Gardenlover
The world needs more love
We wore out the tires on our bikes as kids.
Forgotten pastimes
- Thread starter Fyrefox
- Start date
Gardenlover
The world needs more love
As a kid I enjoyed going to the scary movies like Dracula, etc.
Gardenlover
The world needs more love
Racing HO Slot cars and playing board games. Although I think board games on the way back.
CrackerJack
UK England
I remember boys playing in the gutter with their precious marbles and those big alleygobs. Cant picture kids doing that now and in our streets as they are
CrackerJack
UK England
Conquers for the boys.
Play ground games for girls was He, Off Ground Touch, Skipping, Statues. Five Stones
Play ground games for girls was He, Off Ground Touch, Skipping, Statues. Five Stones
RadishRose
SF VIP
- Location
- Connecticut, USA
I remember frying the clear "cat's eye" marbles in a pan on the stove until they all cracked inside. I thought they were so beautiful. I was careful not to let them go too far.
CrackerJack
UK England
I forgot Hopscotch and Kiss Chase at my school and I was about 12 and had a crush on a boy who I thought was drop-dead gorgeous and I didnt exist..
RadishRose
SF VIP
- Location
- Connecticut, USA
Yes, the street lights... but we could still hang out in the yard.
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Gardenlover
The world needs more love
I remember playing baseball, hockey and American football in the street. Kid's would get ran over now-a-days.
Gardenlover
The world needs more love
Hide & Seek at night was the best, trying to hide with your neighborhood crush.
Gardenlover
The world needs more love
I always lusted after the Cat's Eye shooter marbles.
CinnamonSugar
A Quiet American
I posted this on my FB timeline in April 2019 in Lexington KY :
After a stormy night, we are having a very blustery day. Watched three neighborhood children outside the front window: having commandeered a flat bed sheet, two held the front corners while the third (on roller skates) held on to the "tail". As the wind filled the sheet, the two at the head took turns racing up the sidewalk, pulling the third in the wake of the billowing material. Hair flying, cheeks pink, faces bright with exhilaration. Lovely to see kids outside, using their imagination and getting some exercise
After a stormy night, we are having a very blustery day. Watched three neighborhood children outside the front window: having commandeered a flat bed sheet, two held the front corners while the third (on roller skates) held on to the "tail". As the wind filled the sheet, the two at the head took turns racing up the sidewalk, pulling the third in the wake of the billowing material. Hair flying, cheeks pink, faces bright with exhilaration. Lovely to see kids outside, using their imagination and getting some exercise
This is quite lengthy
but the subject of this thread, and some great recalls of folks, evokes a copy from a thread of mine
Vivid memories;
Kids of the Hill
We moved
When I was about 10, we sold the place and moved down the road a bit.
It was at least close enough to town to be able to ride my bike to the hardware store and replenish my stock pile of BBs, and there were more kids, kids a couple three years older than me, kids that had a bit more savvy about important things, things like guns, cigarettes, and wimin.
Man we terrorized that little neighborhood.
There was only six of us, but seems it was more like twenty at times.
Life was pretty good.
We commandeered a little lean-to shed across the gravel road from our house, and there we’d meet, sharin’ whatever we brought. Actually, I couldn’t wait to wake up every summer morning…and sometimes I didn’t.
Both folks worked, and my sister was supposed watch me, so there were long stretches of times, times we just stayed out. If I scheduled things just right, I could technically have just been company droppin’ by.
Then things got different.
I was makin’ a rare appearance at home….hunger, and noticed Mom’s car was in the drive.
Then Dad’s car pulled up.
I was fiddlin’ with some meat and bread when Dad came in the door.
He smiled, looked around, then just busted out bawlin’.
My mind did a little WTF? As I’d never seen him cry before.
Grampa had died.
Well Geez, he’d been wasting away in the nursing home for months…no surprise. But seems that was my Dad’s only link to some sorta ethereal security.
Next thing I know, a few weeks later he’s goin’ off on how this orphan kid was such a great little guy.
So here comes this kid.
Dad shows him around, then he’s gone.
Dad was like that. Not around much. It worked for me, but now this damn kid. Nice kid to boot.
A little too nice. Like the replacement kid on Lassie.
Yeah, the first kid, Jeff, was great, then they replaced him with a kid appropriately named Timmy. Then the show went south, all sappy and effed up. But, right here most of you readers are going ‘What?’
So this kid is my shadow, Dad’s fair haired boy, and I’m guessin’ I’m his guardian.
One of the things us neighborhood kids loved to do was play king of the trees.
Douglas fir trees are plentiful in NW Oregon, and huge. They can reach 300 ft in height, and these were not the exception.
Three or four of us would pick our tree and race each other to the top. Whoever would first get to the point of being able to bend the top over and touch the tip was king. The best part, however, was not being king, but just camping there in the limbs, letting the wind blow us back and forth.
Folks woulda crapped their pants if they’d known what we were doin’.
Well, little Brady (my personal Timmy) wanted to climb.
I became a bit evil right there, and cautioned him that climbing those trees were not the same as yer everyday apple tree…but in the tone of lure and enticement.
The little guy was doin’ quite well, as doug fir limbs are rather close together…hell you could almost walk up them. Then he musta made a misstep. I heard some yelling, and some thumping sounds. Then I caught sight of him flopping from one bough to the next.
Kathumping all the way to the bottom.
Seemed like he took forever.
Thing is, there’s about 20 feet of no limbs at the bottom, and he was in no way gonna grab wunna those boards we used to start our climbs. So he landed in a little Timmy heap, on his shoulder, in the bed of fir needles.
For another evil moment I sat at my treetop, kinda hoping he’d not move, at all, ever.
But the little [censored] just got a dislocated shoulder and some bruises….and a new guardian.
Things sometimes just have a way of workin’ themselves out.
Bart
I was ten or eleven.
Bart was eleven or twelve…or thirteen.
Same grade, but held back a year.
He wasn’t dumb, just a tad distracted when it came to book learnin’.
And he had a stutter.
He was 6 foot 3 inches in the fifth grade.
He wasn’t one of us tree climbers, but boy could he mechanic.
