Eleven is the perfect age.
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You’re old enough to go ‘bout anywhere with your cousin and best friend without any grownup supervision. But you’re not quite big enough to have a few farm chores stretch into full fledged daily work.
You can jump off the dock and touch bottom, feel the lake’s mud squeeze through your toes as you thrust up. You no longer have to wear your life vest 24/7 like your little sister still does.
During sleepovers you set your own hours about when you go to bed (if you’re smart enough to turn down the volume on the radio when the Royals are playing on the West Coast).
Girls can be useful, even sisters …if they fetch something you forgot or somehow get mom to bake some fresh cookies. Girls are best for a late night game of Blind Man’s Bluff because …well, they’re still just girls.
When you’re 11 there’s nothing better than a birthday party when four or five of your best buddies come over to play kickball while it rains. If you’re lucky the water briefly fills the infield like a pond and by sliding submerged you emerge safely atop home plate with the winning run.
Old war movies are favorites with real heroes in black and white. Old westerns are even better, with lots of shooting and nobody gets hurt. But really, when you’re 11 years old growing up on the farm, who wants to stay indoors to watch TV?
When you are 11, it’s just before the threshold new expectations called junior high. You don’t realize you’re on the cusp of great change. Puberty is a word you’ve never heard, much less understand; life is grand without dictionaries or shocking experiences.
You’re old enough to catch things …things you should like footballs and frisbees …things you would if you could, like frogs and fireflies. But the only sure thing you know you catch is poison ivy.
You’ve mastered the art of roasting marshmallow without flaming it into some burnt offering. This is the first step toward one of the great things of manhood: barbecue. But at 11 (as in years, not on the clock) food is not high priority. That’s what peanut butter, baloney and popcorn are for. The best foods are the kind you can eat on the run — except for mom’s fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy …corn on the cob, hot bread and lots of cold milk. Is there anything better?
And clothes are optional; shoes mean you’re going into places where you don’t want to be. The only absolute necessities are swimming trunks. And the immediate goal of life is winning the footrace away from an older cousin after you rolled that tomato loaded with a firecracker underneath his bottom.
Eleven-year-olds experiment with jokes and just begin to realize there’s humor beyond the bathroom. Life is fun. The very best laughs are giggles that last long beyond the point of remembering what you and your buddy were first laughing about …you know, the kind when grownups stare and you don’t care.
Yeah, today it’s hot. The weatherman sweats just thinkin’ about today’s heat index rising above temperatures in the high 90s. But when you’re an 11-year-old on the farm, sweat is a natural, good thing. It sharpens your senses. It helps you feel the pure pleasures of cool, sweet spring well water, the welcome relief a dank dugout cellar offers from a blazing mid-afternoon sun, and how lovely a soft evening breeze can be …and cold watermelon.
Eleven-year-olds sum up vacations like this: “We had a great time — I got scars, bruises and a tan!” Back to school and other distasteful realities can be put off to sometime after tomorrow, some light years away.
Summertimes are for the 11-year-olds …in all of us.
Come on, risk the chiggers. Take your shoes off. At least dangle your feet in some water. Just for awhile be as wise as an 11-year-old …before the rest of this summer slips away.