I still do, but it’s different friends and we have to create our own limits. Mom said we had to be in when it got dark (I was in the country, no street lights to come on). Now I say when I come in.

I remember the last time my entire group of childhood friends all went out in the woods and did dumb shit. We weren’t technically old enough to drive, but two of us had hardship licenses and did it anyway. We all got together, paid a guy to buy us some cheap liquor, someone came up with some ditch weed, and someone else brought a guitar.

It was just a bunch of dudes in the woods being dumb and laughing together. The next week two of them (brothers) moved. Not long after that another was diagnosed with cancer. Another went to jail for being a moron and has been in and out ever since then. One lost interest in being our friend.

So we were down to me and one other guy. And we just hung out and played video games, occasionally hanging out with our friend who had cancer when he was feeling up to it.

We don’t talk anymore, really. The one with cancer and I still have a phone call once a year or so. He’s tired so it only lasts 15 minutes before he has to nap. The one I hung out with after everyone else died a few years ago in a wreck. The one who is in and out of jail is still doing the same shit. The one who lost interest went into the military and disappeared.

I consider that the last day of my childhood and still think about it once in a while.