Childhood

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                                  Memories – Happy Ones – How Things Have Changed

 

Early Days

 

While the rest of the family worked or went to class, mom and I stayed home. I was not yet in school. From time to time, she gave me a bag, a small brown paper bag, and instructions to go to a repurposed house two blocks away. The bag had money in it and a note.

 

Mostly I saw no one, one block up and one to the left. In the house on the corner, the corner store, I reached up and placed the bag on the thick wooden counter too high for me to see over. A kind lady read the note, collected the items and put them in a bag along with change. After an uneventful walk home, I opened the unlocked back door, climbed the four stairs to the kitchen and handed the bag to mom.

 

For completing this solo venture, she said a simple thank you, no ‘good job’, and no reward, snack, or candy. Life went on. I thought nothing of it. It was just what boys my age did.

 

On the third of the well-used back stairs sat another note, more money and empty bottles. Later a clackety clack in the street announced a horse-drawn milk wagon which stopped outside. A neatly dressed milkman, yes, the notorious leading man of the old jokes, carried a metal container with bottles of milk to the house. Opening the back door without knocking, he exchanged the full bottles for the money and empties and left change.

 

The milk survived on the steps until mom put it into the icebox, a large metal cabinet that stayed cool by placing a block of ice into the top chamber. Periodically, a horse-drawn flatbed cart arrived carrying several large blocks of ice covered by a heavy canvas tarp. Mom chose the right sized block, wrapped it in a towel and quickly carried it to the house where she stuffed it into the chamber, sometimes needing to chip off excess to make it fit.

 

This, at the time, was modern life. Just the act of living demanded considerable time, work and a coordinated effort by the family. Though it feels like ancient history compared to our convenience obsessed lifestyle now, this was life just after the war lived by baby boomers who still walk among us.

 

Even with few conveniences, times were not considered hard, just normal. After all, society had come a long way with electricity, a wringer washer, a vacuum and a radio. What homes didn’t have were clothes dryers which came along some time later. Until then wet things dried on a clothesline in the back yard, summer and winter, and ironed later. Everything needed to be ironed. Movie images of children running between the sheets didn’t happen in winter when the sheets froze solid and dad’s stiff as a board work coveralls blown by the wind felt life threatening to a four year old.

 

On the bright side, no one bothered the little preschooler on his way to the store with money. No one robbed him of his treasures on the way home. With no concern about invasions or abductions people didn’t lock their doors. Neighbor kids never stole the milk money or the milk on the back steps. In fact, many homes had a small door about 18 inches square on the side of the house where the delivery man left the bottles. Inside the house a matching door opened to retrieve the milk without going outside. Milk could be delivered when no one was home.

 

On collection day, residents did nothing. A city worker picked up the metal garbage cans from behind the house, emptied them into the truck and returned them. And Bob’s your uncle as the Brits say. Note the lack of old jokes about garbage men and children of dubious lineage. Without house privileges they, apparently, missed out on this possible perk of the job. But if people are anything, they are resourceful.

 

Saturdays, dad shopped for groceries, except, around once a month or so, we all went downtown. Main Street supplied almost everything from Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes to housewares. But you had to be quick. Some stores only stayed open until noon on Saturday and closed on Sunday by law. Everyone, it was thought, needed one day a week for worship, family and some recreation, part of Victorian era thinking. This Victorian age, while mostly remembered for its restrictions, wasn’t all bad. In this case, the public’s well-being took priority over corporate profits. The fight for Sunday shopping, mostly pushed by large retailers, lasted years and changed the dynamics of society, a huge change. Convenience and profits took priority over personal growth and family values.

 

Most shopping trips mom picked up something at the fabric shop. Yards of cloth, thread, yarn and patterns, mothers saved money by sewing clothes for themselves and the children. Knitting socks, sweaters and home decorations was enjoyed like a hobby, at times with a group of friends.

 

Sometimes, while mom took us to the stores, dad met his friends from work for a cold one. At the time, drinking establishments had two separate rooms, ‘Men’ and ‘Ladies and Escorts’. Men could only go into the lady’s side accompanied by a woman and women not allowed in the men’s side at all. Another attempt to protect people from themselves, thank you Victoria. Since mom couldn’t go in, I did. I found dad, and quietly tugged at his pantleg to signal we were ready to go. It wasn’t polite to interrupt the conversation since, ‘children should be seen and not heard’, was a common belief.

