While sorting through some old photos the other day, I stumbled upon a picture taken on my sixth birthday. There is a lawn party being thrown and my friends and I are decked out in our finest frocks. (They called them frocks back then). I recognize Marcy sitting on the lawn next to me, her dress as frilly as my own. Our hair done up in identical ringlets the result of sleeping the night before with uncomfortable curlers pinned to our hair. Our Mary Janes are sticking out underneath the multi-layers of chiffon and lace. Marcie and I go way back, best buds since second grade when John Sutton used to chase us all over the blacktop waving his retainer in the air. If he caught us, he would kiss us, then stick his retainer back in his mouth and go off and play stickball. EWWW! Did we really do that?
Back in the day, walking to school was safe. It was an event a group of us would gather each morning outside of one house and grouped together walk to school.
The only predators back then were the crows insulting us from the trees and the yappy small dogs who would charge fences if we came to close. Riding the bus was unheard of unless we were going on a field trip. School lunches were served hot every day-not the best food in the world but there was no fast foods on those trays. My favorite was taco day. The only Crack we had to worry about were the cracks in the sidewalk that we stepped over carefully (so not as to break our mother’s back).
Coming home, first on the list to do were chores, then homework. Then we had to set the table for dinner and wait for Daddy to get off work so we could eat together. After dinner, we would again gather and play a quick game of kick-the-can or hide-n-seek or statuemaker. We all knew we had to be home before the street lights came on.
How times have changed…
We didn’t call them frocks and most of my “bbq party” pictures have me and a bunch of my friends wearing jeans and t-shirts we still walked to school, did chores, ate dinner together and played until the street lights came on…and I remember the day it all changed. My younger brother and sister (8 and 9 years my junior) went trick or treating and some guy flashed my sister. There was no more t&t’ing by themselves after that. The following year another little girl (10, a year younger than my sister) was raped, that’s right raped, behind a garage while walking home from school. Really, the families used to beat the living daylights and put the fear of God into the pervs, but you couldn’t do that any more because “they have rights” and “a mental disease”. If any one had ever touched one of my girls they would have simply disappeared, rights be damned.