Time Travel and Sassafras

The Heights we knew was a magic place in a long-ago time. No, life then wasn’t perfect, and just like today there were challenges and hardships, griefs and difficulties, but there was also a sense of community and shared celebrations, events that we share on this site, back and forth, with pleasure and happiness from all ages.

I can’t drive you to my favorite spots and show you remembered scenery along roads that no longer exist, yet we can still visit those places.

And do.

We share memories, and that’s the greatest time travel machine invented.

I spent early spring rediscovering the faint trail into the Second Woods, drawn by spring peepers and the lure of an exotic setting, marshy and full of singing voices, as if it was a world away from the end of Caroline Street.

In the summertime, my best friend Kay and I tracked down a patch of sassafras saplings in the middle of our section of the First Woods, and chewed on leaves to marvel at the unique flavor.

Yes, we knew that chewing sassafras leaves was toxic and we’d probably be poisoned, but we weren’t. (Just as we knew that if you unraveled a tennis ball, you could make an explosive.) Sassafras scent and taste meant childhood summers in the woods.

Sassafras root is a primary ingredient in root beer, and the leaves have a sharp, tangy taste. Besides stealing hickory nuts from each other when we sat under the old hickory tree between the First and Second Woods, we made treks to the sassafras patch to try another leaf and sniff the branches.

The Second Woods was a mysterious, watery place in the late spring to late summer. The First Woods was a Bambi forest. My brothers caught frogs and snakes. Squirrels were at risk from other boys. I followed paths through the woods to the other streets off Squirrel Road. A sassafras stick from Cracker Barrel can take me back to that magic time after one taste.

After years of stuck-to-the-hip adventures, Kay and I lost sight of each other. So many childhood friends are gone, one way or another, yet I can retrieve them in a flash, at least, in my mind.

And my favorite teachers. They live again, young and feisty. As do my classmates. You can have a birthday with a scary and unbelievable number, but ask me, you’re still young and supple.

Adams Road led into woods and curves. “The Heights” (downtown) offered our favorite five-and-dime stores, ice cream, lunch, dinner, haircuts.

Corner stores offered the treasure of comic books and penny candy. We shared the same junior and senior high schools, for a time. And our elementary school identified which part of the Heights we were from.

Every kid rode bikes, played outside until dark, and on our street, the fire whistle meant dinner time.

There were income differences, family traditions weren’t the same, yet looking back, we’re more alike than different. I thought that when Barber Bob and I were sharing memories over lunch.

We chewed on clover flowers, picked rhubarb from against basement walls, broke up the year into school, Halloween, summer vacation, Christmas, sledding, fireworks, parades, and the Fall Festival. When our children were growing up in the same neighborhood, they did the same.

Go on sharing your favorite memories. This keeps our time machine in working order.

The Heights we knew was a magic place, but it doesn’t have to stay in a long-ago time.

Thank you, Joanie, for this site, and Tyson, for keeping pictures and souvenirs of a special place and time.

And I’m curious, did you chew sassafras leaves?