The way we were - meme
Monday, May 4, 2009 at 06:24AM Dear Grandson Paul,
When I was your age, I was a pioneer child on the prairie in the wilds of northwest Iowa. All 13 of my brothers, all 12 of my sisters, my mom and dad, two second cousins and I lived in the little log cabin that is still in the city park. There are now only me, your great-aunt Becky and great-uncle Jeff left of all my brothers and sisters. Two were carried away in a flood, four were adopted by wolves, a tornado carried away three, a band of robbers captured four, giant rattlesnakes scared away five, one went missing in a blizzard, a great golden eagle swooped down and flew off with one, and we think one just got left someplace and nobody remembers where. We are looking for some of my brothers and sisters to this day. It was a hard life when I was a little boy growing up on the prairie. Most parents always had a few extra children - just to have some spares. from The Grandpa Assignment
Been awhile since I've done a meme, but I was tagged by Mr. Wham down South who asked us to write about things we did as kids that are now "off-limits." I suspect it is a miracle any of us lived given the complete disregard our parents showed us ... (Just a joke, Mom.)
- Unsupervised play. Growing up a farm, we were pretty much turned loose in the morning and then simply expected to show up for meals. For me this meant riding my Coast King bike as fast and recklessly as possible (sans helmet, of course), riding my cousin's mean ponies, playing in the haymow often with pitchforks and corn knives, fishing and swimming in a near-by drainage ditch, shooting pigeons with any firearm that I could find, and sneaking off to read to avoid work whenever I could. The LWW and I often comment that while we know we have children living in our housing development, we rarely see them out and about. I don't know if it is due to video game addition or parental worries about safety, but to me our lakeside area would have been a dream environment as a kid and these kids are missing out.
- Hitchhiking. From about the age of 12 on through college, hitchhiking was a viable means of getting from one place to another. After getting kicked off the school bus for misbehavior (it was never m
y fault), I could often beat the bus home having hitchhiked a ride. It was satisfying waving at the bus driver as he stopped to let my sister off the bus. I suspect too many horror movies have sounded the death knell to this interesting and environmentally friendly means of transport. I wonder if there could be a security check and an "I am not a weirdo" card issued to make hitchhiking comeback? Oh, while the lifted skirt technique may have worked for Claudette, I never got any mileage from it. - Eating past the expiration date. We ate potato salad, even after it sat on the picnic table all afternoon. We ate apples right off the trees and rhubarb straight from the garden (licking the stalk and dipping it into to the pilfered sugar bowl before biting off each tart bite.) We drank coffee that was more milk and sugar than coffee, put sugar on our Sugar Smacks, drank whole milk, high fat ice cream and stuff cooked with lard and Crisco. But we also burned lots of calories (see #1).
- Riding in the back of the pickup. Like Mr. Wham, I remember riding in the ledge below the back car window, but our biggest thrill was riding in the back of farm pickup trucks (standing up in our Ben Hur mode); riding on a tractor's hitch, loader or fender; or on whatever contrivance was being pulled by said tractor (except manure spreaders). The higher the speed, the better. I do admire the bravery of children today who perform similar acts of daring-do on ATVs and snowmobiles.
We all worry a lot about kids safety today - especially online safety. And I suppose we should - natural selection is not exactly a kind science to apply to human beings, despite our guilty love of the Darwin Awards. But also wonder if we aren't growing a crop of hot house flowers - young adults who have not made enough mistakes and had sufficient close calls to have developed some survival techniques.
Sara Johns, Paul Cornier, and Rob Rubis - tag you're it.
Reader Comments (11)
Nice post. I could write a long essay about this but will say that the most important thing nwas the amazing freedom e had and the amount of time we spent outdoors -- wandering in the woods and on the shores of the bay, riding bikes from town to town, walking the railroad tracks, climbing the old rickety roller coaster in winter when the part was closed. I'vllhave to expand this one of these days! Do you know thew wonderful song by the wonderful Chery Wheeler that contains the line "Riding my bike, All over town"?
