Monday, 25 September 2006

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  DECADE THAT I REMEMBER...

  Memorable decade..........

  1960s - the 1960s for me were idyllic...sort of like  a '50s  tv show...a mom, a dad, and three little kids who rode bikes, played "capture the flag" and walked to the elementary school playground on the weekends.  Our "playdates" consisted of knocking on doors up and down Draper Street to see who could come out.  Our "activities" were unscheduled (except for once-a-week ballet, to which I walked), unstructured, and what kids today would consider "lame"--watching "Lassie" and "The Wonderful World of Disney" on Sunday nights while we ate our dinner on TV trays in front of the TV (the only night of the week we were allowed to do this).

  My mom stayed home while we were little--partly because she felt it was important, partly because teachers weren't allowed to work if they were obviously pregnant.  Up until I was about six, my dad worked in town, where he would walk to and from work.  Every night at 5:15 I would walk up to the corner to meet him.  Lots of times, my friend Jimmy S. would come with me and my dad would advise us in crossing the street, calling from the other side. "Look both ways first!  Okay...come on across."  We felt like we were grown.

  Halloween was the best holiday in my home town in the '60s.  We spent all of September debating the pros and cons of different costumes.  Sometimes my mom, in a fit of creativity, would design and make an elaborate costume for me, but as the decade progressed and two more kids came along, she gave up and we all went down to Streeter's Five and Dime to choose from dozens of boxes of Collegeville costumes.  I remember distinctly the boxes piled up on shelves and the see-through box top where the mask was displayed.  I always looked for the most interesting mask--either a princess or a gypsy or something glamorous like that.  There was a big Halloween party and costume contest at the high school the weekend prior to the 31st, and everyone in the community showed up.  On Halloween night, my dad would walk us up and down the streets of the village to ring about two dozen doorbells while my mom stayed home to answer the door.  We invariably ended up merging with other groups of kids...sometimes we'd tag along with another group and my dad would be relieved of his duties. As my friends and I got older, we were allowed out without an adult escort.  This became a challenge to see how many homes we could get to before our time ran out.  Once we succeeded in covering nearly the entire village--over 60 houses.  But the best part of the evening was Grandma Hazel.

  My paternal grandparents lived three blocks from my house. This was great for my parents, who had built-in babysitters, and for us.  We had somewhere to go when we were bored.  My grandfather was a man of few words, but Grandma Hazel made up for that.  She worked in the high school cafeteria for years, drove a huge light blue Ford (which she called "Nellie") and loved Halloween.  She would get all dressed up in old clothes from her attic and would call my dad to arrange a time for us to arrive at her house.  My dad would drive us there, and she would come out from the edge of the garage as we pulled up.  She would carry a lantern and have her face obscured and, when we little, emit a groan that made our flesh crawl.  Even though we knew it was Grandma, she still scared the heck out of us.  After she broke her hip (I was about ten at the time), she tried to continue scaring us, but she couldn't get up to the garage without help, and trying to scare us inside her cozy home just wasn't the same.

  The '60s rocked.

  (You youngsters out there in Xangaland probably think I'm some old fart who lives in the past and is absolutely no fun.  Not so.  I wanted to remember the '60s 'cause I'm missing some years from the '70s and '80s.)

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