His place was up at the end of the gravel road, and literally filled with junk. At least half a dozen old cars, and scads of parts all strewn throughout the front and back yard.
It was heaven.
So, yeah, Bart didn’t do most things the rest of us did, but he was one of us.
One time we’d all ran out of BBs at the same time. So we went on the hunt for the perfect pebbles.
Once we each had about a dozen of them, we decided to play ‘who’s the man’.
This time Andy was to come up with the rite of passage.
His gem constituted in getting shot in the [censored] with a BB.
If you took it like a man, well, you were a man.
It was Bart’s turn to take it like a man, and mine to administer the pebble.
I gave my air gun a few extra pumps, and placed the roundest pebble I had in the tube.
‘OK Bart, bend over.’
Bart had these bib overalls, and they were a bit tight on him.
Up to this time, all our loose denim pants had absorbed the shots.
But when Bart bent over, his pants became quite taut, straining threads, you could bounce a quarter.
I considered the angle….
PAP!
Bart didn’t yell out, but as he turned toward me, I noticed his huge face had become rather crimson, and his eyes were on fire.
Right then I decided someone was callin’ me for supper, so I took off on the dead run.
Bart, like a bear, took after me…I could hear him right behind me, huffing and puffing, cursing me and stuttering things about my lineage……’y-y-you, g-g-g-goddamn son of a b-b-b-[censored]’, which made me laugh so damn hard I could hardly keep ahead.
Ever do something wrong, or dastardly, and break into a run, laughin’ yer [censored] off?
I headed thru the barn, around the corner, and up to the house.
Bart waited for me in our front yard til way after dark.
But the most remarkable thing I remember about Bart was his swing.
Just a simple rope hung from a beam between two huge fir trees.
We built a platform.
We swung way out over a deep ravine, and back to the platform.
Then we put our heads together and figured we’d rake in vast amounts of money by charging admission to our ‘swing of death’.
We made a huge sign.
EXPERIENCE THE SWING OF DEATH!
TWO SWINGS FOR ONLY 25 CENTS
Only thing is, Bart lived at the end of the road, so the only potential customer would be Mr Harlon.
It was my first lesson in business.
Anyway, we got bored with the swing of death, and decided a taller platform…..the swing of the afterlife, was needed.
Bart, since it was his place, was first.
What we hadn’t considered was the wear of the rope on the beam.
Bart did his customary salutation ‘G-G-G-Geronimo-o-o-o’, and off and away he went….only he didn’t make the return trip.
In an elongated flash of a second or two, Bart remained suspended, twirling to face me, the rope descending into a heap on his shoulders.
His open mouth and furrowed brow held the expression of bewilderment and fear. Then he twirled toward oblivion, floating down the ravine.
The last thing I saw was the little knot between his ankles still clutching the rope, while he filled the ravine with stuttering cries of anguish……sh-sh-sh-shiiiiiiiiiiit.
The blackberry patch was his salvation, sorta.
but the subject of this thread, and some great recalls of folks, evokes a copy from a thread of mine
Vivid memories;
Kids of the Hill
We moved
When I was about 10, we sold the place and moved down the road a bit.
It was at least close enough to town to be able to ride my bike to the hardware store and replenish my stock pile of BBs, and there were more kids, kids a couple three years older than me, kids that had a bit more savvy about important things, things like guns, cigarettes, and wimin.
Man we terrorized that little neighborhood.
There was only six of us, but seems it was more like twenty at times.
Life was pretty good.
We commandeered a little lean-to shed across the gravel road from our house, and there we’d meet, sharin’ whatever we brought. Actually, I couldn’t wait to wake up every summer morning…and sometimes I didn’t.
Both folks worked, and my sister was supposed watch me, so there were long stretches of times, times we just stayed out. If I scheduled things just right, I could technically have just been company droppin’ by.
Then things got different.
I was makin’ a rare appearance at home….hunger, and noticed Mom’s car was in the drive.
Then Dad’s car pulled up.
I was fiddlin’ with some meat and bread when Dad came in the door.
He smiled, looked around, then just busted out bawlin’.
My mind did a little WTF? As I’d never seen him cry before.
Grampa had died.
Well Geez, he’d been wasting away in the nursing home for months…no surprise. But seems that was my Dad’s only link to some sorta ethereal security.
Next thing I know, a few weeks later he’s goin’ off on how this orphan kid was such a great little guy.
So here comes this kid.
Dad shows him around, then he’s gone.
Dad was like that. Not around much. It worked for me, but now this damn kid. Nice kid to boot.
A little too nice. Like the replacement kid on Lassie.
Yeah, the first kid, Jeff, was great, then they replaced him with a kid appropriately named Timmy. Then the show went south, all sappy and effed up. But, right here most of you readers are going ‘What?’
So this kid is my shadow, Dad’s fair haired boy, and I’m guessin’ I’m his guardian.
One of the things us neighborhood kids loved to do was play king of the trees.
Douglas fir trees are plentiful in NW Oregon, and huge. They can reach 300 ft in height, and these were not the exception.
Three or four of us would pick our tree and race each other to the top. Whoever would first get to the point of being able to bend the top over and touch the tip was king. The best part, however, was not being king, but just camping there in the limbs, letting the wind blow us back and forth.
Folks woulda crapped their pants if they’d known what we were doin’.
Well, little Brady (my personal Timmy) wanted to climb.
I became a bit evil right there, and cautioned him that climbing those trees were not the same as yer everyday apple tree…but in the tone of lure and enticement.
The little guy was doin’ quite well, as doug fir limbs are rather close together…hell you could almost walk up them. Then he musta made a misstep. I heard some yelling, and some thumping sounds. Then I caught sight of him flopping from one bough to the next.
Kathumping all the way to the bottom.
Seemed like he took forever.
Thing is, there’s about 20 feet of no limbs at the bottom, and he was in no way gonna grab wunna those boards we used to start our climbs. So he landed in a little Timmy heap, on his shoulder, in the bed of fir needles.
For another evil moment I sat at my treetop, kinda hoping he’d not move, at all, ever.
But the little [censored] just got a dislocated shoulder and some bruises….and a new guardian.
Things sometimes just have a way of workin’ themselves out.
