Buttercups and Daisy Chains

I was listing a collage in my new shop last night and the buttercup theme of the collage brought back some memories of sunny summer days of childhood.

We had a big yard on a corner lot, a perfect place to do cartwheels or run through the sprinklers with our friends, and I remembered sitting in the grass holding buttercups under each others chins. If your chin turned yellow by reflecting the color of the buttercup, it meant that you liked butter.

And the hours spent making daisy chains by pulling up the delicate little flowers, cutting a slit in the stem with your thumbnail, slipping another flower stem through the slit, and on and on as long as the tiny little flowers in the grass lasted. I don't think they were actual daisies, they were probably weeds but they looked like daisies with flowers no bigger than a dime. Lucky indeed if your daisy chain got long enough to wear around your neck without it falling apart.

And speaking of lucky, I don't know how many hours we spent combing through the grass looking for a four leaf clover, which I don't think any of us ever found.

It's funny how one little thing, a song, a smell, a flower, can bring back a memory that's long been buried in your mind.