| 08/08/09 12:01 AM |
#3049
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Suellen Etzcorn (Foster)
Steph - I laughed my ass off (wishful thinking!) while reading your blog on kids now vs then. Man, when ya put it all together like that, it really is a lot of change! For the better? Some yes... some no. Wonder if our parents ever used to think of the disadvantages they had compared to us... and time marches on!
Brucie - talking about your homegrown "rockets" made me think of our hill on Phillip Road, which was dirt at one time, and seemed very, very BIG when we weren't so big. Some of us neighbors had VERY PRIMITIVE homemade soapbox derby's made from scrap mower and bike parts and pieces. I remember my dad made our derby so it was really cool compared to some of the others that the kids put together with no adult help - God love ya, dad! We would have a kid at the top of the hill whose job it was to lookout for cars and then we'd race those derby's down that hill and drag em back up the hill to do all over again. Hour after hour during the summer, that was our entertainment all summer long! Man, that was fun and scary and I'm surprized there weren't more of us taken to the hospital with broken bones and gaping wounds!
Phillip Road was the greatest place to grow up! There were only about a dozen houses out there and most had kids around my age. The Houseman's and the Chapman's were among them. There were no big, fancy houses or neighborhoods north of us to the river on Phillip Road like there is now. There was no Beechwood development off Platt St. for a long time. Only woods, a dump that was very popular with the neighbor kids and a pretty high hill that was half gone leaving a good size drop off and exposing sassafras roots that smelled like rootbeer! If one did continue down Phillip Road to the river they would only find Morris Farms, and an occasional house or farmhouse that typically neeeded repair badly. The roads were all dirt. In the winter, my dad would pull us on a sled down those country roads at night in a Jeep Wrangler after a good snow! I remember how scary it was when we went past a farmhouse with a dog that would chase us! You talk about hangin' on for dear life! Mom, who came along for the laughs, always had hot chocolate in a big thermos to help warm us as a sibling took their turn on the sled.
On Phillip Road we had concord grapes that grew thick and hung from many trees since the neighborhood used to be a vineyard. In the spring we hunted mushrooms in the woods and in the early summer we could pick and eat all the wild strawberries we wanted. We played in the woods, and the creeks and the pastures. We rode our bikes everywhere including an occasional trip downtown to the YMCA or Andy's to look at crafts and models. The bike trip always seemed like a "million" miles away and was a really hard uphill journey back on Platt Street because it was ALL UP HILL.
We built huts and forts and tree houses and slept in tents under the stars. We played endless hours of soft ball, red rover and hide and seek. We had picnics and birthday parties in our back yards with neighbors, cupcakes, koolaid and homemade gifts. We performed as the Beatles on the front porch with guitars made out of old badmittens while wearing our white turtlenecks and black stretch pants, "yea.. yea... yea!"
We would spend our entire summer, without leaving, on Phillip Road having a blast with our extended families and only complaining when we were ocassionally forced to clean our bedrooms or do some other mindless household chore, instead of grabbing a sack lunch and heading out with the gang until we heard the familar "dinner bell" at 5:15 p.m. reminding us that supper was ready because dad was home from French Paper Co. and hungry! I don't think we ever ate dinner without the entire family sitting down together, no TV, no interuptions, just the family. Mom would yell at the neighborhood kids if they came up on the porch before we were done with dinner. She was very protective of that dinner hour!
After dinner were the "family" softball games that our neighborhood became quite famous for. Kids from all over the Phillip Road area came for these games and a lot of the parents participated as well. We would only go home when the sun was setting and the skeeters came out. That's when we'd get our evening treat if all went well, usually a black cow, or a rootbeer float or on a special occasion, a trip to the Dog-n-Suds for a frosted mug of root beer in the back seat of the stationwagon!
Our day ended when we got cleaned up, turned on the window fans and crawled into bed. I'm sure it never took long to fall asleep to the sound of crickets and frogs and mom and dad's 'only' TV in the basement.
And that was my summer life until I learned how to drive. Man... I miss that simplicity! If only it could be bottled and preserved.
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