Bart
I was ten or eleven.
Bart was eleven or twelve…or thirteen.
Same grade, but held back a year.
He wasn’t dumb, just a tad distracted when it came to book learnin’.
And he had a stutter.
He was 6 foot 3 inches in the fifth grade.
He wasn’t one of us tree climbers, but boy could he mechanic.
His place was up at the end of the gravel road, and literally filled with junk. At least half a dozen old cars, and scads of parts all strewn throughout the front and back yard.
It was heaven.
So, yeah, Bart didn’t do most things the rest of us did, but he was one of us.
One time we’d all ran out of BBs at the same time. So we went on the hunt for the perfect pebbles.
Once we each had about a dozen of them, we decided to play ‘who’s the man’.
This time Andy was to come up with the rite of passage.
His gem constituted in getting shot in the [censored] with a BB.
If you took it like a man, well, you were a man.
It was Bart’s turn to take it like a man, and mine to administer the pebble.
I gave my air gun a few extra pumps, and placed the roundest pebble I had in the tube.
‘OK Bart, bend over.’
Bart had these bib overalls, and they were a bit tight on him.
Up to this time, all our loose denim pants had absorbed the shots.
But when Bart bent over, his pants became quite taut, straining threads, you could bounce a quarter.
I considered the angle….
PAP!
Bart didn’t yell out, but as he turned toward me, I noticed his huge face had become rather crimson, and his eyes were on fire.
Right then I decided someone was callin’ me for supper, so I took off on the dead run.
Bart, like a bear, took after me…I could hear him right behind me, huffing and puffing, cursing me and stuttering things about my lineage……’y-y-you, g-g-g-goddamn son of a b-b-b-[censored]’, which made me laugh so damn hard I could hardly keep ahead.
Ever do something wrong, or dastardly, and break into a run, laughin’ yer [censored] off?
I headed thru the barn, around the corner, and up to the house.
Bart waited for me in our front yard til way after dark.
But the most remarkable thing I remember about Bart was his swing.
Just a simple rope hung from a beam between two huge fir trees.
We built a platform.
We swung way out over a deep ravine, and back to the platform.
Then we put our heads together and figured we’d rake in vast amounts of money by charging admission to our ‘swing of death’.
We made a huge sign.
EXPERIENCE THE SWING OF DEATH!
TWO SWINGS FOR ONLY 25 CENTS
Only thing is, Bart lived at the end of the road, so the only potential customer would be Mr Harlon.
It was my first lesson in business.
Anyway, we got bored with the swing of death, and decided a taller platform…..the swing of the afterlife, was needed.
Bart, since it was his place, was first.
What we hadn’t considered was the wear of the rope on the beam.
Bart did his customary salutation ‘G-G-G-Geronimo-o-o-o’, and off and away he went….only he didn’t make the return trip.
In an elongated flash of a second or two, Bart remained suspended, twirling to face me, the rope descending into a heap on his shoulders.
His open mouth and furrowed brow held the expression of bewilderment and fear. Then he twirled toward oblivion, floating down the ravine.
The last thing I saw was the little knot between his ankles still clutching the rope, while he filled the ravine with stuttering cries of anguish……sh-sh-sh-shiiiiiiiiiiit.
The blackberry patch was his salvation, sorta.
continued;
Andy
Andy was the neighborhood tough guy.
He didn’t brag about it, or even use it to his advantage.
But we all knew, even Bart.
Andy was the eldest of our little gang, and the strongest.
I guess he was around fourteen when I was ten, and he became my mentor.
He kinda took the place of Mickey Mantle, who had taken Joe Louis’s place, who had taken Dad’s place, even though I wasn’t really conscious of having idols. Guess every kid has one.
Andy was kinda hard to look at, and had a huge gut with a gigantic belly button that eternally hung out from under his sweatshirt. It rivaled the Skocjan caves.
Fascinating.
He even let me go spelunking into it with my finger after catching me sneaking a look.
‘Care to explore?’ said the hand formed belly button lips.
Never found the end.
Kinda scared me. Thought it’d eat my whole arm.
I did yield some warm lint, however.
But he had a friendly countenance about him that reminded me of a happy frog, or Brian Keith, and he loved a good joke or prank.
I remember once he squeezed the [censored] outta my dog’s paw, and my ol’ dog just sat there.
‘Go ahead, try it. Dogs have no feelings in their paws.’
So I reefed down on Tag’s paw.
That was the 2nd time my own dog bit me.
I learned a little sumpm about being playfully sadistic that day, and that you could look like you were doin’ sumpm even though it wasn’t really happnin’.
A day or so later, my sister was mysteriously bitten the same way (heh, heh).
Andy had the coolest bedroom, filled with stuff, and he even had his own gun cabinet…with shotguns, and a Winchester 30/30. Man I loved lookin’ at that carbine.
He’d taken a shine to me, and showed me his crystal set.
If we tuned it right, we could pick up Russia (in our imagination).
So, after picking up Russia, and listening to things like ‘Этот борщ - все, что мы собираемся есть сегодня вечером?’ for 10-15 minutes, we moved on to things like his pen collection. Two coffee cans and three cigar boxes filled with pens of all shapes and sizes. His collection was massive compared to my weeny oatmeal can half filled with dripping fountain pens.
Andy had a way about him that made you want whatever he had.
Whatever it was, he’d build it up in a way that made it superior. Not in a way like bragging, but sorta matter of fact statements.
He had this ol’ beat up BB gun. It was a veteran of many a war, and he’d painted it red.
I knew my gun was better, and Eddie’s was better, but Andy touted that piece of [censored] in such a way that made you envious.
‘Yeah, it’s got a 22 spring in it for extra distance.’
‘Really? Wow!’
I learned that he genrly did this right before a trade.
Eddie learned this too, and after trading, discovered the non-existence of a ’22 spring’.
I lived about 500 yards up the hill from Andy, but it didn’t stop him from stringin’ two way radio line, thru the trees, into both our bedrooms.
Every night he’d call me, and we’d talk mostly about how neat it was to have a two way radio in our bedrooms.
