Go outside and play
Sep. 5th, 2005 04:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompsonI don't usually watch Sixty Minutes but Mom had it on last night when I went to visit, so we watched—because we both wanted to see Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans cuss out the president and the feds. He done a good job. We continued to watch. Something else I saw got me thinking of childhood—the freedom of my childhood versus the structured nature of so many current suburban childhoods.
The structure of my childhood consisted of only two things: school and freedom. We had long afternoons after school, the weekends, and those stretched-out, lovely summer days to play in. My time off was bracketed by two sentences: "Go outside and play" and "Get in here because your supper's getting cold!" Everything between was left to me, my friends, and our imaginations.
My Venice, California, neighborhood—Fourth Avenue between Rose and Sunset—had a line of houses across the street, but only a scattering of houses on my side of the street. The rest of the block consisted of Edgemar Dairy, which took up three-quarters of the Third Avenue side of the block, plus the first quarter of Fourth Avenue; the carpet cleaning plant behind the house of one of my friends; and the field. This field was a huge vacant lot where four houses used to stand, two deep, two across, long ago in the mists of neighborhood myth before I was born. Later, it got even bigger when the dairy bought up the house rented by the family of my friend, Socorro, evicted them, and tore those houses down. We also played around the tall hedges surrounding Sunset Elementary School, catty-corners from our block. Even though the school was not part of the block and technically not part of the game, we were all in attendance, so it became part of our playground. Our parents would not allow us to stray beyond this outer boundary.
That was one of the few rules our parents laid down: do not go beyond the block, be home for supper, and don't go back out again after dark. Otherwise, we were free to roam the fields of our imaginations. When we got a little older and added bicycles to our arsenal, we went further afield. We were supposed to stick close to the neighborhood, but soon learned that no one really watched and if we wanted to ride down to Ocean Front Walk, about five blocks west of Fourth, then up and down the coast, nobody would stop us. Sometimes these bikes were horses, sometimes motorcyckes, sometimes fast cars or space ships, but they always carried us to the worlds we inhabited and back out again, safely home.
Except for that one time on a foggy winter day when we raced bikes through the empty parking lot beside Santa Monica Pier, weaving around the concrete abutments. I hit one, fell off, and smacked my head. The security guard came running out to ask if I was okay. Since I felt dizzy he called an ambulance. My mother liked to joke afterwards, "They x-rayed my kid's head and found nothing in it," but she royally chewed me out for that stunt.
It didn't stop us from wandering, though. The fields of imagination were too fertile, even in dead of winter.
We neighborhood kids spent our time playing Army, or Space Invaders, or (in those pre-PC times) Cowboys and Indians, amongst the tall, tall grass. In the middle of our field stood an incongruous patch of bamboo, which sometimes doubled as jungle habitat. The usual gang: Becky and Mary Lou, and their little brother Raymond; the brothers, Denny and Steve, who lived in front of the carpet cleaning plant, and me. We'd split up into two teams: Steve's team, which always included Mary Lou, since she was big and strong and tough, and like Steve a year older than me, and one of Steve's school buddies who inevitably came to play at his house; and my team, with little Raymond, two years younger than me, Becky, my age but small, and Denny, a year younger than me, very smart, but very geeky. Steve couldn't stand Denny and said that he would never be on the same team with a geeky cootie-monger.
One team, the Bad Guys (the Nazi Army, the Indians, or the Space Invaders, and at Steve and Mary Lou's insistence, almost always my team), stood around waiting to begin our search for the other team. The Good Guys (the US Army, the Cowboys, or the Defenders Against the Space Invaders) went off to hide. Then us Bad Guys hunted them, but also had to guard our rears against sneak attack. The object of the game was simple: kill each other off, one by one, or, with a well-placed dirt clod hand grenade, all at once.
We slithered through the long grass on our bellies or in a crouch, looking for the enemy, who sometimes built fortifications by pushing abandoned furniture or cardboard boxes in front of their position. Sometimes laid low, listening intently for our approach. The field smelled of squishy bugs, loamy earth, and green-growing things. In the dead of summer when the fields turned brittle gold, it smelled like barley ready for the harvest. The mourning doves cooed softly in the distance their mourning song which gave them their name; the finches and sparrows kept up a happy patter; the wind plied softly through the long grass, making it sound like softly falling rain. Once in a while, something small moved through the grass--a mouse, a lizard, a minute stirring of something never quite seen. To this day if I want to feel calm and center myself, I close my eyes and recapture those sounds.
When we happened upon one another, the carnage was awesome. Only some people who were clearly shot did not want to die and ran off again, followed by our shouts. "Steve! No fair!"
We'd track him down again, winding through the crumbling, splintered platforms of the carpet cleaning plant, or the rusted-corroded metal of the Dairy's loading platform, or very carefully through the prickly hedges round the school. And when everyone was tracked to earth, and all the Good Guys or all the Bad Guys lay dead upon the ground with their hands clasped over their hearts, we'd jump to our feet and start the game again until the sun went down or until we heard that mighty phrase, "Get in here because your supper's getting cold!"
The structure of my childhood consisted of only two things: school and freedom. We had long afternoons after school, the weekends, and those stretched-out, lovely summer days to play in. My time off was bracketed by two sentences: "Go outside and play" and "Get in here because your supper's getting cold!" Everything between was left to me, my friends, and our imaginations.
