I'd Rather Be A Boy Scout

I was never a social kid.  Oh, I was friendly enough, I guess.  Rather bossy, if my report card comments are any indication. But we moved so often that it seemed pointless for me to even try to make friends. Why bother?  I chalked my reticence up as being practical.  I was content to stay in my room and read, anyway. Books don't leave a person, or forget about you the moment you move with your family someplace else.

My parents were having none of that.  I was going to participate in group activities, my mother decreed when we moved to Germany, and not even the Pope would dare argue with my mother when she issued an edict as firmly as that.  My parents signed me up for...Brownies.  They signed my brother up for Cub Scouts.

I was eight.  I thought that the Brownies were just like the Cub Scouts, and I was excited.  The Cub Scouts were cool, with all their awesome badges about making stuff out of wood and skulking about the forest identifying birds and other critters.  I happily imagined the fun I would have, binoculars in hand, locating a rare blue-bellied whatever in the Black Forest of Germany.

The Brownies were NOT like Cub Scouts, I learned to my chagrin.  This was the early seventies, well before Girl Scout cookies were a thing.  Women were still considered to be too fragile for such rough activities as exploring!  No, we girls were expected to...sew things.

Cook stuff.

Clean.

Look pretty. 

Sitting in the meeting, looking around me, I felt like I was an alien.  The other girls looked actually happy, and(gasp!) interested in what to me sounded like actual housework.  I was horrified, and my tiny brain was not a little insulted.  Why did the boys get to have all the fun?  Sure, I had no idea how to use a knife, but I felt that learning to whittle was a valuable skill that would take me far in life.  On the other hand, I was not fond of needles just on general principal. And what was with all this "looking pretty" stuff?  The Boy Scouts didn't even have a "Take a Bath" badge, and boys can get pretty stinky.

I felt a bit gypped by the entire set up.  I had to go, however.  My mother had issued an edict, and that was that.  I earned a few badges, including one for a rather bloodsoaked sewing project.  I did have a few fun times, however, and being part of the Brownies meant that girls actually showed up for my birthday party.  I earned my Junior Girl Scout Wings, and then my mom said that I could quit.  My brother didn't even make it that far.

I still pester him about that.


Head over to Mamakat's Writer's Workshop and read more about National Girl Scout Day, which was the prompt I selected. 

This Childhood Is Supervised

I was born in a different time.  A more innocent time, some would say.  It was the middle of the sixties, and we moved often, as military families did.  I spent some of my early years on my grandparent's farm while my dad was in Viet Nam and Korea, playing with my aunt and uncle and getting into mischief once I could walk.  I threw corn cobs at the hogs.  I went swimming in the oat bin.  I wandered about in the cornfield.  I sort of had supervision, but not too much.  Everyone able-bodied was busy, just like on most farms. 

Then we moved to El Paso, and it was time for me to start public school.  First grade.  I was six, and I walked to school.  By myself.  It wasn't far, but every school day, I was left unsupervised while I walked between the school and my home.  One day I found some wild onions on my travels, and ate them. They smelled good, and I was hungry. I am not sure why, but my parents rushed me to the emergency room. Then I got a spanking for eating things not served up on a plate.  The next day, however, found me walking to school.  By myself.  

Most of my childhood was unsupervised.  My brother and I were left to our own devices for hours, especially during the summer.  Most of the time we played together, but not always.  My mom usually didn't even check up on us, except if it was lunchtime.  Then she might open the window and holler at us.  She certainly wasn't the only parent who did this; all our friends had parents who saw not a thing wrong with sending their children to play outside all day without any adult supervision. 

Consequently, there were shenanigans. Such as:

The time we all decided that a neighbor's VW Beetle made a perfect waterslide. 

The time I took the neighbor boy on walkabout and we were found a couple of miles away by the military police(and I peed in their backseat on the way home). 

The time we found a homemade marijuana pipe in the bushes next to where the helicopters landed.

The time some boys put my brother in a box and buried him in the sandbox, then went for an extended lunch. (No brothers were harmed during the making of this childhood.)

The time we all watched the local sexual predator jerk off in the basement. 

Good times.  Some days I wonder how the heck my brother and I even survived.


I don't blame my parents for not knowing what was out there, because they were adults.  They didn't know any better.  For some reason, most adults don't see the monsters out there.  Maybe they wouldn't be able to function, wouldn't be able to raise kids or work or do anything productive, if they could still see the monsters.  Maybe.  It was a different time, before children started disappearing with alarming regularity, before sexual predators joined up with Boy or Girl Scout troops, before the innocence was lost. Or maybe it was never there, and they just pretended.  It would be futile to try and go back and place blame, and I have no wish to do so.  I have to look forward.

I still let my child be independent.  I still let him explore the world, and meet new people, and be a kid.  He can get dirty, fall down, and pick himself back up.  Childhood is all about exploration, experimentation, and expanding horizons, and I want my son to be able to do that.  I will move heaven and earth, and an entire PTA,  just so he can do that.     But this boy's childhood will be supervised, in the least stalker-ish way possible.  If he is out and about, someone(me, his father, school personnel, etc.)  will have an eye on him, even if it is from a distance.  There will be someone there if he is hurt, or if someone tries to hurt him.   Or just if.   Someone will be there to see the good times, as well.  He can have the childhood I lost, somewhere along the way. 