Chhhhhhht, ‘this is so cool’
Chhhhhhht, ‘it sure is’
Chhhhhhht, ‘whataya doi…chhhht now?’
Chhhhhhht, ‘what?’
Chhhhhhht, ‘see ya tomor……chhhhhhhhhht’
I met up with Andy several years later.
He’d slimmed down, and got all handsome on me.
He was the head mechanic at a huge food processing plant in Portland.
Still had really cool stuff in his den.
His woman was rather gaunt and all skinny.
Couldn’t find a curve on her, but yet looked rather fetching, and fit well on his Harley.
I learned not long ago that he was eaten up with cancer all thru his body.
I s’pose I should have visited him, but couldn’t.
He was my idol, and he knew it.
He wouldn’t have wanted me to see him like that.
Chhhhhhhht, ‘See ya tomorrow Andy’
Andy
Andy was the neighborhood tough guy.
He didn’t brag about it, or even use it to his advantage.
But we all knew, even Bart.
Andy was the eldest of our little gang, and the strongest.
I guess he was around fourteen when I was ten, and he became my mentor.
He kinda took the place of Mickey Mantle, who had taken Joe Louis’s place, who had taken Dad’s place, even though I wasn’t really conscious of having idols. Guess every kid has one.
Andy was kinda hard to look at, and had a huge gut with a gigantic belly button that eternally hung out from under his sweatshirt. It rivaled the Skocjan caves.
Fascinating.
He even let me go spelunking into it with my finger after catching me sneaking a look.
‘Care to explore?’ said the hand formed belly button lips.
Never found the end.
Kinda scared me. Thought it’d eat my whole arm.
I did yield some warm lint, however.
But he had a friendly countenance about him that reminded me of a happy frog, or Brian Keith, and he loved a good joke or prank.
I remember once he squeezed the [censored] outta my dog’s paw, and my ol’ dog just sat there.
‘Go ahead, try it. Dogs have no feelings in their paws.’
So I reefed down on Tag’s paw.
That was the 2nd time my own dog bit me.
I learned a little sumpm about being playfully sadistic that day, and that you could look like you were doin’ sumpm even though it wasn’t really happnin’.
A day or so later, my sister was mysteriously bitten the same way (heh, heh).
Andy had the coolest bedroom, filled with stuff, and he even had his own gun cabinet…with shotguns, and a Winchester 30/30. Man I loved lookin’ at that carbine.
He’d taken a shine to me, and showed me his crystal set.
If we tuned it right, we could pick up Russia (in our imagination).
So, after picking up Russia, and listening to things like ‘Этот борщ - все, что мы собираемся есть сегодня вечером?’ for 10-15 minutes, we moved on to things like his pen collection. Two coffee cans and three cigar boxes filled with pens of all shapes and sizes. His collection was massive compared to my weeny oatmeal can half filled with dripping fountain pens.
Andy had a way about him that made you want whatever he had.
Whatever it was, he’d build it up in a way that made it superior. Not in a way like bragging, but sorta matter of fact statements.
He had this ol’ beat up BB gun. It was a veteran of many a war, and he’d painted it red.
I knew my gun was better, and Eddie’s was better, but Andy touted that piece of [censored] in such a way that made you envious.
‘Yeah, it’s got a 22 spring in it for extra distance.’
‘Really? Wow!’
I learned that he genrly did this right before a trade.
Eddie learned this too, and after trading, discovered the non-existence of a ’22 spring’.
I lived about 500 yards up the hill from Andy, but it didn’t stop him from stringin’ two way radio line, thru the trees, into both our bedrooms.
Every night he’d call me, and we’d talk mostly about how neat it was to have a two way radio in our bedrooms.
Chhhhhhht, ‘this is so cool’
Chhhhhhht, ‘it sure is’
Chhhhhhht, ‘whataya doi…chhhht now?’
Chhhhhhht, ‘what?’
Chhhhhhht, ‘see ya tomor……chhhhhhhhhht’
I met up with Andy several years later.
He’d slimmed down, and got all handsome on me.
He was the head mechanic at a huge food processing plant in Portland.
Still had really cool stuff in his den.
His woman was rather gaunt and all skinny.
Couldn’t find a curve on her, but yet looked rather fetching, and fit well on his Harley.
I learned not long ago that he was eaten up with cancer all thru his body.
I s’pose I should have visited him, but couldn’t.
He was my idol, and he knew it.
He wouldn’t have wanted me to see him like that.
Chhhhhhhht, ‘See ya tomorrow Andy’
continued (told you it was lengthy)
IKE
The Eisner’s place was at the bottom of the hill.
Ike was the runt of our little mob. Thus he did some suffering….nature’s process of natural selection.
The Eisners were a tidy bunch. Mrs Eisner kept Ike in new clothes. He always looked like he’d just stepped outta the Wards catalogue.
There was no man around the house.
Mrs Eisner was quite fetching, a bit thin, but quite fetching indeed. She kept herself up, and I gotta hand it to her, maintained things pretty darn well. Remarkably, those were the days before mandated child support.
However, they all seemed to be missing a screw to their well oiled machine.
Ike’s sisters were prime examples.
Seems like they were about 13 and 15 and had been around, having the minds of 47 year old hookers.
Ike was their experimentation lab.
Andy was practice.
I was a curiosity.
Bart was their personal ‘Lennie Small’.
Eddie stayed home.
Brad damn near lived at the Eisner’s place…Brad liked to narrate his experiences…I took notes.
Ike was pretty much our gofer.
One summer day we were just sittin’ behind Andy’s place, considering tossing Ike down the hill again, when Andy developed the brilliant idea of gathering up some junk and setting it all on the blind corner of the paved road below.
A broken bat, a rusted wagon, some leaf springs and other junk, in a wash tub, set smack dab in the road, by Ike.
‘Ike won’t get in trouble as much as we will, since they already know us (the fire cracker incident, the beehive fiasco, and a few other things that enabled us to see the inside of the police station).
First car.
The guy just stopped, took the wagon, and kicked the tub off the road.
Ike set it back out.
Second car.
An ol’ gal got out, looked up the hill, right into the brush we were hiding in and yammered in her high pitched ol’ lady voice ‘I see you boys. I’m going to turn you in. Get down here right now and clean this up.’
