There aren't a lot of things I remember about my childhood after a certain time. Having a couple concussions will do that to you. Even after head trauma, there are only a few things that one really never forgets, and that my friends is the very place you began to form your own identity. I had the pleasure, no, the blessing to grow up in a place people only dream about honestly. A place with love, compassion, creativity, and pure fun. I'm rambling but it's true. It was more or less 2001 and my mother was looking for a place to send me after school, I guess I was too old for the other place or it was getting too expensive. There's this memory of my mother driving down this street with more trees than I'd ever seen in the city, kind of cascading over the street with peaking sunlight like nothing I'd ever seen before. She parks and gets out of the car, I remember sitting in the back seat and just looking at her walk up to this house. From where the car was I could see multi-colored paint on the door and front of this house, and in my mind I'm thinking "who just paints their house like this, I get in trouble for coloring on my toy box?". Anyway, my mother knocks on the door and then walks in. After what seems like years to a 5 or 6-year-old she walks out to the car and motions me to get out. I get out and asks "where are we?". My mother says to me "This is your new daycare it's called the Growing Tree you'll like it". I'm six years old so if my Mom says I'll like the place then I'll probably like the place. Now from what I can remember my old daycare was as good as it gets, I'm talking TV, scheduled snack times, we had state of the art toys, I mean the place was dope. I'm thinking there's no way this new place could be any better, but for my Moms sake I'll give these folks a try. So we get to the the door and I see names in paint on the door and the big fence next to it. My six year old mind is just racing because I'm thinking the Mommy in this place must be going bananas with all of this coloring on the walls. The door opens and I see for the first time the warmest smile I'd ever seen on anyone in my life say, "Hello you must be Omari! I'm Laura and it's good to meet you." I say hi in the most meek way I could and entered the place behind my mother.
This place was 1000X different than any daycare that I'd ever seen. There was no rhyme or reason to the color in the place, there were kids playing Mancala, a game I would soon master and go undefeated in at the Growing Tree, in the front room, I walked further and there was a guinea pig to the right of me in a cage, there was a loft with people climbing in and out of. I was so amazed by the kids having absolute joy in their eyes running in and out of the place I wasn't even paying attention to what my mother and Laura were talking about. We walked past a bathroom with two toilets, YES TWO WHOLE TOILETS! I couldn't rap my mind around this place at all. We finally get into a kitchen area with just baskets of games and paper and paint and just stuff. Then there was a back door. Behind this back door was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen in my life. There was an enormous wooden pirate ship I'm talking Noah's Ark huge, it hindsight it probably wasn't that big but I was six. There was a seesaw and a sand pit, and all the way in the back there was a a huge black top with kids playing dodge ball and just having the time of their life. I totally forgot my mother and Laura were behind me and was asked a question by who to this day I have no clue, it could've been God himself, but the question was "What do you think?" and My response was "I like it". I don;t know what you were expecting from a six year old Omari but that was the equivalence of "this place is off the chain Mom write these nice people a check for 6 months in advance and lets just see how this all plays out".
My first impression of the Growing Tree absolutely lived up to the hype. The adventures and amazing experiences I had at that place was once in a life time. It was all thanks to an amazing woman in Ms. Laura. I remember she used to pick me up from school in the van and the song Joy and Pain, Sunshine and Rain would come on and Laura would say "Omari your song is on!" because for some reason that was the only song that I could remember and I'd sing it all day. Don't even get me started on how amazing of an artist she was! She would draw the kids pictures of whatever we wanted but I could never pick, So she made up a character for me called "Omaricles" a play on the name Hercules the Greek Demigod and hero. Each time she'd draw Omaricles it would be a different adventure each time and I would be lost in my own imagination. She'd taught me how to play chess using a Lord of the Rings set and I became a master at chess and was undefeated at the Growing Tree. There was literally nothing I couldn't do or accomplish at this place. There was structure, but no structure if you get what I'm saying. We would come from school sit on the benches outside and wait for Laura to tell us the activities for the evening. I'll never forget there was this girl there and every time Laura would tell us the activity in the kitchen area, she would always yell out and ask "Is it edible?!", and I didn't know what that meant at the time so I yelled it one day and the girl looked angry at me like I stole her thunder or something. Long story short, sometimes in arts and crafts the thing we made was edible. We had creative liberties to just be kids at the Growing Tree. We weren't forced to adhere to a certain ideology or way of thinking at a young age, it was get your homework done and then lets have the time of your life.
I think some of my best memories were during Halloween and the Summer time. Laura and the staff there would get especially creative then. There was a haunted house in the basement that they would make. We would stick out hands in bowls of stuff we thought were brains and guts, but was spaghetti and Jell-O. We would make scarecrows and Laura would tell us scary stories. I don't think there was anyone who could tell a story like she could back then. Before I go off on a tangent, the Summers were great too because every summer we would go to Hadad's Lake at 100 times. If you're from Richmond you know exactly where I'm talking about. Every year my friends would take the test to be able to swim in the deep end an no matter how hard I'd try I'd never pass. Now that I'm a phenomenal swimmer I'm kind of pissed that the folks at Hadad's Lake could never see my true potential, but I digress. The best part of the Summer was when we would make movies. And I'm not talking little skits I'm talking featured films people with scripts and everything. The amount of money I would pay to see little 9 year old Omari in a daycare produced film is, like 5 bucks because I was so bad, but I'd still like to see it. But see that didn't matter though, whether we were bad or good, we thoroughly enjoyed the time we spent a the Growing Tree, that's why it literally broke my heart when it closed down.
I had always asked Laura how old did I have to be to become a staff member at Growing Tree and I believe she would say 16. So I was holding out so that I could finally work at a place that I had fallen in love with. The Growing Tree was my home, the kids and staff were my family, and I never wanted to leave. But then all of a sudden things changed. There was some new lady who gave us one pancake for breakfast and section by section told us to get on a van to go to school. Then all of a sudden I was told Growing Tree had stopped going to and picking up from my elementary school. My heart sank because that meant I couldn't go to the one place I felt like myself, the only place I knew I could go to to escape whatever problems I was having at the young age I was. Picking what flavor of milk to drink at lunch was a big deal back then, so at least the Growing Tree was there so I can de-stress from a long day of milk choosing. For a while I floated around to different after school care places until finally I just started taking the bus home. I was so upset that I lost so many friends from around the city of Richmond, my creative outlet was taken from me. I began to swear that one day I'd buy the property and reopen the Growing Tree so kids could have what I had growing up, I place to call your home away from home, a place to be who you are without judgement, a place that doesn't tell you how to be other than loving, creative, and kind. Growing Tree, Laura, and every kid there molded me to the creative mind I am today. That place gave me the confidence I needed to even become a writer, or a director. I couldn't thank Laura enough. So if this somehow gets to you Ms. Laura or any other Growing Tree kid, share your memories or photos, or even a little story of the place that I'm sure you had as much fun as I did in the comment section. One day hopefully I'll get enough money to fulfill my young dream to give kids the joy and pleasure I did growing up at the Growing Tree. I don't want this place to be forgotten.
(I'm the little black kid with the peanut head lol)
