childhood

We came of age in the chaos of the 60s, lived through the incredibly bad fashion of the 70s, and spent our childhood smack dab in the middle of the 50s. The decade of poodle skirts, roller skates you wore over your shoes and tightened with a key, of drinking Kool-aide out of brightly colored aluminum cups on hot summer afternoons and playing kick-the-can with the neighbor kids till the street lights came on, telling us it was time to go home.

Paul’s childhood is filled with stories that could have come right out of Sandlot or The Christmas Story. The cast of characters may change from story to story depending on who their neighbors were at the time, how many of his siblings had entered the picture by then, or whether they lived in the small town of Boone, Colorado, or had moved into the big city of Pueblo. But the starring roles, at least in the early years, are always reserved for him and his brother David, three years his senior.

As a consumer and a recorder of the stories, rather than a participant in them, I am always struck with the same question. Where were the adults? At least in his telling of them and I think in his memory of them – they were simply non-players. Charles Schulz, commenting on the lack of adults in his Peanut’s comic strip once said, “Adults have been left out because they would intrude in a world where they could only be uncomfortable.” He believed they would ruin the magic of the strip and were simply not needed. “Adults bring everything back to reality. And it just spoils it.” And that about sums it up.

So here are some of their stories. Keep in mind it was a different time, a different life and a different world.

The One About Starting a Business

All it would take, they decided, was a good idea, a little hard work, and a business plan. And so they collected gourds, dug up small cactus from the prairie and planted them in the hollowed out gourds. They put the finished products in a wagon and pulled it around the tiny town of Boone, knocking on doors and selling them for a dime a piece. After putting in a hard day’s work, they counted up their spoils and divided up the money. What to do when you are six years old and you have money burning a hole in your pocket? Well, you strike out for the hardware store (which happened to be the only store in town) to spend your profits. “What did you buy?” I ask him. “A ball of twine and a roll of electrical tape.” Oh, the possibilities. . .

The One About the Bow and Arrow

It was Christmas of 1959. Excitement had reached a fever pitch as the four siblings dreamed about what they might find under the tree for them on Christmas morning. Maybe, he hoped, it would be a telescope – one that would let him see into the heavens and discover what lay beyond.

A few years earlier he had hoped and prayed for a shiny red bicycle that would carry him to new, unexplored places he could only dream of. But as Christmas drew nearer his parents had explained that Dad had been out of work, money was tight, and Christmas would be smaller than usual. “IF there is a bike, it would only be one. To share.” Still, he had dared to hope. Maybe there would be a bike and maybe David would actually share it. But on that Christmas morning, under the tree, there had been not one but TWO brand new red bicycles (put on layaway months before and paid off little by little through the month of December.) And in that moment he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there was a God in heaven. It would not be until many years later, as a young father himself with a limited budget and four young children of his own, that he would come to understand and appreciate his parents for their sacrifice.

So this year, as the anticipation became almost unbearable, he knew that whatever was under the tree for him would surely be grand, and he went to bed with visions of the Sears’s and Roebuck Christmas Catalogue dancing in his head.

When thirteen year old David opened his Single Shot 22 Caliber Rifle the next morning, the younger brother could scarcely breathe. This surpassed all of his grandest expectations! What a score!! And what a grown up present. This proved that they weren’t just little kids anymore. Then it was his turn. “I should have known,” he has told me. “It didn’t have the right feel or weight to it.” But he refused to believe that whatever David got, he would not also get. However when the wrapping was undone, what he held in his hands was a toy bow and arrow. The kind with the suction cups on the arrows. It wasn’t a 22 Rifle, it wasn’t a real bow and arrow, it wasn’t a grown up present. It was a TOY. He could not hide his disappointment. “Did you try?” I’ve asked him. “I doubt it.” “But seriously, do you think it would have been a good idea to give a rifle to a nine year old kid?” It seems that wasn’t the point.

Later that afternoon he trudged up the stairs to his room to practice his archery skills – by then determined to make the most of a bad situation. And that’s when he shot the arrow (with the suction cup on its tip) and broke his bedroom window, missing the target on the tripod completely. With a TOY! Could Christmas get any worse? Every time he tells this story I remind him that the broken window is proof that his parents made the right choice.

The One About Shooting Your Eye Out

Perhaps in an effort to salvage his reputation, the next Christmas Santa left a Red Ryder BB gun under the tree. All was forgiven as the two brothers and neighbor boys set out for an afternoon of target shooting. The target was the metal numbers on a telephone pole and they paced off a respectable distance and drew a line in the dirt. “Stand here,” they told him. He missed the first shot and the second and the third. So they moved him closer to the target. He missed again. And again. They moved him closer to the target. Same result. They moved him a fourth time. This time he hit the target . . . right on the metal identification plate. The BB ricocheted off the plate and came back to hit the shooter right above his eyebrow. Blood streamed down his face, but he had hit the target! He still wears the scar proudly to this day.

