Panama

I feel the warm rain as it pours down from the heavens above, as the black clouds build in the afternoon and then spread themselves heavily over the isthmus.  My isthmus.  Days spent in the safe-as-a-convent streets and casetas of Fort Clayton.  Floating paper boats down the rushing gutters to the grates that take it all away.  It rained daily for weeks at a time in the summer and just slacked off a bit the rest of the time.  The water so warm, stained deep red by the clay that was the soil of the jungle in front of our house.  We played in the thick, slimy mud and slid down the many hillside ravines created by our butts.  We picked fruit, mostly ripe mangoes which served us well as lunch.  Lemons and limes for lemonade and limeade were as available as water.  Bougainvillea's and tall magnolia trees bloomed everywhere and the place smelled of lilacs and red earthy mud.  The jungle was just that, a jumble of huge leaves and a multitude of tropical trees and vines that seemed most impenetrable, especially for small kids.  It  was, for us, another world full of unknown dangers and dripping water from the canopy above. It was "off limits" by all measure but was the boundary of our smallish world.

David Woods was my best friend as we grew older and a pretty girl who lived two houses down named Margaret joined in our reveries as well.  I found myself infatuated with her at the ripe old age of six and she was equally fond of me as well. Margaret made a lemonade stand which she set up on the entrance to the housing area and made a decent amount of coin from the comings and goings of the residents.  It was very warm in Panama and her icy lemonade was cold and delicious and, best of all, free to us boys.  David and I were dear buddies, played ball together and whatever adventure and mis-adventure was at hand we both shared in.  My father made toys that we all enjoyed, he even made an 1/8th sized wood jeep that matched the one that sat in our driveway.  It had the guts of a pedal-car and we would take turns chasing iguanas up and down the street in the little jeep.  The iguanas grew to four feet in length and those monsters were very challenging to capture without getting bitten so we mostly chased smaller ones and limited the keeping to one or two around the house.  My mother loved them when they would lounge in the sun on our veranda flicking their tongues to catch the errant flies and bugs that were so common.  There were many, many lizards and birds that frequented the lawns and trees that surrounded the house.  Multi colored parrots called from the jungle and monkeys screamed insults to one another as they ran from tree to tree or past our government homes.  We had all the free pets we ever wanted.