Then she sped off, leaving the tub in the middle of the road.
It began to dawn on us that maybe this wasn’t one of our brightest of ideas when car number three, an ol’ pickup, came whippin’ by. Only he didn’t stop. Not right away anyway. Seems the handle of the wash tub hooked onto the undercarriage of his truck, and made quite a gawdawful racket for about a hundred yards, just clangin’ and bangin’ down the road.
I think the ol’ guy thought he’d lost his differential, ‘cause he seemed quite relieved to find that ol’ tub…as he unhooked it, threw it into the truck and sped off.
Another inventive event for us to laugh our asses off, and celebrate by tossing Ike down the hill.
One rainy fall day Bart and I were goofing around with the mud bank at the bottom of the road.
Bart had these huge, man sized high top leather boot shoes, of which he was quite proud of being able to stand in a mud puddle and not get his gargantuan feet wet.
‘See that? M-M-M-M-Mink oil.’
‘Huh.’
Andy came out and suggested we build a dam, and make a lake. Eddie, Ike, and Brad appeared.
Soon we had six shovels and two wheel barrows employed.
We learned about the dos and don’ts of dam building in short order.
A sheet of ply would be our water gate.
The lake got to be about three and a half feet deep once we built the side gates for overflow.
The red clay bank we were excavating developed a huge gap in it.
Next, the dazzling idea of flooding the road when cars came.
CAR!!!
Andy and Bart lifted the sheet of ply. There was a rush of muddy water.
Something the dimension of a mid-sized dog went whooshing onto the road.
It was Ike!!
The car came close, r-e-a-l close to Ike’s head.
The driver didn’t see a thing, just kept goin’.
Andy and I picked up little Ike, squeezed out his shirt and cap, and commenced to shake him, scolding him for being on the wrong side of the dam at such a critical moment.
He loved the attention, smiling his happy dog Ike smile, then giggling his little Ike [censored] off.
In spite of everything we and his sisters put him through, he maintained a pretty happy heart, and kept a kind of innocence about him.
He was beyond likable.
None of us would say it, but we all loved the little guy.
And even though he was our projectile alotta times, if anyone out of our realm gave him grief, we'd all take turns beatin' the [censored] outta that person.....no matter how big she was.
Years later, I heard he’d become a structural engineer.
I’d like to think we had an influence on him that rainy fall day.
Last I heard, he was in Honduras, improving some villages in the outback, rerouting waters of floodplains, and teaching building techniques, but that was long ago now.
His frustration was the unions wouldn’t let him get his hands dirty with anything more than a pencil.
The lad had a remarkable resilience about him in mind and spirit. I’d like to think he’s doin’ well……hell, I may search him out on face book or something, since a lot of folk have died off, and the web is so damn handy these days….’course then I’d have to join face book….last time I did that, I learned I had more than 10,000 friends I didn’t even know. ‘sides, I’m not sure of his first name….but then, right now I’m not sure of my own first name…..
Naw, I’d rather just think my thoughts. Gettin’ tired of learnin’ how folks are ending up….but then learning of yer enemies taking a dirt nap is rather uplifting at times.
Brad
Brad lived down the paved road about a mile toward town, so when he appeared he made it count.
He was closer to Andy’s age, so they’d pal around quite a bit.
He was bigger than me, and always challenged me, right up to the time I lost it and beat the daylights outta him with a baseball bat.
I remember his incredulous look of terror and surprise. He never really stopped challenging me, but his taunts had lost a ton of sincerity after that.
Andy always got a kick out of it all, and looked on with great interest as to how things would play out between me and Brad, or me and Eddie, or me and Bart…never stepping in, but quite interested….guess alpha members of a pack like to keep score for future reference….
Brad’s mom was a nervous sort, not hard to look at, but nuthin’ memorable either, just his mom.
She too was divorced, but kept a tidy place.
Thinking about it, all the single moms in that area kept a damn tight ship. Maybe they channelled all that pent up nervousness toward dusting and mopping.
Thinking about it some more, all the households that had neat, well maintained places either was kept up by a single mom, or kept up by a married mom that might as well have been single….
On the flip side, there was the Hansens.
Seems they would get it on as regular as breakfast lunch and dinner, not counting the afternooner, and the night cap, and the morning paper……..
Bart’s mom must have been well tapped too, as she wasn’t the neatest of housekeepers…but always had a smile on her face and always hummed a happy little song.
Our place was kept up, but not as fastidious as those single moms, so I guess things were OK with mom and dad.
When Brad came around, things happened.
Not the best things, but really fun things.
He’d joined our BB gun wars a few times, but he was one to always want something more.
One afternoon we were contemplating what we could do with Ike when Brad thought shooting at the passing cars on the road below would perk things up.
It did.
Our marksmanship was lacking, as most our shots just pinged off fenders and bumpers and the back of an occasional window, but this one time Andy’s shot rang true. Right at the back of this passenger’s gigantic ear.
It was an amazing spectacle to watch take place.
Pap
Whap!
‘AAAAAAH, MY EAR! A BEE STUNG MY GODDAMN EAR!’
He commenced fanning is skunk cabbage sized ear like it was on fire, and I gotta say it wasn’t that great of a shot, ‘cause that gentleman’s humongous ear was a huge target, flappin’ in the wind at 40 mph.
The car came to a screeching halt and he hopped out, dancin’ around batting at the side of his head.
Well, one of his gargantuan ears musta picked up on our rolling on the ground laughter, as he looked right in our direction and started cussing us up and down.
We just flipped him off and invited him up for a chat.
Within 30-40 minutes the town cruiser came barrelling up the road.
We started passing the football around in Andy’s yard, and when they pulled up, we became sincerely helpful as to ‘keep a lookout for those hooligans for sure, officer.’
Brad was a rather intense fellow.
If he wanted something, it consumed him.
He wanted a model car of mine.
Andy watched with great interest as Brad hauled out prized possession after prized possession to trade, riding his bike back and forth from his house, a mile away.
I feigned interest, then backed off.
The lad was beside himself.
Finally I ended up with three of his model cars, two model planes and three tubes of BBs.
It taught me an early lesson in supply and demand.
