Mono Monday Favorite Place--Forests

Since it's pouring rain I couldn't go to the woods that is REALLY my favorite place....but the nearby greenbelt does provide a bit of old growth forest and rain waking here is fine..
   As a child I was fortunate to grow up in a family of arborists living with a tree nursery very close to the family home.  There were wooded lots on all sides to run around and let your imagination go on steroids...we dug for coal literally, we made treasure maps and swung on grape vines overhanging cow paths....that at one time led down to a river that became the street our home was built by.  We built "forts" and played Cowboys and Indians parotting the tv shows we watched in the fifties. We climbed trees and stayed outside all day and usually in the woods.  My best little buddy and I had a secret place surrounded by the trees and sat there on sawed off stumps for seats....we were serious little kids and discussed all sorts of heavy things (to us)....like was Santa Claus really real?   Why did our moms have to yell out for us to come home so early?  How could we sneak up on the nursery workers and steal their cigarettes?   At that time life didn't really seem all that simple to us...but now I know it truly was.  Sigh   I do love the woods still to this day.
    Thank you to Carolina for hosting mono Monday and the topic  Happy Memorial Day in the USA where we pay homage to those who fought for and gave their lives serving their country .