Time travel is the stuff of SciFi books and magical realism movies. But the thing is ... you time travel constantly. Your memory and your dreams.
In a recent post I included a number of "I Remembers" reminiscences from the 50's. Jim commented "Do you remember them throwing live turkeys off the top of the Pope County courthouse roof on Thanksgiving and all the kids would chase the wounded birds until they were squished?" Well - no. I lived in Lowry. We would never consider participating in such cruelty.
Got me thinking though. At what age does "I Remember" take over your life? Kind of dangerous actually. Living in the past. But if I stop and consider, what has this blog mostly been about? Memories. Back to the future 1950's.
My childhood was an era of freedom to explore and do things that would make today's parents cringe. Unsupervised play. Sort of unheard of these days. In the summer, I would leave the house in the morning and other than a stop back home for a quick lunch when the siren signaled 12:00, out again, only to reappear for supper. (Yes. breakfast, lunch, supper. Dinner was only a Sunday noon thing.) Then out again until the siren signaled curfew at 10:00
It's amazing we survived.
Car seats or seat belts. What the heck were they? We stood on the "hump" in the backseat to see out the front windshield or laid in the back window of the car to see out the back. My family didn't have a car - only a pickup - until I was a teen, so I frequently rode in the back of the truck, sometimes sitting on the tailgate.
Biking to Chippewa Creek or Lake Malmedal. Highways 55 & 114 were dangerous roads, hilly, curvy and no shoulders but we would sail down Hedlin Hill to the lake or slowly struggle our way west to the creek for and afternoon of water fun, cars and pickups flying by. A favorite dark of night game was bicycle tag, tearing through backyards, risking unhorsing by clotheslines to avoid being tagged. Helmets - you must be kidding.
Stranger danger. No such thing in our little town. Everyone knew everyone and everyone looked out for each other.
Eating habits. I thrived on Topps baseball card bubble gum, Sugar Daddy's, Sugar Pops and ice cream cones, paying the price in Dr. Wright's dental chair.
Tag games on railroad cars. Well, this did cause me severe angst. I've never been a fan of heights and running along the tops of freight cars and jumping across a chasm from one to the next to avoid a tag was only possible because of fear - fear of ridicule by my buddies. Luckily no one died or was maimed that I can recall.
We would save up allowances for weeks to purchase firecrackers for July 4 - illegal in MN. A couple teens with a car traveled to South Dakota and returned with a trunk load of fireworks, which we would buy up at exorbitant markups. One use was to setup toy army soldiers in a sandbox, light up a firecracker and toss it, artillery style, into the sandbox. Lots of dud firecrackers in those days, but you could break the dud in half to expose the powder, light it on a slab of cement and then stomp on it with your Red Ball Jets
BB guns. I never had one, only an "air rifle", but most every kid took a BB at some point or another. No lost eyes, happily. The more common warfare weapon was a rubber gun, a homemade wooden facsimile of a gun on which strips of inner tube rubber was stretched, held in place by a clothespin. Range was limited. You had to get within a few feet of your opponent to be successful. There were some who had "extreme" weapons, say a couple feet long. This gave them considerably greater range but the hazard of loading and the clothespin failing made them unpopular.
Smoking. Most every adult male smoked. The military provided free cigarettes and WWII veterans were addicted. We admired those guys so we "bought" packs of cigarettes, leaving a quarter on the counter at Frankie's gas station and hustling away with a pack of Winstons or Kools or Old Golds. Off to the old road on the south end of town to indulge in this forbidden "pleasure", coming home smoky. One buddy's father encouraged him to try a cigar and had him smoke it in the tiny bathroom - he quickly turning multiple shades of green.
Playgrounds. Guys liked to prove their strength by slinging swings over the 15 ft high swing set, wrapping the chains around and around the cross frame. Problem was, someone then had to shinny up the side braces and straddle the top to unwind them. Not I. The teeter-totter straddled a steel bar that of course required the application of a tongue in the dead of winter to 'see what would happen'. And except for the ball field, that was about it for playground equipment.
Climbing trees and fire escapes, clamoring up on roofs, jumping off onto snow banks. Why are so many of my vivid memories associated with heights?
Not self inflicted but perhaps one of the more dangerous hazaards of my childhood - each year the city contracted to 'spray for mosquitos'. Trucks would go up and down each street spraying DDT into the trees and grass, kids tagging along behind.
But, I'm still here, decades later. I'd really be interested in hearing some of your "dangerous lives" childhood stories. Add some examples in the comments.
Copyright © 2022 Dave Hoplin
