Almost everyday, if it was weather, we were a bunch of boys from the neighbourhood, age 6-15, playing "landbandy" on the street outside my house. We usually started right after school and we did not stop until it was pitch dark. Everyone that knew how to handle a “landbandyklubba” was accepted and could join in. This activity went on for years, all year around. I lived at the end of a street, next to the forest. Weekends I spent on my bike, just biking around with friends. Or running around in the forest, following and spying on random people walking their dogs. When it was season I picked a lot of mushrooms, I was quite good at finding mushrooms and I knew lots of different types that was good for eating. Quite often I traded the mushrooms for freshly baked cakes with my parents or a neighbour. My friend in the forest was 4 years older and when I was 7 and he was 11 something changed. He went to war. "Lundbergskriget". The two fighting parts in this war was older boys from my area and other boys from the neighbouring area Lundbergs. I was too young to be part of this but I heard the stories from my friend. They were fighting with long wooden sticks and kids were actually prisoners in the forest, in caves and holes in the ground. So he told me. I was terrified. And thrilled at the same time. I begged him to bring me. He refused since I was just 7. But one day he said that he had a task for me. I was supposed to be the watchman for one of the trails leading through the forest. No one from Lundbergs was aloud to pass. I was standing at this trail for a couple of hours, maybe half a day. Nothing happened. I didn’t see one single warrior. Friend or enemy. I went home to have some hot chocolate instead. I had survived. Next day my friend asked where I had been. I had been standing at the wrong trail in the wrong forest. I don’t know, but I have a feeling that I knew that all the time...

I was only 7.