The Boxcar Children

I remember the first books that would keep me up reading in the late hours of a school night. Chasing clues and solving mysteries with your family that had suffered the immense tragedy of becoming orphans. Just the adventure alone of living out of an abandoned Boxcar was enough to delight the mind of a young girl looking to escape their homelife. The Boxcar Children were all the best friends an awkward over-ambitous butterfly chaser like myself need to sleepover with.

The collection of books may appear so simple now, but for me during grade school they were a journey into the unknown. A path into the mysterious. It was a symbol of being with a fmaily unit you could rely on to support, rescue and encourage to follow their hunches.

It was my love of the adventure books that not onlylead to my many journals filled with pages of attempts at storytelling. But it led me forward o the path of looking for my Boxcar familly unit. people who were ready to go on adventures and explore that which scares them.

You'd think for a GenXer there were plenty of them already running around the neighborhood. To a certain extent there were plenty of kids running around the neighborhood but few that were going to push the limits of out-of-the-box adventures. Too many of the girls my age were participating in the Barbie doll lifestyle. And the boys were there but they didn't really want to hang out with a girl. My most adventerous friend was a girl that lived on a street perpendicular to my own. Our friendship wouldn't survive puberty but if there was a canyon that needed exploring or a waterway that needed testing she was as ready as myself to chase the dream of adventure.

Even after watching the movie 1908s version of Stephen Kings 'IT' she didn't backdown from descending the ladder into that open manhole we found in the canyon behind the elementary school. I don't remember being much of a reader, but for me the Boxcar Children were the wardrobe into a world of adjectives, prose and storytelling. As much of a dream as it was I wanted to be part of the creationsim based environment. To bring a world of joy to those kids that may not for the time being habe the opportunity to live a joyful life.