|
|
My favorite – or one of my favorites – as a kid was kick the can. I think of it now because I associate it with the early spring when it was not winter finally; in the longer, later evenings under the cool dark skies with the faint stars and the moon and the roads – that is, streets – wet from snowmelt or rain and the sod soft so your tennis shoes – Nikes and Adidas or Keds – were wet at the end of the night.
We came late to kick the can because it was a very old game and we were a very young neighborhood, and too because some of us – not myself – were older kids already and I’m not sure why they hadn’t picked up on it earlier.
We all met, Puggy (‘64); Chrissy (‘65); and Tammy, Randy and Julie (‘69); Lisa and myself (‘70); Karen (‘72); and Renee and my brother (‘73) in one form or another over the years.
There was the old can like a Folgers can and when I think of Folgers cans I think of worms, nightcrawlers and angle worms, for fishing. So, for me a can like that is sacred, and sometimes for some of us the can for kick the can was sacred, as in, “I’ll keep the can at my house for next time,” at the end of the night. But of course, often it was subject to destruction in the course of the game or games and sometimes just for the sake of destruction.
For us the ages for being scared in the dark at night outside were behind us and now there wasn’t any reason to be afraid of the dark at night outside, although probably there was cause. But not at that time for us or at that place. Yes, for other kids in different places and maybe for kids in the strange years that’ve come behind us.
And too, there were ages and places in which alone I was afraid in the dark in the night in the woods, but now I think they were almost always, but not always, without cause. Tonight, outside in the woods with no lantern but under the sky and the three-quarter moon the woods were wet and sometimes the trail was white with the snow packed to ice by the deer, but mostly muddy and dry leaf duff and there was nothing to fear but tomorrow. Now I have my dogs, and when they bark growlingly it’s not at me but at the scent of something no one can see – a bear or a deer or a wolf – and maybe you should be a little afraid but I’m beyond that in the dark woods.
Nowadays it is Peppy (February ‘14) and Foxy (September ‘15) and Daphne (February ‘19) and me (still February ‘70) each and every time.
There were many places to hide but not an infinite number, and we didn’t range into the neighborhoods of other groups of kids, who seemed strange and of a far territory which was really very near looking back. Still, in our territory there were the houses you stayed away from: yards that you hurried across, backyards you snuck across, the alley you didn’t want to linger in. There was not much to fear though because the darkness was on your side, and the quietness was your cover, and the houses where the adults were seemed like cages for them. Dogs would bark and growl, but they were known dogs, and most were inside, or some were fenced in backyards, or one or two were free in the neighborhood like outdoor cats and one might run along with us and the other might ignore us.
Puggy was the oldest but the lost boy, like Peter Pan, and Chrissy the maturest. Julie was her sister, and Tammy and Lisa were sisters, and one was blonde and the other brunette. Randy was the athlete and Karen the feral child, and my brother and Renee were inseparable for many years. I was in the middle, and I don’t know how to describe myself except that I was there for most years for kick the can, and snowball fights over snow forts we built on either side of the driveways and the street; and for baseball (with a tennis ball) or softball in the summer and Nerf football in the autumn. I was there sometimes for the skateboarding and basketball shooting and biking and sitting on the stoop or on the grass doing nothing but talking. And then slowly I became not there, and like all of us, never went back.
Leave a Reply