My Venice, California, neighborhood—Fourth Avenue between Rose and Sunset—had a line of houses across the street, but only a scattering of houses on my side of the street. The rest of the block consisted of Edgemar Dairy, which took up three-quarters of the Third Avenue side of the block, plus the first quarter of Fourth Avenue; the carpet cleaning plant behind the house of one of my friends; and the field. This field was a huge vacant lot where four houses used to stand, two deep, two across, long ago in the mists of neighborhood myth before I was born. Later, it got even bigger when the dairy bought up the house rented by the family of my friend, Socorro, evicted them, and tore those houses down. We also played around the tall hedges surrounding Sunset Elementary School, catty-corners from our block. Even though the school was not part of the block and technically not part of the game, we were all in attendance, so it became part of our playground. Our parents would not allow us to stray beyond this outer boundary.
That was one of the few rules our parents laid down: do not go beyond the block, be home for supper, and don't go back out again after dark. Otherwise, we were free to roam the fields of our imaginations. When we got a little older and added bicycles to our arsenal, we went further afield. We were supposed to stick close to the neighborhood, but soon learned that no one really watched and if we wanted to ride down to Ocean Front Walk, about five blocks west of Fourth, then up and down the coast, nobody would stop us. Sometimes these bikes were horses, sometimes motorcyckes, sometimes fast cars or space ships, but they always carried us to the worlds we inhabited and back out again, safely home.
Except for that one time on a foggy winter day when we raced bikes through the empty parking lot beside Santa Monica Pier, weaving around the concrete abutments. I hit one, fell off, and smacked my head. The security guard came running out to ask if I was okay. Since I felt dizzy he called an ambulance. My mother liked to joke afterwards, "They x-rayed my kid's head and found nothing in it," but she royally chewed me out for that stunt.
It didn't stop us from wandering, though. The fields of imagination were too fertile, even in dead of winter.
We neighborhood kids spent our time playing Army, or Space Invaders, or (in those pre-PC times) Cowboys and Indians, amongst the tall, tall grass. In the middle of our field stood an incongruous patch of bamboo, which sometimes doubled as jungle habitat. The usual gang: Becky and Mary Lou, and their little brother Raymond; the brothers, Denny and Steve, who lived in front of the carpet cleaning plant, and me. We'd split up into two teams: Steve's team, which always included Mary Lou, since she was big and strong and tough, and like Steve a year older than me, and one of Steve's school buddies who inevitably came to play at his house; and my team, with little Raymond, two years younger than me, Becky, my age but small, and Denny, a year younger than me, very smart, but very geeky. Steve couldn't stand Denny and said that he would never be on the same team with a geeky cootie-monger.
One team, the Bad Guys (the Nazi Army, the Indians, or the Space Invaders, and at Steve and Mary Lou's insistence, almost always my team), stood around waiting to begin our search for the other team. The Good Guys (the US Army, the Cowboys, or the Defenders Against the Space Invaders) went off to hide. Then us Bad Guys hunted them, but also had to guard our rears against sneak attack. The object of the game was simple: kill each other off, one by one, or, with a well-placed dirt clod hand grenade, all at once.
We slithered through the long grass on our bellies or in a crouch, looking for the enemy, who sometimes built fortifications by pushing abandoned furniture or cardboard boxes in front of their position. Sometimes laid low, listening intently for our approach. The field smelled of squishy bugs, loamy earth, and green-growing things. In the dead of summer when the fields turned brittle gold, it smelled like barley ready for the harvest. The mourning doves cooed softly in the distance their mourning song which gave them their name; the finches and sparrows kept up a happy patter; the wind plied softly through the long grass, making it sound like softly falling rain. Once in a while, something small moved through the grass--a mouse, a lizard, a minute stirring of something never quite seen. To this day if I want to feel calm and center myself, I close my eyes and recapture those sounds.
When we happened upon one another, the carnage was awesome. Only some people who were clearly shot did not want to die and ran off again, followed by our shouts. "Steve! No fair!"
We'd track him down again, winding through the crumbling, splintered platforms of the carpet cleaning plant, or the rusted-corroded metal of the Dairy's loading platform, or very carefully through the prickly hedges round the school. And when everyone was tracked to earth, and all the Good Guys or all the Bad Guys lay dead upon the ground with their hands clasped over their hearts, we'd jump to our feet and start the game again until the sun went down or until we heard that mighty phrase, "Get in here because your supper's getting cold!"
no subject
Date: 2005-09-05 05:03 pm (UTC)Imagination--roaming the streets--observing and pretending--the sounds, smells, sights, yes.
We didn't have any open spaces in our burb, but we loved the fencing and trees.
(And thank you for mentioning the Edgemar farms--that was one of our field trip sites, the other being the Helms bakery. I was trying to recall where the dairy was just a few days ago, I knew it was relatively close as the bus ride was not long. And memorable partly for the smell of the cows, but partly for the little ice cream snack at the end--that was some big stuff in our family, when ice cream was an extremely rare treat.)
no subject
Date: 2005-09-05 05:11 pm (UTC)Sounds like the same game, different name. And I remember those daredevil stunts. It's a wonder we survived. :-) But I guess the lesson is--we did.
(And thank you for mentioning the Edgemar farms
I lived near the bottling plant--no cows. I can't say where the farms were, but they may have been in all those farmlands opposite Hughes Aircraft, where Lopez Ranch was (until quite recently, actually). I'll ask the mom if she remembers.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-05 05:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-05 06:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-05 08:55 pm (UTC)Played plenty of suicide and stickball, though, so I guess that's something.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-06 10:46 am (UTC)