The thing I remember most about Brad was he was the one that explained things to me about the opposite sex, in great graphic detail.
So, at the ripe ol’ age of 11, I had all the mechanics down, to a tee.
A couple years later in health class, I’d be the first to raise my hand and answer any question, and even offered other facts for extra credit.
I was rather proud of that.
Funny, nobody really cared for Brad.
He could come or go, it didn’t matter.
He wasn’t dislikeable, just a bit over the top.
IKE
The Eisner’s place was at the bottom of the hill.
Ike was the runt of our little mob. Thus he did some suffering….nature’s process of natural selection.
The Eisners were a tidy bunch. Mrs Eisner kept Ike in new clothes. He always looked like he’d just stepped outta the Wards catalogue.
There was no man around the house.
Mrs Eisner was quite fetching, a bit thin, but quite fetching indeed. She kept herself up, and I gotta hand it to her, maintained things pretty darn well. Remarkably, those were the days before mandated child support.
However, they all seemed to be missing a screw to their well oiled machine.
Ike’s sisters were prime examples.
Seems like they were about 13 and 15 and had been around, having the minds of 47 year old hookers.
Ike was their experimentation lab.
Andy was practice.
I was a curiosity.
Bart was their personal ‘Lennie Small’.
Eddie stayed home.
Brad damn near lived at the Eisner’s place…Brad liked to narrate his experiences…I took notes.
Ike was pretty much our gofer.
One summer day we were just sittin’ behind Andy’s place, considering tossing Ike down the hill again, when Andy developed the brilliant idea of gathering up some junk and setting it all on the blind corner of the paved road below.
A broken bat, a rusted wagon, some leaf springs and other junk, in a wash tub, set smack dab in the road, by Ike.
‘Ike won’t get in trouble as much as we will, since they already know us (the fire cracker incident, the beehive fiasco, and a few other things that enabled us to see the inside of the police station).
First car.
The guy just stopped, took the wagon, and kicked the tub off the road.
Ike set it back out.
Second car.
An ol’ gal got out, looked up the hill, right into the brush we were hiding in and yammered in her high pitched ol’ lady voice ‘I see you boys. I’m going to turn you in. Get down here right now and clean this up.’
Then she sped off, leaving the tub in the middle of the road.
It began to dawn on us that maybe this wasn’t one of our brightest of ideas when car number three, an ol’ pickup, came whippin’ by. Only he didn’t stop. Not right away anyway. Seems the handle of the wash tub hooked onto the undercarriage of his truck, and made quite a gawdawful racket for about a hundred yards, just clangin’ and bangin’ down the road.
I think the ol’ guy thought he’d lost his differential, ‘cause he seemed quite relieved to find that ol’ tub…as he unhooked it, threw it into the truck and sped off.
Another inventive event for us to laugh our asses off, and celebrate by tossing Ike down the hill.
One rainy fall day Bart and I were goofing around with the mud bank at the bottom of the road.
Bart had these huge, man sized high top leather boot shoes, of which he was quite proud of being able to stand in a mud puddle and not get his gargantuan feet wet.
‘See that? M-M-M-M-Mink oil.’
‘Huh.’
Andy came out and suggested we build a dam, and make a lake. Eddie, Ike, and Brad appeared.
Soon we had six shovels and two wheel barrows employed.
We learned about the dos and don’ts of dam building in short order.
A sheet of ply would be our water gate.
The lake got to be about three and a half feet deep once we built the side gates for overflow.
The red clay bank we were excavating developed a huge gap in it.
Next, the dazzling idea of flooding the road when cars came.
CAR!!!
Andy and Bart lifted the sheet of ply. There was a rush of muddy water.
Something the dimension of a mid-sized dog went whooshing onto the road.
It was Ike!!
The car came close, r-e-a-l close to Ike’s head.
The driver didn’t see a thing, just kept goin’.
Andy and I picked up little Ike, squeezed out his shirt and cap, and commenced to shake him, scolding him for being on the wrong side of the dam at such a critical moment.
He loved the attention, smiling his happy dog Ike smile, then giggling his little Ike [censored] off.
In spite of everything we and his sisters put him through, he maintained a pretty happy heart, and kept a kind of innocence about him.
He was beyond likable.
None of us would say it, but we all loved the little guy.
And even though he was our projectile alotta times, if anyone out of our realm gave him grief, we'd all take turns beatin' the [censored] outta that person.....no matter how big she was.
Years later, I heard he’d become a structural engineer.
I’d like to think we had an influence on him that rainy fall day.
Last I heard, he was in Honduras, improving some villages in the outback, rerouting waters of floodplains, and teaching building techniques, but that was long ago now.
His frustration was the unions wouldn’t let him get his hands dirty with anything more than a pencil.
The lad had a remarkable resilience about him in mind and spirit. I’d like to think he’s doin’ well……hell, I may search him out on face book or something, since a lot of folk have died off, and the web is so damn handy these days….’course then I’d have to join face book….last time I did that, I learned I had more than 10,000 friends I didn’t even know. ‘sides, I’m not sure of his first name….but then, right now I’m not sure of my own first name…..
Naw, I’d rather just think my thoughts. Gettin’ tired of learnin’ how folks are ending up….but then learning of yer enemies taking a dirt nap is rather uplifting at times.
Brad
Brad lived down the paved road about a mile toward town, so when he appeared he made it count.
He was closer to Andy’s age, so they’d pal around quite a bit.
He was bigger than me, and always challenged me, right up to the time I lost it and beat the daylights outta him with a baseball bat.
I remember his incredulous look of terror and surprise. He never really stopped challenging me, but his taunts had lost a ton of sincerity after that.
Andy always got a kick out of it all, and looked on with great interest as to how things would play out between me and Brad, or me and Eddie, or me and Bart…never stepping in, but quite interested….guess alpha members of a pack like to keep score for future reference….
Brad’s mom was a nervous sort, not hard to look at, but nuthin’ memorable either, just his mom.
She too was divorced, but kept a tidy place.
Thinking about it, all the single moms in that area kept a damn tight ship. Maybe they channelled all that pent up nervousness toward dusting and mopping.