And in the “You Can’t Make This Stuff Up” category.

By 1960 David was a teenager and had outgrown the shenanigans of younger boys. But not to worry. The family had moved to a house on the edge of the prairie where two boys lived down the street. The adventures were just beginning!

The One About Building a Raft

On a hot summer afternoon, the boys (ages, 9,10, and 11) began brainstorming about a way to cool off. “Hey, let’s build a raft and float down the river!” one of them said. And so that is what the wannabe Huck Finns set out to do. They scrounged some scrap lumber, some nails, a couple of hammers and for all I know some gray tape and Elmer’s glue. But in the end they settled for a single piece of ply wood, having run short of supplies and resources. And so Terry and Tommy and Paul drug the “raft” two miles from the building site to the river – a half a mile of that being along Interstate 25. . . walking along the right side of the highway . . . with the traffic. When they reached the river and found a place to launch the raft, they put it in the water and climbed on. It sunk. They tried again. And again. Finally they abandoned the raft, watched it float down the river without them and settled for skinny dipping in the Fountain River.

They were now faced with the two mile hike home. But as luck would have it, they were trudging along the side of the highway when they noticed something being tossed out the window of a big Cadillac as it sped by them. When they went to investigate, they could not believe their good luck. The treasure was a half smoked cigar, still lit. And so the boys sauntered along, taking turns puffing on their stogie, returning home a little green and only only a bit worse for wear.

The One About Riding the Rails:

Train tacks ran across the prairie and it was’t unusual to see men sitting in a boxcar with their legs dangling over the edge. They would ride from town to town this way as a means of getting from one place to another without buying a ticket. And so one fine summer day, the boys hopped a freight train, sat with their legs dangling over the edge of the box car and fancied themselves living the life of a hobo. And maybe they thought to themselves, “This is the life!” at least for their two-block train ride.

The One About Building a Bomb:

Before the days of the internet, learning something new was was more a “trial and error” kind of thing. It must have been sometime around the 4th of July because they had found some firecrackers. From someplace else they found some shot gun shells. (Again, one might ask, where were the adults??) All they needed now was some gasoline and “hey. . . we could make a bomb!!” So they took the supplies, headed out to the prairie with an empty coffee can and found a little cave dug into the sand where they could “safely” create the explosion. One of them had matches (of course) so they lit the gasoline and then ran for cover to watch it blow up. But for whatever reason – the gasoline had soaked the firecrackers and they never ignited, the shotgun shells were duds, or God in heaven took pity on three stupid boys – the gasoline burned itself out, there was no explosion, and they lived to go on to other adventures and grew to be old men with great stories.

So where were the adults? God only knows. Paul’s just glad that his parents aren’t around to read this. It could only make them uncomfortable .

No girls allowed (That would be their sister Beth under the box).

The intersection of story and memory and perception is a funny thing. It isn’t just the details of the narrative but how we perceived it at the time – in other words it’s not just what happened but how did our five year old self understand what was happening – that’s where the story lives.

*Santa visited our house every Christmas Eve with his elves and pack of presents. That’s me in the pony tail with my back to the camera*.

Our kids will tell you that we didn’t “do Santa Claus” for religious reasons. In fact, the truth is nothing so noble. Paul and I were both raised on the fat man in the red suit who brought toys to good boys and girls. As parents, we didn’t do Santa Claus because we couldn’t afford many presents and I wanted the credit for giving them the cool gift. There, I’ve said it out loud and now you know what a truly selfish and awful person I really am. I wasn’t going to let Santa swoop in at the last minute to give them that thing I had scrimped and saved and stood in the blocks-long line to get the day it went on sale. The jolly old man had made not one sacrifice to obtain this year’s must-have toy, and he certainly was not going to get to play the hero in my stead.

Our kids each got three gifts from us – I think because that’s the way it was in Paul’s family. We tried to get them one thing they really wanted, and then the other two were something small: a book, a craft, something to go with their toy (an outfit for the new doll, etc.) or maybe new pajamas or slippers (One year I sewed nightgowns and robes for all the girls. Don’t ask – I have no idea why I thought that was a good idea. This is the same year that Sean found the scraps of fabric on my bedroom floor and was convinced I was making them a Punch & Judy puppet show. Who knows where that came from ??!!) These gifts were purchased, wrapped and hidden away until Christmas morning.

