I was thinking about some of my childhood memories this morning and wanted to share.  Not sure *why* I was reminiscing, but it sure is more interesting than my job.

• Forts.  I was obsessed with making forts.  And I'm not talking about boring 1-room forts - no, mine took days to design, required using every blanket and sheet in the house, and ended up as 12-bedroom, multi-level mansions.  When I was an inexperienced fort-maker, I would use my Encyclopedia Brittanicas to hold up the blankets.  Considering how expensive those bad boys were, my parents were none too thrilled about this, but got vengeance when the five-pound encyclopedias would inevitably cave to gravity and kill us in our sleep.  Eventually, I wised up and began using thumbtacks to keep my mother's fancy guest sheets attached to the wall.  This worked for a period of time, but as my designs got more intricate and the blankets got heavier, the tacks began succumbing to the tension and turned into flying missiles.  My determination to create The Perfect Fort without anyone losing an eye or dying led me to the use of nails.  Sure, I was making holes in great Granny Black's quilt and in my peach-and-cream walls, but you couldn't stop this budding architect. 

• Homemade videos.  Every April when my dance recital took place, my parents would go to the local VHS rental place and rent one of those big daddy video cameras that sit on your shoulder.  And by God, the Posey family was gonna get their money's worth out of this thing.  So for 4 days, we filmed EVERYTHING.  TV shows were made, lip-syncing music videos directed and most importantly, a video my mom took every year of the house.  EVERY SQUARE INCH.  And yes, we were *that* family that put on a record of Fiddler on the Roof, set up the camera on the couch, and all danced and sang (my dad was Tevye of course).  Our great danes wore beards and were the chorus line.  Years later our tastes matured and we got a little more 'hardcore' and busted out the keyboard and lip-sync'd to Toto's Roseanna.  During the keyboard solo, my mom deviated from the script and pointed at my 4-year old brother and said "Hit it Josh!", wherein he tickled the keys like a pro, thus vaulting this particular music video to our Hall-of-Fame collection.  Also residing in said collection is our version of Rescue 911.  My dad directed this one, where I played the burglar (you know, 'cause there's a lot of blondes in acid-washed jeans and pink barettes terrorizing neighborhoods) and my brother played the kid who was left home alone.  My friend played the 911 operator, and thanks to my dad's professional editing and stellar directing, the show was a hit.

• Terrors.  There were 2 things that haunted our neighborhood, and sent every local kid into a frenzy whenever they approached.  The first was the mosquito-spraying truck.  I'm not sure which evil parent told us that WE WOULD DIE A NASTY DEATH if we took even one breath of the mosquito spray, but it worked.  You'd hear it coming 2 blocks over, and we'd all go screaming into our houses, where from there, we'd call eachother and ask if the others were still alive, or if any man had been left behind.  And if someone *had* perished in that evening's mushroom cloud, could I have their scratch-and-sniff sticker collection?  Coincidentally, the truck arrived around the same time that the sun was going down and our parents would want us inside, but I'm sure the two have nothing to do with eachother.  The other nightmare was The Three-Legged Dog.  The animals in our neigborhood were normal - cats and dogs with all limbs intact.  But one day our world was turned upside-down when a 3-legged dog came strutting down the street.  You would have thought Freddy Krueger himself had entered Greengate, the way we all squealed and went clammoring for cover.  We didn't venture outside for 2 weeks after that, our noses pressed up against the windows, looking for signs of the beast.  I'm not sure whatever happened to him, but his legend lives on.

• Sugar and more sugar.  People often ask me about my horrendus eating habits, and it's true that they all stem from my diet as a kid.  My mom love sugar about as much as I do, and we were never without it.  I guess we lucked out that we all had the metabolism of a giraffe*.  My parents were Sam's Club member pioneers, and were bulk-buying-freaks.  5-lb bags of gummi bears?  Check.  1,000 piece bags of Smarties?  Check.  800 Otter Pops?  Check.  I ate Cool Whip straight out of the tub, and one time I ate an entire gallon of ice cream in one sitting.  I have tried doing this as an adult, and unfortunately it does nothing for my thighs.