Thinking about it some more, all the households that had neat, well maintained places either was kept up by a single mom, or kept up by a married mom that might as well have been single….
On the flip side, there was the Hansens.
Seems they would get it on as regular as breakfast lunch and dinner, not counting the afternooner, and the night cap, and the morning paper……..
Bart’s mom must have been well tapped too, as she wasn’t the neatest of housekeepers…but always had a smile on her face and always hummed a happy little song.
Our place was kept up, but not as fastidious as those single moms, so I guess things were OK with mom and dad.
When Brad came around, things happened.
Not the best things, but really fun things.
He’d joined our BB gun wars a few times, but he was one to always want something more.
One afternoon we were contemplating what we could do with Ike when Brad thought shooting at the passing cars on the road below would perk things up.
It did.
Our marksmanship was lacking, as most our shots just pinged off fenders and bumpers and the back of an occasional window, but this one time Andy’s shot rang true. Right at the back of this passenger’s gigantic ear.
It was an amazing spectacle to watch take place.
Pap
Whap!
‘AAAAAAH, MY EAR! A BEE STUNG MY GODDAMN EAR!’
He commenced fanning is skunk cabbage sized ear like it was on fire, and I gotta say it wasn’t that great of a shot, ‘cause that gentleman’s humongous ear was a huge target, flappin’ in the wind at 40 mph.
The car came to a screeching halt and he hopped out, dancin’ around batting at the side of his head.
Well, one of his gargantuan ears musta picked up on our rolling on the ground laughter, as he looked right in our direction and started cussing us up and down.
We just flipped him off and invited him up for a chat.
Within 30-40 minutes the town cruiser came barrelling up the road.
We started passing the football around in Andy’s yard, and when they pulled up, we became sincerely helpful as to ‘keep a lookout for those hooligans for sure, officer.’
Brad was a rather intense fellow.
If he wanted something, it consumed him.
He wanted a model car of mine.
Andy watched with great interest as Brad hauled out prized possession after prized possession to trade, riding his bike back and forth from his house, a mile away.
I feigned interest, then backed off.
The lad was beside himself.
Finally I ended up with three of his model cars, two model planes and three tubes of BBs.
It taught me an early lesson in supply and demand.
The thing I remember most about Brad was he was the one that explained things to me about the opposite sex, in great graphic detail.
So, at the ripe ol’ age of 11, I had all the mechanics down, to a tee.
A couple years later in health class, I’d be the first to raise my hand and answer any question, and even offered other facts for extra credit.
I was rather proud of that.
Funny, nobody really cared for Brad.
He could come or go, it didn’t matter.
He wasn’t dislikeable, just a bit over the top.
continued (last one)
Eddie
Eddie was a year or two older than me, and seemed to have a one-up-man-ship problem with most of us.
And if we ever got the best of him, he’d just end up saying ‘What’s the point?’
He had really curly hair, and was actually pretty cool.
He was the city kid of our gang of six.
Never wore anything that looked worn, or even had any dirt on his ‘dungarees’ as his mom would say.
I remember the first time I heard her call Levi’s ‘dungarees’. It became my ammo.
‘Hey Eddie. Better not climb that tree and soil yer dungarees.’
Everyone chimed in…’Dungarees???!!’
Yeah, she was Mrs Cleaver incarnate.
A neat lady though, and they had wunna those places that was always kept tidy, not antiseptic tidy, but warm tidy. Made ya jus’ wanna sit in the living room and take it all in. An old cuckoo clock, drapes with silk liners, doilies on the couch and chairs, handsomely framed pictures of folks, richly colored rugs on dark stained shiny hardwood floors.
Now my mom kept a clean house, but, try as she might, just didn’t have the knack in interior decor.
If I rated our place, it was somewhere between Eddie’s place and Bart’s place. Then there was the Hansens. Only, when Mrs Hansen opened the door, it kinda took yer breath away, and in the summer could actually bring tears to yer eyes…more about the Hansens later.
As far as Eddie’s place, I always felt like I should maybe take my shoes off when I stepped inside, only my socks were well into their 2nd week of a possible three week tour, and would’ve caused his mom to scurry for the aerosol can and hose down the area I occupied. As a matter of fact, I preferred to just stay outside until Eddie got refitted with his afternoon outfit, all color coordinated and pressed.
I remember getting a glimpse of his socks. They matched his shirt! I thought, ‘dang, that’s pretty cool’, and logged it for my teen years.
He was the first to introduce Converse Chuck Taylor Allstars, and The Three Stooges, and playing army, so he had a purpose and heavily contributed to our rag tag outfit.
As a matter of fact, he was the instigator of our BB gun wars.
One time I’d accidently shot Eddie in the neck and the BB had stuck under the skin.
When his mom called him in for lunch and saw that little spot, she ‘bout came unglued.
She called us all in, and gave us the shoot yer eye out sermon. I had the brilliant idea of explaining that we knew about the dangers of head shots, and just aimed at each other’s balls, and if Eddie hadn’t been all bent over takin’ a [censored] in the Hansen’s yard, well we wouldn’t be havin’ this conversation.
Eddie never got to bring out his gun after that, and his visits became limited, and timed.
Funny, a few years ago I was on a ladder starting a first course of shingles. My Lady was holding the ladder, gingerly poking me in the hind end (helping) when she noticed a bump on my calf. She commenced to fiddle with that bump and remarked that something was rolling around inside it. I handed her my knife and she cut out a rather gnarly BB.
Eddie loved playing army, and always had an invisible machine gun, making machine gun and hand grenade sounds, blowing things up, like the family sedan, or the Hansens.
Years later Andy updated me on him and a couple others.
Eddie did three hitches in nam, then came home and became an armoured car guard, then a private detective.
His shiny pate had taken the place of his curls, and he developed a huge beer gut, just like the one he always kidded Andy about.
Andy had met up with him in a bar. Eddie was wearing a wrinkled suit, tie undone, lookin’ pretty darn frumpled and raggedy.
Funny how things kinda turn on ya.
A decade or so ago I heard about his heart failure. Never made it to the funeral.
What’s the point?
Eddie
Eddie was a year or two older than me, and seemed to have a one-up-man-ship problem with most of us.
