Yesterday, my brother and I, grown-ups both, spent a few minutes of our Fourth of July chortling in the kitchen (away from Nana's ears) about the great traditional tie between our national birthday, and doing goofy, unsafe stuff.
When we were in grade school, the two "big kids" on the street would sidle away from the eyes of parents and light off fireworks, recruiting us as the audience (they were smart enough to not to give them to little kids to hold, except sparklers). There was the fountain firework, which was pretty, and the cherry bombs, which they dropped in the sewer and made a giddy bang (probably would not make the DPW or the taxpayers happy, either) , and the wonderful time we donated a toy Fischer Price Little People School Bus to the cause and they rolled it down the street exploding with fireworks and flames! I hope we took the little peg-headed passengers out first.
And my brother, since he was younger when us older kids went off to college, got the chance later to tag along with some cousins and uncles up at a lake in New Hampshire who would float out onto said lake in canoes, possibly fueled by beer, and light off their works from the canoes! Because that was stupider, and therefore, more fun!
I mean, that was stuff we weren't officially supposed to be doing! But there was SO much stuff we were let to do, which now has been relegated to the category of unsafe. Even though everyone knows our Mom was "strict," and our Dad would (mostly) back her up and could yell really loud. Because these were all stuff that everybody did!
Walked to school, grownupless, so long as we "stayed with the other kids."
Roller-skated down steep hills, regaling each other with rumors of other kids who did same and knocked out their teeth. We hadn't met them, but so legend said, and it certainly added a frisson.
Played in nearby parks and yards, out of sight of mom, so long as we came when called/expected. Although, so many people knew each other in the neighborhood, you weren't long out of sight of somebody's mom.
Fought furious sword fights with sticks, golf clubs, rulers, trash can lids after seeing gladiator movies.
Rode in convertible cars with the top down. Dad loved that Ford Galaxie 500, which even SOUNDS like an awesomer car then "Civic," "Focus" and "Accord" (how come these all sound like medicine?)
Tagged after older neighbor kids when they played guitar or records, tanned, hung out by their cars, and other 70s stuff.
Biked without helmets, on city streets, to our friends' house (and I thought Mom was cautious cause she put a limit within a defined radius: NO FURTHER THAN THE PARISH HALL YOU GUYS).
Climbed trees, and neighbors' trees, and vacation house trees, even though my brother broke his foot once jumping from a high one.
Took the bus to the library, city pool, skating rink (with other kids, but without parents).
Even when fairly little, we were sometimes sent around the corner to to get milk or bread at Elmer's, the corner store (the first floor of an old house), run by a guy who was like Mister Hooper on Sesame Street. Well, he was old and ran a corner store, not so sweet though. But Bomb Pops! Marathon Bars! Chunky! (OMG this site is going to suck me in).
Pushed my baby brother in his stroller for walks around the neighborhood, by myself, age 8 . Hey, I was ASKED to do this! So my parents could have a few minutes, baby could get some fresh air, and I could learn that babies are fun and all, but hard work (well, that's what I learned from it, whether meant or no). This baby is now the adult man sharing a UFO with me in the kitchen.
By the time we were in middle school, we were allowed to walk a pretty fair distance, whether at home in the city, or on vacation, to ballfields for brothers' and cousins' games, to friends' houses, for ice cream, to get comic books or Italian ice and otherwise spend 50 cents.
Comic books. Yes. The Big Kids introduced us to the wonders of them but the first one I bought with my own spare change had Spider Man and some sort of freakish violent vigilante. Yep, this one. God, the 70s were messed up. NO I DON"T STILL HAVE IT. I was 8. I was incapable of preserving nice things.
Anyway, it was perfectly fine to walk to the store with a couple of kids and get an ice cream and a violent vigilante fantasy in brightly colored form. I mean, the big sin would have been to go anywhere without "saying," or to go somewhere other than where you said you'd be. Although, that . . . happened.
From junior high, age 13, onward, took a public bus, then switched to a train, to get to school downtown. The city didn't have school buses for the older grades in those days--they gave you a student T Pass and you made your own way by public transportation.
Went to adult parties where everyone smoked and drank (hi, family).
Had sleepovers at friends in which we managed to look at her older brothers' porn mags (reaction of basement full of 14 year old girls: ewwwww). Ok, that part only happened once. Usually we listed to ABBA a lot, and when we went home, all did our homework.
Babysat real lives babies, other people's babies (my brother didn't really count) on my own from age 13 on. Okay, that scares me a LITTLE that people left me with their babies when I was still that stupid. All though they all turned out fine, I got a lot of Latin homework done, and saw some really kickass episodes of original cast Saturday Night Live!
Because the truth is, we were pretty safe kids, after all. At least near home. Outside, it was a big scary world. The bloodshed of Vietnam, which my dad (a vet but one who read a lot of history) openly loathed, was still going on just as I was getting old enough to grasp some stuff. The draft, which caught up uncles and neighbors. The blowout from Watergate and Nixon resigning, which was something all my clan argued over, but made people feel pretty sick and distrustful. Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy who were on the wall of our Catholic school, and sounded pretty great, and the teachers explained, had been shot to death by bad men just a few years back.
A lot of stuff about divorce, drugs, nasty fights over race right here in our town, and so much more. Job losses, hitting close to home! Gas crisis! Inflation! Which, from the way grownups discussed it, I pictured like some sort of Doom Pump pumping bad air into the country until the whole thing would eventually blow. God, the 70s were messed up.
Maybe that's some good reasons to tolerate a certain amount of risk as kids grow. Not just because a lot of fun stuff is risky, but because you never can protect them the big world and from history that's always going on out there. We all have to find our footing, to get practice in making our way in it. We have to learn to live with both fun and fear, optimism and doubt, worry and glee.
Anyway, my brother let me know he let the kids hold some fireworks, over at the house of their uncle the police officer (an officer of public safety who still gets behind child-sparkler-holding)! But shh, don't tell Nana. There's still SOME stuff that's too scary.
