I had to run to the store this morning to get something for Ma, so I grabbed a couple bags of navy beans, one for the bean pot and the other to make bean soup. Of course, I had to wait in line and as I stood there, I got this old-time recall spurred by the bags of beans. I damn near laughed out loud thinking, "I wonder what some of these ladies would think if I told them I was getting the beans to give to my grandkids to keep them occupied outside with pea shooters?" I remember as a kid they sold the straw-like shooters in the little corner neighborhood grocery stores that were so much a part of my growing up. We'd have pea shooter wars between kids from one block and kids from our block. Yes, an eye or two got hit but after a couple tears, we'd be right back at it since being breath propelled didn't allow for much to hurt with.
I look at some people's kids today and wonder just how in the heck they'll make it in this world today since the parents do nothing but coddle and cuddle. When I was five or six years old, tv was a huge old machine that sat on a table with rabbit ears and we got maybe three channels on it. The programing sucked so bad the being outside playing was a way to escape that damned thing. We were outside from as soon as we got dressed until well after dark, finding some adventure to wander off into or backyard games with the neighborhood kids ate up the hours between breakfast, lunch and supper. I remember going to the store and buying a couple Hostess Twinkies and a bag of chips along with three hot dogs cut from a string of them and a can of pork and beans to put in a back pack from the army surplus store, then hopping on the bicycle with said pack and riding with for or five other guys to the edge of town where some sandstone caves were found at the back of about a 100 acres of willow scrub and slough. We'd carve out our own trail and find untold numbers of things to do while searching those caves out. When we arrived at the caves we'd set a small fire and everyone would warm up whatever the brought that needed heating and we lay bake eating and putting together tales of horse thieves and bank robbers. We be gone all frickin day and be home for dinner. I see kids today that would get lost inside a Walmart.
My grandsons once asked me about what I did as a kid and I told them similar tales as this. They just looked at me like I was lost, when in fact they were. "Did you know how to read a compass at that age?", was one question in reply. "Compass?" "I had no compass and nobody else did either". " We paid attention to our surroundings and we never got lost". "We never left a fire with coals still hot and we never left our trash there or anywhere else". "What we had inside those acres of willow scrub and the caves was precious to us and if someone among us left anything that wasn't there when we got there they'd get the business handed to them".
I look back at all of what I had in those young years and realize that those year were my golden years, not today. Much of today's youth will never experience anything close to what I did, largely because they've never been given the incentive to do so. With my lung disease I have a tough time getting out into the woods like I used to but when a grandson has asked about mushroom hunting I was all over it. He learned a lot in one trip and today his interest is still one that he looks forward to each spring. Another grandson wanted to hunt deer so we began with the basics of shooting in a gun to hunt with then spending hours upon hours in the woods scouting and learning how to read the little clue-like things deer leave for us to unscramble. He learned how to walk and pay attention to details at the same time while holding his empty gun at ready. He learned about patience. He learned that binoculars weren't just for looking AT things, but rather to look thru things to see what was lurking behind it. Today he's a very smart deer hunter and does very well. I generally pay dearly for excursions like these but the cost of doing so is so well worth the expense.
Its just amazing at how much thought goes into or comes from buying a couple cans of creamed corn and a couple bags of navy beans.... and the memories from times long past. I hope I never lose that. I hope my grandkids and now great grandkids never feel like they can't ask about where I've been or what I used to do.