5.) Talk about something you were allowed to do as a child that you will not allow your child to do.

The Memory of a Moment

It was the summer of 1976.  We were living in Nuremburg, Germany.  Like most families who did not have a father ranked higher than a Major, we lived in an apartment building.  My family would sometimes drive to one of the other military posts for barbecues or other family friendly events.  The name of the family we visited that summer day escapes me, but back then all the kids played together whether we knew each other or not. We all knew that if we played together, the adults would begin to relax and we would have some unsupervised time. Today we were a group of ten, including my brother, and we were on a mission.  We gathered, and we eyed the prize.

This apartment building had a huge hill in the back yard.  

Covered in soft, luxurious grass that seemed to pillow our feet, the hill challenged our bravery with a sixty degree angle.  Most of us had to crawl up that hill on all fours; only the shortest of us could climb standing up.  Once we were at the top, we looked down from our precipice, our parents tiny and insignificant.  I could hear the radio blaring out the Bellamy Brothers' "Let Your Love Flow", and that song was forever paired with this hill on this day.   All of us stretched ourselves out along the summit, head to toe, in a long line.  There was some nervous giggling, but that was to be expected.  Childhood is not for the faint of heart, especially not when there are hills to conquer.

We all pulled our arms into our chests, closed our eyes.  I took a deep breath...and rolled off the summit and down the hill.  The grass felt cool at first against the skin of my legs and arms as I rolled, and I felt myself becoming more and more disoriented as dizziness overcame me.  The pleasant coolness of the grass became itchy toward the end, but that only intensified the experience.  All too soon, I was at the bottom of the hill, where gravity slowed me to a stop.  For a moment I lay on my back, looking at the slowly spinning clouds in the blue sky while I caught my breath. I sat up, and the world wavered a bit; my stomach protested, weakly. I heard laughter, and joined in.  We were all in the moment, and that moment was pure joy.

I jumped up, and we all scrambled back up the hill so we could roll down again and again, while the Bellamy Brothers sang our song.

Just let your love flow
Like a mountain stream
And let your love grow
With the smallest of dreams
And let your love show
And you know what I mean
It's the season


Mamakat's Writing Prompt:  2.) What one memory from your childhood always makes you smile, no matter what? (inspired by Not Just Another Mom Blogger).  <-----Look Ma!  I was inspirational!

RemembeRED: Childhood

I miss my childhood. I miss the little explorer that I used to be, the one who was never afraid. I miss the feeling that the world was mine, that everything was waiting for me to discover it over the next hill.

I miss walking home from kindergarten. By myself. Without being afraid of a single boogeymen. Without even realizing that boogeymen existed.

I miss the MPs bringing me home when I wandered too far afield. I do regret peeing on the backseat, but I was five and I had to go.

I miss pedaling my big wheel as fast as I could so I could spin out. I miss swinging so very high...and then jumping out of the swing. On purpose.

I miss sneaking out of the playground during sixth grade recess, just outside the fence near the back, where there was a tree that was perfect for climbing...and quiet.

I miss spending hours with absolutely no adult supervision, building forts, fighting 'wars', playing on the hospital helicopter pad, and climbing the fruit trees on the army base to eat all the fruit we could.

I miss popsicles made with one packet of Kool-aid and 14 tons of sugar.

I miss completely making up a cookie recipe off the top of my head, making said cookies with my dad, and finding out that they tasted hideous.

I miss eating so much candy on Halloween that I didn't think I could eat one more piece...until I did.

I miss using a curling iron on my Barbie doll's hair. I miss trying to flush all that "food" out of my Baby Alive. I miss trying to surgically remove the tape recorder in my Mrs. Beasley doll.

But I think that I miss believing in fairy tales the most.

Rest In Peace, Marshall Dillon

It was with great sadness that I read about the death of James Arness in the paper the other day. I felt like I was experiencing the end of an era, the final passing away of my childhood.

I wasn't around when the television show Gunsmoke started, but I do remember watching it as a kid. It was pretty tame, as most television shows from that era were, and I am sure that if I watched an episode today I would be focusing more on a fake backdrop or on the fact that when people got shot they never seemed to bleed. Back then, none of that mattered. I think that my love of westerns comes from watching Gunsmoke.

Gunsmoke was a family show, meaning that it was something my entire family would watch together. We all loved Marshall Dillon, and why not? He was the essential good guy, the man who always rescued the people who needed rescuing. Dillon always did the right thing, even if the right thing meant punching someone in the face. He kept the town safe just by walking down the dusty streets. Who wouldn't love that kind of a character?

It has been said that the role of Matt Dillon was originally made for John Wayne, who turned it down. I don't believe for one second that the show would have been nearly as successful if John Wayne had been Marshall Dillon. No disrespect to John Wayne, but James Arness didn't just act the role of Matt Dillon, at least not to me. James Arness wore the character of Matt Dillon like a second skin. He was Marshall Dillon. Arness' portrayal of Marshall Dillon became iconic; the character became an archetype because of it. How many television actors can say that?

The character of Matt Dillon even got his own verse in a decent Toby Keith song:

I'll bet you never heard ol' Marshall Dillon say:
Miss Kitty, have you ever thought of running away?
Settling down, would you marry me?
If I asked you twice and begged you pretty please?


Rest in peace, James Arness. There never was a TV or movie lawman who could fill your shoes. But they all wanted to try.