Have you ever dreamed of finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Well, I would like to think that I almost did one summer when I was 7 years old. This memory brings back that age of innocence and a bit of nostalgia of the early 1960’s in our small-town in Western North Carolina. And at this age, exploring and discovery was so important to who I would become as I grew older, and to how my developing character evolved my academic strengths in my early learning.
It was early summer when my mom and I moved to a new house on this street that ended in a circle. It was a rancher style house with a basement, and the basement was also the garage for a car. I remember that the driveway down to the basement was very steep and ran along the side of the house. The backyard was mostly asphalt that backed up to the edge of the woods.
The new house was also very close to my new elementary school. I could walk to school. Our house was the last house at the circle. There was a field that was next to the house and next to the field on the other side was the playground to the school. My new school had three floors. When the school was torn down my aunt collected up some of the bricks to save. I have two of these bricks and they are part of my memory collection.
There were lots of boys who lived in the neighborhood. Several were my age. One of the boys had an older brother, but just a few years older, I think. He was taller than me. And they all went to the school I would be going to in the fall. All of us would play in the street and in the woods where the train tracks ran. We also played in the creek that ran next to the train tracks.
One day it was raining pretty good. After the rainstorm that move into our town began to fizzle out allowing for the sun to begin to shine brightly through the rain clouds, a beautifully colorful rainbow suddenly took shape off across this big tabaco field in the trees on the other side. I was outside playing with the other boys on my neighborhood street and for some reason we just looked at each other with an unspoken desire to chase that rainbow. And that is what we did.
We headed into the tobacco field stomping through the newly made puddles of water and the mud as fast as we could because we had all been told about the sneaky Leprechaun who guarded the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and would move it if anyone got close. As we got closer to the end of the rainbow, we were so happy that the rainbow was still in the same spot. Maybe that sneaky Leprechaun had fallen asleep, and we thought that we might be able to sneak up and get to take that pot of gold away from him. While this might be every boy’s dream when they are young, I honestly don’t know. But it was my dream.
We made it to the edge of the woods and the rainbow was still there. Wow! We looked at each other and smiled, not saying a word because we didn’t want to wake that Leprechaun. Just when we thought we had arrived to our dream come true, the rainbow vanished. Just like that, it was gone. And so did our dream. That Leprechaun was really sneaky and mean. To let us get this close, and then to cheat us from reaching our dream was just mean. It wasn’t fair. I think we might have even cried.
We began to head back to the tobacco field, and we found ourselves in a swampy area of the woods. It was awfully smelly bad. We slowly worked our way through the swampy mud, finally making it back to the edge of the tobacco field. When we emerged from the woods there was a wooden shed in front of us. We decided to explore the shed. Together, we pulled the door open to this incredible smell of tobacco hanging in the shed. As a kid this was a new smell for me. The aroma was somewhat intoxicating. It was wonderful. And little did I know what this smell would mean in my future.
After exploring the shed we headed back across the tobacco field towards our street and our homes. We were covered in mud and had this tobacco aroma all over our bodies and in our clothes. I didn’t even think about what to say to my mom when I got home. I just knew I would get a scolding and put into the bath. And then some dinner.
After dinner I thought about this adventure. I began to think about just how close we were to seeing a real Leprechaun. The pot of gold somehow disappeared from my thoughts. I was now more interested in the Leprechaun, and what tricks would I need to know the next time I saw a rainbow and went chasing it, this time to catch that darn Leprechaun. Could I become just as sneaky as him? It was now bedtime. I hope my dreams include today’s adventure. My mom tucked me into bed and said, “Sweet dreams my boy”. And that is what I hoped for…
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