As a ChildHe sorta hates to admit it, but DonDiego’s youth really was like “Leave It To Beaver”.
Two married, church-going parents and one older brother living in a peaceful town of, maybe, 6000 folks. Dad had a steady job; Mom quit her’s to be a full-time Mom, . . . until the boys were in their teens, and then she worked part-time at the local pharmacy/sundries-store/soda-fountain. Young DonDiego got to make his own fountain-drinks, . . . like adding chocolate or lemon-syrup to Coke. Umm-ummm.
Violence was rare; it wasn’t until several years after DonDiego had departed that the town got it’s first
7-11, right next to the High School; two years later a clerk there became the borough’s first murder victim ever.
Kids didn’t have play dates. Instead youngsters went out and made friends and played whenever and, pretty much, wherever they wanted. There were no fences around anybody’s yard, so the entire neighborhood was the Old West or the African Veldt or Ming’s Mongo or WWII Europe. And the toy guns didn’t have orange tips either! (DonDiego had a complete Hopalong Cassidy outfit, including two six-guns!)
No fences, . . . but lots of motherly eyes watching so’s nobody ever got into any real trouble.
And there was no Purell either. Kids would get chicken-pox and measles and mumps and infect one-another so everybody got immunity.
And kids played football or basketball or dodgeball or whatever they chose on the fields and asphalt-courts and dirt-circles behind the schools, . . . without any adult interference, . . . umm, supervision. And the skateboard was invented lots of times by lots of youngsters who balanced a piece of splinter-laden wood on a skate and flung themselves down asphalt or concrete hills resulting in lots of minor bloodshed, and occasional permanent scars. Even today DonDiego sports a 2-inch scar on his chin resulting from flying over the handlebars of his tricycle into a concrete curb.
Everybody had a bike, and the whole town to ride around in, . . . and the country roads winding through the forested hills too.
We played lots of “board games” too. We taught ourselves the rules and
always adhered to them.
And every week-day at 5:00pm the siren atop the school blew, so kids went home to watch
Chief Halftown’s Cartoon Show until Dad got home, . . . sometime between 5:15 and 5:45, . . . and everyone sat down to supper.
And Christmas was special, . . . and Halloween, . . . and the 4th of July, . . . and even Easter. And nobody bitched about it.
DonDiego cannot understand why he was so in-a-hurry to get outta that town.
Now Today, . . . life resembles “Green Acres”, . . . without Arnold.
: : : : : Arnold : : : : :