Hitchhiking ain't what it used to be. II picked up a hitchhiker two days ago. He was on his cell phone as I passed him by and slowed to a stop. I looked in my rear view mirror to see he was *still* on his cell phone walking backwards, with his back to me, unaware that I'd stopped. I was so put off by this I almost gassed it and took off again. I used to hitchhike all around the U.S. and I know the hitchhiker's etiquette: a car stops for you . . . you RUN to the car (no walking...). Show some enthusiasm . . . it's not a time to be cool and finish your phone call to your turtle dove. He wasn't a long-haired hippie (who would've known enough to run . . .) that I picked up. It was a short-haired Ping golf club salesman from Arizona who had run out of gas. That figures . . . a young guy who plays a sport thick with etiquette, doesn't know hitchhiking etiquette. Kids these days . . . sheesh.
Hitchhiking!!! Well, I've never BEEN a hitcher, but I always stop and pick them up. Old or young, man or woman, scary or clean cut. It drives Mama and The Reason I Get Up In The Morning to distraction, but they are the reason I do it, lol. I figure if one of them is walking, for whatever reason, I'd want someone to stop and help them.
I well remember unsupervised play. God, we used to roam creekbanks and millpond and backroads on foot and then on our dirt bikes. We just never thought about getting hurt, but it was a different time, I guess.
Thanks for playing along, Doug!!
I grew up in a town so small your parents found out about the bad things you did before you even did them! We too played in creeks, caught crawfish, and stayed out until dark. I am one of four boys, and we were not even allowed inside the house during the day from the month of May through September. I rode my bicycle five miles to one friend's house and three miles to another without even thinking about it. I also drank Kool Aid by the gallon, ate hot dogs five days a week for lunch, and swiped as many cookies as I could hold just about every day. Now I feel guilty when the PTA offers goodies in the lounge and I take just one... Sorry, I digress.
We would water-ski in a river barely 100 feet wide with logs everywhere, swim within feet of water moccasins, and jump off of cliffs that were 10, 30 and 50 feet high.
Oh, the good old days, where if you got a scrape on your elbow, mom did not apply more anibacterial stuff than a typical army field hospital stocks for a year...
Raod my bike for miles. Waded in the creek....to the storm drain culvert and then explored that! Put pennies on the railroad track. Played army. Used our imaginations for made up games. Used the same bath water as siblings and cousins. Used real tools for real purposes without supervision....great forts were built with kid power only! Etc.....
How about...
...drinking directly from the garden hose?
...eating raw cookie dough?
...not wearing a helmet when cycling?
BTW - my youngest daughter stubbed her toe two days ago, and spent most of yesterday afternoon riding her bike wearing flip flops. Go figure -
From one reckless farm boy to another it's great to have survived despite our antics. I just posted and thanks for the nod.
Making forts with blankets over the table; using cardboard boxes for any number of things, such as sliding down the hill with or without snow; riding the bike to the local library with my best friend, where we vowed to read EVERY book in the fiction section; playing kick the can in the street until it was too dark to see the can; and like yours, the family picnics where my mother made fried chicken (with Crisco) and potato salad, which sat out on the picnic table all day while we played and dashed back and forth for a morsel. Golly that sounds good. Who's bring the 'tater salad?
Thanks everyone for sharing their memories and to Mr. Wham for starting the meme.
Doug
A little late, but as a fellow farm-boy "north of 49", I did all of the above, and lots not mentioned, but probably shared by the writers above. How about;
- toboganning down a long sloping alluvial fan above the farmhouse - bounded by a barbed-wire fence at the bottom
- riding the haywagon down the self-same hill - with the towbar tongue flipped back to "steer"...
- playing Cowboys and Indians on bareback horseback - "shooting" each other with dirt clods from the roof of the root cellar. They made very satisfying explosive "puffs" of dirt, grit and such on contact. Eye protection? Ha!
Thans for passing this on.
Hi Rob,
I feel a little sorry for the kids today who won't have these experiences. We used to sled off the roof of our barn when the snow got high enough!
Great meeting with you and visiting your school last week. I sincerely appreciated the hospitality and directness of you and your staff.
My best to Ida as well.