The First Taste of Freedom.

Picture of can pull tab from commons.wikimedia

Last time I took my children to the park behind my mother's house, the memories flowed through me at an amazing pace. I lived in that park, almost literally. I grew up in the 70's and early eighties, my mother's house was on the woods, separated from the park by a chain link fence and my step family's house was on the other side of the park by the fire house.

My stepbrother and I, we were explorers. We had conquered the two woods that surrounded
the park as well as the basketball courts, the playground, the paddle ball courts, the tennis courts, the dumpsters and the soccer fields. Looking over the terrain now, much has changed, and not for the better. The park has been redone with lower and 'safer', less fun rides; one woods has thinned out to a series of random trees and the other woods are gone. The paddle ball courts and lion water fountain went to ruin and were torn down. The basketball courts and tennis court are still in tact, but are so much smaller than the ones in my memory's eye.

Getting back to my step brother and me. We used to spend every waking summer moment at the park. I remember many days that we competed to see who could make the largest can pull tab chain. For those of my younger readers, to open soft drink or beer can, we used to have to pull a finger-sized ring attached to a tab, since then, the tabs have been replaced with a pull thingy that punches in a metal disc. We would collect the tabs and bend the metal through the rings to make chains. At the end of the day the longest chain would win. With scratched fingers, we would combine the chains together to form a 'super chain' and our imagination would take over wondering what we could pull with those incredibly long chains. Imagination would always lose to physics and the chains would break under our stress tests.

While finding the tabs, inevitably we would also find loose change that had fallen from some unfortunate soul's pocket. In those days ice cream from the trucks was not as insanely priced as today and for under a dollar, we could get a cool, delectable treat from the Good Humor Man. On days when we only found enough change for one, the debate as to which treat we would share was always longer than the time it took to eat it.

The park was a magical place. It was our first taste of freedom. Back then, our parents did not worry about abductions. If a child got hurt at the park and usually someone did, they would suck it up for fear of not being able to come back to the park the next day. If an injury was severe, another child would call their parents or the police from the pay phone at the edge of the park. We were a community of children learning how to interact with each other, not through the rules of parents, but the common sense a community must have to maintain order. Sharing was a must.  Arguments and fighting occurred on a day to day basis.  Friendships were made and broken as were alliances. Our days would end when the (Street)lights came on or when a distant breeze carried a child's name from a back porch door to our private realm.

Watching my kids walk back to me at the edge of the park, I could have sworn I heard the jingle of bells coming from a Good Humor Truck in the distance. For just a second, I was back, the feeling of freedom was overwhelming. I longed to go on the old tornado slide and submarine ride. My eyes scanned the ground for change and can tabs. I looked up and did not see my step brother, but the faces of my two daughters, looking bored and ready to go.

I wonder if my stepbrother has the same thoughts, when he brings his kids to a park?  Sadly, we lost touch quite some time ago. While the kids were getting into the truck, I grabbed a handful of change out of my toll stash and dropped it on the ground. It's my turn, somebody else's change had paid for so many of my ice creams. I like to think that two brothers playing at the park will find it on a hot summer day of exploration and it will afford them a memory. I know though, in today's world, freedom is not only severely limited for adults, but by them.