 

After shopping, when finances allowed, we ate lunch at a downtown restaurant, a treat we all enjoyed. Mom needed a break from her near 24/7 at the house. And we all liked the people watching. Interesting etiquette at the time, along with the menus, everyone, even kids, got a glass of water as soon as they sat down. Every restaurant served organic, home cooked style meals because that’s all there was. Industrial farming and processed food hadn’t yet taken over the food and restaurant businesses.

 

Hamburgers with all the toppings cost 25 cents, nothing artificial added. This was also what my sister’s boyfriend paid for giving them some space when he visited. With this I walked a couple blocks to a ‘Happy Days’ style restaurant and enjoyed the best burgers ever, cause I had 25 cents. Without question or concern, the restaurant staff served this young child, who sometimes came in alone. Outside, mostly in the evening, hot rods, low riders, chopped and channeled heavily customized cars decorated the parking lot, the kind that are at car shows today.

 

On a normal day of a normal week, the fridge and cupboards had food it them. That’s all. Only on special holiday weekends did candies and treats appear. Snacks never made-up part of the daily menu. Kids drank milk, adults coffee. Only when guests requested it was pop served for dinner. One regrettable custom saw a plate piled high with white bread always on the table.

 

School Age Years

 

Starting as preteens my friends and I rode our bicycles to the lake about three miles away. With water safe to swim in, but no change rooms, washrooms or lifeguards (not recommended) we swam and played on the beach for an hour or two and made it home on time for dinner. No hassles, no weird men hung around or bullied. Children getting around on their own was common place. Part of this independence meant learning to avoided certain parts of town known for tough guys guarding against imagined dangers from strangers. Besides that, few rules restricted our excursions. We walked and rode our bikes everywhere and lived in the street a good part of the time, playing road hockey or football or just hanging out. When the swamp froze, we carried sticks and skates across the motorway and played on nature’s own hockey rink until our feet hurt from the cold. By spending lots of time outside, we got to know our neighbors who we all knew by name, first and last.

 

At nine, life expanded to included boy scouts once a week. The value of that cannot be overstated. Knowledge and skills learned there came in handy even years later. Camping and canoe trips still rank high as favourite childhood memories. All through the winter, a neighbour friend and I walked those twelve blocks to the meetings in the dark and no one thought anything of it. Later, on the way home, after saying goodnight to him and his family, I walked the last three blocks on my own.

 

With all this freedom none of the neighbor kids were harassed. None of them bothered the elders in the area, at least not on purpose except for the odd harmless prank. We were children. Of course, the house of the grumpy old guy next door just seemed to be a magnet for stray footballs and baseballs which was the only time we saw him, usually yelling. But he always threw the ball back or let us on the yard to get it. And once or twice a year, for national celebrations, fireworks became a necessity and sold to anyone at any age at the corner store. Mostly we liked the ones that went boom in the street and launched empty tin cans several feet into the air. It must have been a long-standing tradition because no one complained about the noise and there was lots of it. Some of these kids we knew until the end of high school when most of them scattered to parts unknown. Some are still friends.

 

No one threw rocks at factory windows, vandalized or swore at cops. Police didn’t interrupt street hockey or give kids a hard time. Parents and schools taught that the police were friends who could be trusted. And in this area, for all those years, none of them violated that trust.

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Fridays, dad came home late from work. Payday banks stayed open longer for workers to deposit their paycheques and withdraw money. Other days, banks closed at 3:00, known as bankers’ hours because they only suited bankers. Being the one and only time in a week that he could get his hands on cash, dad planned for all the things we needed, from groceries to gas, family expenses and special occasions. Possibly mom could have gone to the bank other days. She didn’t have a job, job. But for all those years there was no thought of her having signing rights for the money. At seven, dad drove me to the bank to open my first account. Such were the times. Mostly, men earned the money and handled the finances. Women managed the house and took care of the children. A plan that worked well until finances demanded two incomes.

 

Sometimes during the night, the wood and coal fire in the furnace went out leaving the house quite cool. Before going to work for 7:00 am, dad shoveled out the ashes, added fuel to the furnace and relit it so we had a warm house to wake up to. Without air conditioning, summer heat, sometimes going over 100F for days at a time, made sleep near impossible.

 

Every day mom prepared dinner which we ate together while talking to each other, with no TV or radio. An excellent cook, mom mostly followed old family recipes of meat, potatoes and a vegetable. That is except for the periodic store-bought spaghetti in a can, served for lunch. Even though us kids had never enjoyed a proper Italian meal by that point, we knew this couldn’t be how it was done. Thinking back, it feels like one of her little jokes on the family, one she told a bit too often.

