Memories are a funny thing. They come to you when you least expect it and they can take you back in the blink of an eye. Recently, a Snapchat from my son prompted such a memory for me. He and a few friends were at a ball field taking turns hitting softballs to each other, and they were having a blast. I was immediately launched back to the summer of 1983.

Back then I was a scrawny, 13-year-old latchkey kid. I had three brothers, two very close in age to me and one who was nine years younger. My older brother Wes, who is three years older than me, was my chaperone and gave me freedom to roam. My brother Jaison is my Irish twin, only 11 months younger, and was usually close at my heels. While we had different interests at times, we did a lot together with our friends.

We had what you might call a “posse” in our neighborhood. Many kids were close in age to the three of us and we were your typical 80’s kids. When we would go outside to play, we didn’t come in until our mothers yelled our names (in order of our birth) for dinner. As a group we would trudge to our homes, usually filthy, and extremely disappointed we didn’t get to finish whatever it was we were doing.

My brothers and I loved to throw a ball around. We had brown spots on our front lawn where we would play pickle with our neighbors for hours on end, or we would just have a good old game of catch. We were pretty competitive and each of us would whip the ball as hard and fast as we could until it felt like our arms would fall off.

My memory, though, stemmed from that summer and many after. My brothers and I would round up the neighborhood kids (mostly by walking to their houses and knocking on their doors) and walk around the city of Brewer looking for a field to play softball on. It was no small feat finding a spot to play; we had a park close to our house so naturally that was the first choice. It wasn’t always available so when I say we “walked all over the city,” we literally did walk all over the city, relentlessly, until we found a place to play.

I have vivid memories of the places we’d go as I had played on most of the fields as a young girl during my Lassie League days. I remember how hot the days were and if we had a few extra cents on our journey, we would stop and grab a soda or a candy bar. I don’t remember putting on a sliver of sunblock, however, I do remember the burns steaming on the back of my neck. I don’t remember being stocked up on snacks and water like I would force upon my own children; we just grabbed our gloves and a ball, threw a few bats over our shoulders, and hit the road.

I remember loving the excitement of getting there and how quickly we would get organized forming teams. Usually the older kids were team captains. I never cared about that. I just wanted to hit the field and shag some softballs. We were competitive and wanted to win, but just being out there and playing was the real fun. Sometimes we’d switch up teams, occasionally stragglers would join us. I even met one of my closest friends one day on a softball field right before we went to high school. We would go on to play together for three years and were close until her passing in 2015.