The Town and Me November 1st, 2023

 11/1/23 ano 4

Autumn is a time for remembering

Memories

The Town and Me,

It was a huge blessing to have lived my childhood when I did and where I did.  It wasn’t a case of “white privilege” or wealth or special schools, or anything like that.  I, like a young seedling that, by chance, germinated in just the right soil, at just the right time, and received just the right amount of sun and rain, got off to the best possible start to life a person could hope to have.  Was it perfect?  Far from it, I still wince at some memories of that time and place.

I think the move in the mid ‘50s, from the southside of Chicago to a small town in north central Indiana a few years after I was critically burned played a major role in salvaging my mental health from the trauma I had experienced.  The towns, hamlets and farmsteads were islands surrounded by cultivated fields and woodlands, and yet-to-be drained wetlands.  Back then you didn’t travel as much , at least compared to today, so in a sense you were an “islander”.  I think if you looked down from a plane, the towns and farmsteads would look very much like a picture of the Greater Polynesian Archipelago with its necklace of islands scattered in a sea of green, as far as the eye can see.

I don’t know if it was the norm or not, but I remember from a very young age, being able to roam freely almost anywhere within the town limits.  As I remember, the only stipulation was, I would give mom my day's itinerary, whether I’d be home for lunch or had accepted a lunch invite from a friend,  yes, I would get the day's chores done, and yes, I would be home for supper.  This routine was adjusted for the seasons and the school year and family activities of course. I don’t know if that was the norm or not back then.  Nowadays, it seems more commonly found in feral kids, than the general population.  

To be able at such a young age, “to roam” all over town, as compared to being limited to say, an asphalt playground surrounded by chain link fencing or limited to a stockade fenced-in backyard, was a blessing I never appreciated until how I see many kids being raised today.  Childhood is when you define what  horizon means to you.  Horizon is where your sun meets your earth, but includes the great, upside-down bowl, of the celestial sphere best seen on moonless nights.  As a little kid I thought our town was probably as large as present day Indianapolis.  And to be turned loose and told to “go outside and play” was to feed and nourish a sense of positive curiosity that has stayed with me all my life.  I remember as a young kid, silently climbing out my  bedroom window with my pillow and a blanket  and laying out on the back porch roof, just staring at the night sky.  As your eyes got used to the dark, more and more stars became visible until the sky was ablaze with sparkling diamonds. I remember trying to comprehend what God’s plan was that needed so many stars?  Which star did he live on? Did he live in heaven or did he just work there?  To this day, to suggest we  “go exploring”, is to quicken my pulse, set my mind racing to what we could carry for lunch and whether to stick to the streets or the alleys.

Were my parents negligent in essentially allowing almost a free-range play area for such  a young kid?  I don’t think so, the circumstances were different back then and it’s not like I was all over town while still wearing diapers.  I’m speculating here, but I think I was put into an environment  that was a perfect fit for what needed to heal from the burn trauma; A quiet small town, not a lot of activity, no jostling, almost no sirens.  Large play area,  friendly neighborhoods…What’s not to like?

For me, looking at family photos and remembering memories I have shared with no one, I realized the reason the fit was so good was because I felt safe and I was allowed to extend my boundaries at my own pace by slowly adding friends to my friends list, visiting Main St stores and interacting with their owners/customers. I could interact and engage as much or as little as I desired.  Big, terrible, evil events just didn’t happen in small towns back then.  Saturday night bar fights yes, neighbors domestic violence, yes. Fatal car crashes, industrial fatalities, yes. But they were few and far between.  What was going on in the outside world was distant and felt as if you were given measured doses.  I don’t know if today’s kids ever have a chance to spend time in an environment that presents no obvious threats, where no random act of violence seems to occur.

I know my depiction of that era is silent on real evils that did occur.  The point I’m making is they didn’t seep into my little world.  I’m not going to tell you how old I was before I knew what rape was (you would laugh), or exactly how an egg got itself fertilized (snicker), or that there was more than a binary choice of how you could view yourself, or saw my  first porn movie, or that going into your school and shooting random classmates was one way of expressing your rage.  Starting life out on an island much of the world is ignorant of or doesn't know exists, or has little interaction with, is not all bad.  Every islander eventually owns a boat and the call of the horizon is hard to ignore, nor should it be. Still, it is my humble opinion, small islands for small children is a good thing.

bobb