The little gifts they made or bought for one another and for us were carefully selected and fussed over (was this really what she would like or maybe it was that or maybe something else all together??), then wrapped with care and lots of tape and placed under the tree to be poked and prodded and arranged and rearranged all through the weeks leading up to Christmas (and sometimes re-wrapped).

Until Christmas morning.

After they are asleep – or all in bed with a promise of physical harm should they exit their bedroom before morning – Paul and I bring out our oh-so-carefully-chosen and hopefully something-they-will-love offerings. Gifts are always arranged in piles according to the giver so that the emphasis will be on “what you are giving” instead of “what you are getting”. Everything you are giving to someone else is placed in a stack at your spot with your stocking – hand crocheted by Grandma Fletch – and then we wait for the morning.

No one is allowed to leave their bedroom until you hear the music – Manheim Steamroller’s Deck the Halls – blasting loudly enough to wake the dead. Of course, they are all awake, or maybe had never gone to sleep, but they dutifully wait for their cue. The music calls to them and here they come, scrambling down the stairs or up the stairs depending on where their bedroom is, running to find their stocking and their pile of gifts to give and eyeing the stack in front of Mom & Dad. Those will be the last ones distributed.

We start with the youngest who gets to choose in which order he or she wishes to bestow what everyone already knows will be a Life Saver Storybook. I no longer remember how this tradition began, but early on it was the mandated gift that the youngest among them gives to the older siblings. With much fan-fare, everyone oooohs and awwwwwws over it as though it is the biggest surprise of the season and one which they cannot possibly live without.

Gifts are opened one at a time since this allows for time to admire and exclaim over each one and we all compliment the giver on his or her good taste. One by one, we ceremoniously present our gifts to one another and everyone watches as each one is opened. This takes awhile and has the added benefit of alleviating the frenzied ripping of paper that inevitably leads to mass confusion and chaos and cuts down on the number of times we will need to dig through the trash looking for a lost doll shoe, Lego piece or other sundry tiny items. Plus it stretches out the festivities and makes more of a party, which in our family is always a good thing.

And that was Christmas morning.

I don’t know if our kids missed not “doing Santa”. The truth is I never asked them. I realized pretty early on though that we needed to have “the talk” if we didn’t want our friends and neighbors to hate us and our kids. “Some people like to pretend that Santa Clause is real,” we explained, “and that he is the one who brings their children presents and so you can help them by not saying anything that would make them out to be a liar.” I mean, we didn’t say it exactly like that, but we had to coach them up a little to keep the peace.

And then there was the year that one of our Sunday School teachers at church killed Santa Claus. He wanted to teach a lesson about the real Saint Nicholas and how the “Santa Claus” of today grew out of the myths and legends (danger Will Robinson!!) around this real man who lived in the third century. And while I’m sure he meant well (you can probably see already how fraught with peril this plan was), he somehow failed to see the landmine he was about to trip over. So somewhere in his lesson about this kind and generous patron saint of children, he comes to the place in the story where Saint Nichols dies. Now to a small child, who only vaguely understands anything you have said up to this point but who thinks you are telling him that Santa Clause and Saint Nicholas are one and the same, this is, of course, alarming. “Santa Claus died?” asks a small voice in the front row.

At this point, any thinking person would have abandoned his ill-conceived lesson and just gone straight to the craft tables, but he soldiers on. Another little voice, with a hint of a quiver, asks “How did he die?” And then the mother of all landmines: “He was martyred,” says the teacher. KABOOM!! While most sources say Saint Nicholas was persecuted for this faith, I can’t find anybody who says he was martyred, but given this was before the internet, maybe this teacher didn’t have access to good research or maybe he just thought it made for a better story.

At any rate, that’s what the teacher said. Now there is a full-blown panic rising from the masses as one child jumps to his feet and yells SANTA CLAUS WAS MURDERED??!! (martyred or murdered – what’s the difference, really?) And it was at this moment that all hell broke loose and became known in the history of our church as “The Day Cedarbrook Killed Santa Claus.” Our son, who was about 10 and one of the older kids in the class, was standing in the back of the room with a friend who says to him, “Do you still believe in Santa Claus?” Nope. “Me neither. But I sure feel sorry for these kids.”

We fielded a deluge of calls from irate parents that week, letting us know how traumatized their children were as a result of the Sunday School lesson and that when it came time to explain the “Santa situation”, they had expected to be the ones to do it and they certainly would have handled it much differently, thank you very much.

And though I didn’t say it, because I thought it might be too soon, I thought about telling them, “Yes, but just think, now you’ll get to take credit for all that stuff under the tree.”