishing zone’ which was posted ‘no trespassers’. Well at the age of nine, we thought we were nearly adults and did not need to mind those silly signs. Jake tripped over an old lantern that was on the ground and fell into the murky water. We did not have any life rafters with us because we had simply forgot and knew we did not usually bring them to fish behind Mom and Dad’s because the water was shallow.  This time the water was deep and Jake began to yell, ‘help me the water is over my head and I can’t feel the bottom’. Susie and I panicked but decided it was too long of a haul to go back home for help. Jake might drown by then. We caught whole of a very long and stable twig and both held it out to Jake. He grabbed on tight and we pulled him in slowly but surely. Jake was panting very heavily when we got him to the bank. He was drench with water and shaking profusely. Susie and I were trembling out of fright. We all sat down and decided that this was the worse defiant deed we had ever done and Jake could have lost his life. What seemed to be a fun and exciting idea turned into disaster. We had to tell Mom and Dad, but they did not scold us. They told us ‘a lesson learned is the best lesson they could ever teach us’.

Mom, Dad, Susie and I took a European vacation to London, England one summer while we were out of school. Dad decided we would not take the local tours rather do everything ‘by ear’. We landed at Heathrow Airport early one morning. It was one of the largest airports I had ever seen. The terminals were huge and mostly remote and not many escalators available. There was a very long line for immigration.  We took the trains to go to central London, Marylebone High Street, the Business Centre District of London. There were many shops and restaurants and hotels. We lived at the Princess Diana Hotel for six nights.  The hotel was lovely but the toilets were called ‘lieu’s’ and the french fries were called ‘chips’ and the cars drove on the ‘opposite side of the street’. There were just as many other nationals as Britain’s in London.

Major attractions we saw were the Big Ben, the Tate Museum, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, Marble Arch.  Out of the city we saw Jack the Ripper, Oxford University and Cambridge University. Dad especially enjoyed the old time villages and cobblestone streets. Mom enjoyed the flowered gardens and architecture. Susie and I enjoyed the arts and the kidney pies. I also enjoyed the proper British accent. It was nearly a ten hour flight but worth every minute of it.