GOOD-OLE-DAYS

This morning a group of us were talking about the good-ole-days. In most cases that term is questionable, but, but it worked today — childhood memories — especially those of our neighborhoods.

Most had neighbors, but a few lived in the country, but we shared a few common experiences. It seems kick-the-can was a favorite game. Warm summer nights with fireflies blinking the light of their existence and parents often sitting on the swing on their front porches sipping whatever cool refreshment fit their life styles was prime time for that and hide-go-seek.

In my neighborhood the middle of the street was home to the can. The grade school basketball court was the starting place for the counter. It was surprising how many-played kick-the-can in the street. What, where there no cars? Maybe not! The horses avoided you.

Laughter was a common element as was stealing fruit from neighbor’s yards. I guess as nice as we want people to believe we are, we were really a bunch of little thieves. Apples were at the top of the steal list. Most are from Washington (or should I say Warshington like so many locals). My parents always said Warshington. It was so bad that when I learned to spell the word I wondered why there was no “R”. I should have known there would not be an “R” since there wasn’t one in “Warshing Machine.”

Strawberries were a big second. No one stole my dad’s strawberries, not even me. That would have been a dangerous undertaking. In my neighborhood we were always trying to get Mrs. Shindorf’s cherries. Sadly the tree was in the middle of the yard along the school fence which was twelve feet high, or maybe even as high as the sky — who knows. When Mrs. Shindorf caught us she never ever came outside and yelled or chased us away or seemed to do anything. We found out about it when we got home. She simply called our parents and let them punish us. I would rather she just yelled at us.

No one played war games, but we did play white hat and black hat guys. Good guys and bad guys and sometime cowboys and Indians. It is no wonder “A Christmas Story” is one of the favorite Christmas stories of our generation. Who didn’t want a Red Rider BB gun and all our mothers told us no because we would shoot our eye out. My younger brother still has a scar between his eyes were a neighbor almost shot Dean’s eye out. Talk about panic. It happened in the alley behind our house. He got in a fight with a neighbor boy and the kid hauled off and shot his BB gun from his waist and dented his head good.

We had not got BB guns yet and because of t hat, never did. Our lives were ruined.

“Out Gang” films were popular in TV and we all had clubs. Most excluded girls. The farm ones seemed more inclusive. Fewer kids, I guess. No one can remember trying to put on shows and few could remember what was the point of the clubs. Most had a president. I have no idea who was the club leader in my area, but the neighbor leader for trouble was always Bobby Cummings. He did his dead level best to teach us all to be little thugs. Bobby was considered to be the most likely to be incarcerated for life, but the rest of up were just too frightened of getting caught and going to jail. We had Boys Town at the edge of Omaha and we all knew that bad boys ended up there. We didn’t know what happened there or ever know, at the time, that there was no fence around the place. No wonder Mickey Rooney kept running away.

So why do some of the bad things we do slip into conversations about the good-ole-days? Jail doesn’t sound like it would have been fun. Of course, we were invincible back then. Only now do we know what idiots we really were.