These days, I find myself going through drawers and boxes, cleaning and organizing, and sometimes I uncover something that I didn’t remember I had.

Maybe its an old letter from a friend that makes me smile, or a thoughtful handwritten card that brings a tear to my eye. Or in today’s case, a childhood composition that made me giggle.

I’m not sure exactly when I wrote this and I can’t tell from the teacher’s handwriting, as this was a substitute teacher. I remember this person filling in for more than one of my regular teachers, so the only thing I have to go by is my own handwriting. And as closely as I can tell, this matches my handwriting from late 4th to early 5th grade.

We were given an assignment to write a short story, using the title “I Remember When…” The story didn’t have to be true, and that little detail always made my eyes light up. (I’m not into writing fiction at all now, but then I was always ready to spin a story from my imaginative little mind.)

So I pulled out my pink inkpen, and
probably clicked it annoyingly, as I thought and thought. What should I write about? And from who knows where, the idea came. (Actually, I don’t believe the inspiration for my story will be too hard for you to figure out. Originality wasn’t one of my strong points.)

Now that I had the idea for my story, I can imagine my little pink pen, just flying across the paper, writing down my story as fast as my mind could weave it.

Now all these years later, it’s been rediscovered in the back corner of my “junk drawer,” so, if you’d like to waste some brain cells, here you go:

“I Remember When The Cow Jumped Over The Moon”

Once upon a time, something great happened. I had seen some article in the newspaper about a cow, but I didn’t bother to read it. I was making supper, when Sandra called.

“Hello,” I said. “Jeanette!” she said -I could tell she was excited- “the paper says that on Tuesday, some people are going to watch a COW try to jump over the MOON! There are going to be thousands of people there; wanna go along?”
“You betcha!” I whooped, “that’ll be a sight to behold!”

Tuesday came, and I met Sandra at the bus stop. She was excited. “Nettie,” she said, “do ya think she’ll make it across?”
“Nah,” I said, “In fact, I bet she won’t even make it to the top of that silo over there!”

Then a man said: “One! Two! Three!” and off she went, flying higher than I ever thought she would. She made it across the moon, barely grazing her left hind leg on a crater. Then, down she came, at breakneck speed, plowing down stars as she came.

“Watch your heads!” warned a man. Too late, she landed on The Spoon, knocking the wits out of him. The Dish ran in, grabbed The Spoon, and ran away to the Doc. The Little Dog was laughing hysterically to see such a sport. And The Cat played a fiddle tune in the background.

Sandra said as we were going home, that she’d never forget it, (and I agreed.)
The end.