Carefree Days

I grew up in a area that is now just another suburb, but when I was young it was much more like a small rural town. We were surrounded by hay fields, cows and horses. This provided for endless days of exploring and adventure. There was a corner of a field that became our own fields of dreams. We all learned to hit, catch and throw during these day long baseball games. The only real problem was that this was a cow pasture, so ground balls would take bounces that were hard to predict. More than once a bad bounce hit someone in the nose. Looking back I am amazed at the patience of the farmer. He never said a word about us using his field. He just seemed to leave this corner to us. Football in the street was also a common occurrence. We had a couple of mail boxes that noted the goal lines. Traffic was light on our dead end street, so the call of "car" didn't have to be made often.

Our bicycles provided a sense of freedom and speed that is hard to even describe. I remember "time trials" when we would see how fast we could ride our bikes around the block. What we called going around the block was a round trip of about 2 miles. We created bike jumps with any scrap lumber we could find. Most of the scars on my body came from meeting the road after a sweet jump.

The biggest day in our little town was the fourth of July. The parade always started at noon. A carnival at the park all day, with fireworks at dusk. I remember one year we were watching the fireworks when a thunderstorm came through. The lighting stole the show, it got more ooohs and ahhhs than the fireworks.

Even though we live only a short distance from where I grew up, my kids did not have the same freedom that I had. I often felt sorry that they did not have the same experience. I hoped that we still gave them the carefree days of childhood that all children should have.