 

Parents ran the house and left children to be children, to do homework and enjoy play time with friends. Trusted neighbours formed a small community who knew each other, spoke to each other and helped each other. Children, by looking out for one another, became street smart and self-sufficient. Parents sided with teachers on discipline. And if you said the dog ate your homework, the dog better be suffering from your book report when dad got home. Spanking continued as the norm for punishment and as a corrective incentive, when appropriate. Belief in ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’, was universal.

 

Life Changes

 

When TVs appeared, programs, all four channels, came free over the air. Cable didn’t come along for another twenty years. (Cable’s main selling point at the time was TV without commercials. Imagine that.) Content obeyed strict rules set by an ethics committee to protect the public from inappropriate influences. In the beginning, with communications limited, commercials felt more like public service announcements. They informed viewers about the wonderful new conveniences and opportunities the modern age had to offer, such as the new cars, appliances, cereal, toothpaste and air travel. Fans spoke about celebrities as if they were house guests come to entertain and inform. Lassie and Walter Cronkite became household names and their influence respected and trusted.

 

Even so, in the house up the street, the first to get a TV, the father gave warnings and set up boundaries. He feared what TV would do to children and society and limited viewing time for his sons to two hours a day, usually Howdy Doody and something else. Other than that, it was out into the street until dark, or homework or hobbies. He somehow understood this coin has two sides.

 

Girls learned to knit and sew, make quilts and can food for the long winter without fresh fruit. They helped in the kitchen and with house cleaning. Boys wore hand-me-down jeans and took care of cutting the grass, shoveling snow, painting, repairs and washing the car. These were not optional, but what kids did as training to be adults, and as their contribution to the family. It added to their self-esteem, helped their growth and sense of belonging, being a useful member in good standing. No one wanted to feel useless with everything done for them.

 

Teen Years

 

By high school times evolved quickly with the introduction of exciting cars, drive-in restaurants, new forms of entertainment changing life and lifestyles and the newest excitement, the space race. This also installed the perennial culture of fear from the cold war, nuclear arms proliferation, building of the Berlin Wall, the Cuban missile crisis, the death of JFK, the despised spreading of communism and the Vietnam War fought out in North American living rooms. Elvis sang on the radio and TV, heralding in the new, ‘throw away the rules’, rock and roll and challenging the old Victorian era culture and value system.

 

Teens who didn’t have summer jobs worked on farms, harvesting crops and picking fruit. No one was harmed in the making of this spending money. In fact, they learned where food came from. Gas was cheap. On Friday asking the service station attendant for $2.00 got you through the weekend. For that he washed the windshield and checked the oil if asked. He also gave directions and answered questions, and helped locate streets on a city map posted inside. Every station was full service. With things like TV free and phone bills $7.00, one income covered the mortgage and living expenses for the family.

 

With cars called ‘unsafe at any speed’, now and then a door swung open going around a corner. It didn’t happen often, but I counted three times making a mad scramble for something to grab onto to keep from falling out. Some were not so lucky. By mid-teens we could afford our first new car, the first with modern features and the first to have seat belts, which were not mandatory but an extra cost option. A joke at the time: why did the rich guy get a divorce? He ordered a new Cadillac with one seatbelt.

 

Seat belts came along by the mid1960s. A good thing since the muscle car era began then with greater speeds, greater dangers and greater temptations for young men to expand their repertoire of stupid. Average people could afford more power than their skills could handle. The lucky ones learned quickly, as cars improved in both safety and performance. This may have been the origin of the famous saying, “Hold my beer and watch this.” In some ways it’s been a wild ride ever since.

 

Thinking Back

 

The early days may sound boring. They weren’t. Friends, school, sports, a public pool, arenas, the YMCA and the library could all be reached easily. These good times included a balance of family, friends, study, worship, work, sports, farms, nature, outdoor activities, personal freedoms and life enhancing fun. Real life, with life affirming activities and time to appreciate them, was available to everyone. Being glued to screens and phones cannot compare. Grounding in the digital arts may not be enough for a well-rounded, happy life.

 

Apparently, we cannot go back to the innocent days of unlocked doors and children safe in the streets. It’s possible. The question is how. No one wants to give up the improvements, conveniences, comforts, opportunities and luxuries introduced over these decades. But what do they have to do with crime and child safety? Possibly nothing. Separate things. So, what caused the changes in thinking and behavior? It appears progress and innovation came at a cost, a trade off. Without knowing the past and what was given up for the current lifestyle, it would be impossible to know if the price was worth it. This might be a good time for young people to talk about it with the older generations, to compare notes, before the knowledge of these years disappears and everyone believes there are no other good options.

 

© Tom Schmor 2024