The dream-child moving through a land of wonders wild and new–Lewis Carroll
I’ve been told that my generation was the last one who never saw the inside of a daycare. The word ‘daycare’ did not exist. Women stayed home or found someone to watch a small child. My father once told me that it was unusual that I had two parents who worked full time and I don’t doubt those words. My pre-nursery school years with my mother float in my memory with happiness attached. And as I age, I realize that these years had more impact on my growth than I imagined.
After breakfast and TV(more on TV later), time to pack the dog and I in the car (we had two). There could have been stops at the drive-through dry cleaners a few miles from home to drop off or pick up my father’s white shirts. At least once a week, we hit the bank. Our bank building was a very large imposing stone edifice that could have withstood natural or unnatural disasters. Walking inside was to enter an four story echo chamber. Whispers were the order of the day; a ringing phone sounded like Notre Dame chimes. God help women who wore noisy heels.
Despite its age, the building had one of the first drive-through windows in the county and it was always popular, even on weekdays. The woman who manned the window became a fixture–at this early date, though, she was just returning from having a son. All money envelopes came with a lollypop for me and a Milk Bone for the dog. There was just one problem–for a short time, I ate dog biscuits. (Did you seriously think that living on a dysfunctional block, I somehow was unaffected???) Luckily, the teller forked over a second Milk Bone and didn’t call authorities to have me committed.
There was no playground in our neighborhood, so we might go to the playground in the richer town next door. It was behind their school and was one was very large, with things to explore everywhere, especially a sliding board that went on forever. You had over twenty steps to climb! In the summer, we could go to the borough swimming pool just across the street.
In the opposite direction sat a house in the middle of a residential street where the man had converted his cellar into a store to sell any type of matchbox car you could ever lust for, plus model kits that ranged from easy ones I could tackle to precise car replicas with over a hundred parts.
McDonald’s, et all were decades away from finding our corner of God’s little acre, but a home-grown food stand was just over the hill offering burgers, hot dogs and fries. Only a few seats, inside, though………..we ate in the car. If we were lucky, a train would pass behind the parking lot.
Or, we might go to my godfather’s mother’s house. She was a sweet old lady who was still teaching my mother red clay scraffito (a dying ‘PA Dutch’ art–look it up). And she had two adorable full size poodles who mirrored her sweet, calm nature. More on them later.
But our most common trip was two towns over to the museum and their expansive grounds. A creek still runs through the property and in those days it teemed with ducks, geese, and swans. Unusual species could be found, especially their Wood Ducks and black swans. There was a place you could toss your moldy/hard bread and rolls to flocks of waiting bills. Paved paths intertwined the creek and there were even wooden bridges–a child’s dream palace. Squirrels, chipmunks and occasional nesting mallards were common. And even a youngster like me couldn’t help but notice how the gardens erupted into vibrant colors in the spring. Admission to the museum was free, and we would stroll around looking at the stuffed animals, dioramas, and dinosaur bones.
Sadly, the black swans developed a habit of pecking out ducks’ eyes and an abundance of rotting bread almost killed every single duck and goose in the eighties.
Was it any wonder that I was more interested in looking at the wildlife outside than standing watching my father turn and twist tools? Where would I rather be–down by the creek duck watching or standing next to my father while he did things with tools I could not understand?
Next time: Grocery shopping–the shifting paradigm