And if we ever got the best of him, he’d just end up saying ‘What’s the point?’
He had really curly hair, and was actually pretty cool.
He was the city kid of our gang of six.
Never wore anything that looked worn, or even had any dirt on his ‘dungarees’ as his mom would say.
I remember the first time I heard her call Levi’s ‘dungarees’. It became my ammo.
‘Hey Eddie. Better not climb that tree and soil yer dungarees.’
Everyone chimed in…’Dungarees???!!’
Yeah, she was Mrs Cleaver incarnate.
A neat lady though, and they had wunna those places that was always kept tidy, not antiseptic tidy, but warm tidy. Made ya jus’ wanna sit in the living room and take it all in. An old cuckoo clock, drapes with silk liners, doilies on the couch and chairs, handsomely framed pictures of folks, richly colored rugs on dark stained shiny hardwood floors.
Now my mom kept a clean house, but, try as she might, just didn’t have the knack in interior decor.
If I rated our place, it was somewhere between Eddie’s place and Bart’s place. Then there was the Hansens. Only, when Mrs Hansen opened the door, it kinda took yer breath away, and in the summer could actually bring tears to yer eyes…more about the Hansens later.
As far as Eddie’s place, I always felt like I should maybe take my shoes off when I stepped inside, only my socks were well into their 2nd week of a possible three week tour, and would’ve caused his mom to scurry for the aerosol can and hose down the area I occupied. As a matter of fact, I preferred to just stay outside until Eddie got refitted with his afternoon outfit, all color coordinated and pressed.
I remember getting a glimpse of his socks. They matched his shirt! I thought, ‘dang, that’s pretty cool’, and logged it for my teen years.
He was the first to introduce Converse Chuck Taylor Allstars, and The Three Stooges, and playing army, so he had a purpose and heavily contributed to our rag tag outfit.
As a matter of fact, he was the instigator of our BB gun wars.
One time I’d accidently shot Eddie in the neck and the BB had stuck under the skin.
When his mom called him in for lunch and saw that little spot, she ‘bout came unglued.
She called us all in, and gave us the shoot yer eye out sermon. I had the brilliant idea of explaining that we knew about the dangers of head shots, and just aimed at each other’s balls, and if Eddie hadn’t been all bent over takin’ a [censored] in the Hansen’s yard, well we wouldn’t be havin’ this conversation.
Eddie never got to bring out his gun after that, and his visits became limited, and timed.
Funny, a few years ago I was on a ladder starting a first course of shingles. My Lady was holding the ladder, gingerly poking me in the hind end (helping) when she noticed a bump on my calf. She commenced to fiddle with that bump and remarked that something was rolling around inside it. I handed her my knife and she cut out a rather gnarly BB.
Eddie loved playing army, and always had an invisible machine gun, making machine gun and hand grenade sounds, blowing things up, like the family sedan, or the Hansens.
Years later Andy updated me on him and a couple others.
Eddie did three hitches in nam, then came home and became an armoured car guard, then a private detective.
His shiny pate had taken the place of his curls, and he developed a huge beer gut, just like the one he always kidded Andy about.
Andy had met up with him in a bar. Eddie was wearing a wrinkled suit, tie undone, lookin’ pretty darn frumpled and raggedy.
Funny how things kinda turn on ya.
A decade or so ago I heard about his heart failure. Never made it to the funeral.
What’s the point?
fuzzybuddy
SF VIP
- Location
- The Sticks, Northeast PA.
I don't know what you called it, but girls did this. They had folded paper in their fingers. They asked your birthday, then chanted this count down, And ta da, it told you who was going to marry you. They spent hours moving their fingers and getting results from it. All I wanted to do was ride my bike. But girls were always into this marrying stuff. Girls. Jeesh!!!
CrackerJack
UK England
Thought of a game kids played at kids parties: Murder In The Dark. Several children would hide indoors somewhere and one would have to search for them in the dark....cupboards, under the stairs, anywhere out of sight. There was no violence and why it got it's name I have no idea but it was such fun.
I remember playing Catch Me if You Can in the school playground and about six or more kids and one would be the Chaser. We'd choose by saying:
Dip Dip Dip My Little Ship, Sailing On The Water Like A Cup And Saucer...you are not IT. The one who ended up as IT would be the Chaser.
I remember playing Catch Me if You Can in the school playground and about six or more kids and one would be the Chaser. We'd choose by saying:
Dip Dip Dip My Little Ship, Sailing On The Water Like A Cup And Saucer...you are not IT. The one who ended up as IT would be the Chaser.
One time, the boys let me play, and I won all their best marbles
That was also the last time they invited me to join them.
Sassycakes
SF VIP
- Location
- Pennsylvania
I think my 2 favorite games I played growing up would be played a lot different today. I loved playing "Jail Break" and "Suicide Hill".
In jail break the girls would hid and what ever boy found them got to kiss them. Or if the boys hid the girl who found them was allowed to kiss them. One of the boys who played would always whisper to me where he would hide and ask me where I was going to hide when it was the girls turn.
Suicide hill was fun the boys would ride their bike and the girls would sit on the Handle bars. We would ride to a hill near us the girls would get off the bike and the boys would race down the hill. The boy that won the race got to kiss the girl who had ridden on their handle bars.
I guess that means I enjoyed kissing boys !
In jail break the girls would hid and what ever boy found them got to kiss them. Or if the boys hid the girl who found them was allowed to kiss them. One of the boys who played would always whisper to me where he would hide and ask me where I was going to hide when it was the girls turn.
Suicide hill was fun the boys would ride their bike and the girls would sit on the Handle bars. We would ride to a hill near us the girls would get off the bike and the boys would race down the hill. The boy that won the race got to kiss the girl who had ridden on their handle bars.
I guess that means I enjoyed kissing boys !
RadishRose
SF VIP
- Location
- Connecticut, USA
What a lovely scene!
RadishRose
SF VIP
- Location
- Connecticut, USA
Gee @Gary O' what stories you can write! They just captured me. Little boys really are icky, just like I'd suspected, LOL. No.. I loved your little gangstas! Thank you for taking the time to give us all these gems.
