A free-verse poem about growing up in the 1950s. |
When I was a young boy in the 1950s … I played around the neighborhood for half the day completely out of touch with my parents and no one worried about my being harmed in any manner by some adult predator. Butterflies were so commonplace in my yard at my home near downtown Macon, Georgia that hardly anyone took notice of their flitting amongst the flowers. Lightning bugs came out after dark to be caught in jars to blink beside my bed all night. On Saturday evenings my sister and I would sit on the floor in front of the cabinet radio and listen to radio shows such as The Lone Ranger for hours. When my family finally got a TV, it received only black and white shows on three channels. Dad had to climb out onto the roof to turn the antennae to receive one of the channels. We slept with the windows open and stayed cool with a huge, centrally-located window fan that drew in the night air. We’d wake up wrapped up in a blanket come morning. Getting skates that attached to the soles of your shoes and skating down the sidewalk was the height of adventure. All the kids rode their bicycles everywhere, even to school. Having a basket on front was the epitome of luxury. All bicycles had no gears and big, clunky tires. A Schwinn bike was tops. There was always a pick-up game of whatever sport was in season constantly ongoing among the kids in the neighborhood. The game broke up only when mothers started calling names for their kids to come in for supper. Those were innocent times when childhood was simpler and lived out of doors. We survived just fine without cell phones, video games, social media, texting our whereabouts, and selfies. Today’s young children truly don’t understand what they are missing or how good we had it growing up back in the 1950s. Please check out my ten books: http://www.amazon.com/Jr.-Harry-E.-Gilleland/e/B004SVLY02/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0 |