# Free Range Kid



## midnightpoet (Apr 25, 2015)

Free Range Kid


I was a free range child.  Now before any of you sensitive types get all excited and call the ACLU, this was 1950. Actually, before I get into crawling through culverts, exploring abandoned houses and riding my bike without a helmet you might want to quit reading, wouldn’t want anyone to get the “vapors.” I know, things have changed, but I couldn’t resist poking the bear.  Actually, my wife, who grew up in nearby Dallas about the same time, remembers at twelve years old riding the bus by herself downtown to meet a girlfriend to go to the movies.

I was seven in 1950, looking forward to grade school.   We didn’t have pre-school; actually, my mother was my pre-school.  She was a teacher when my father met her, which was sometime in the early 1920’s - and still did substitute teaching as I was growing up.  I knew my alphabet and numbers before first grade.


Grand Prairie was a small town, a few thousand people - mostly white, with African-Americans relegated to a small community of their own.  More about that later.  When I wasn’t at the library, I was exploring.  I bicycled over to the city park often.  A long, winding creek with rocky banks snaked its way through the park and there were tree roots I could hold to as I made my way down to the creek bed. I would spend hours down there, picking up interesting rocks and seeing how far I could go.  It was usually dry in the summertime, but sometimes there was a trickle of water and I could see crawdads crawling around in the mud. 

As small towns went, we were pretty common.  Everyone knew everyone or was related.  One of my aunts was a local High School teacher, and there were two girl cousins of mine that were tattletales deluxe.  If I got in trouble my mother would know about it before I got home.  

I was a loner, even then.  I would play for hours on our backyard, making up things to do on my own.  It was probably then I got my love for writing.  I had a big fenced yard to play in.  There were two large fruitless mulberries at the side of the house that were great for climbing, and in the back we had a large mesquite which leaned enough I could shimmy up easily and get on the roof of a small tin roofed storage house that used to house chickens.

My curiosity and imagination were always going wild.  I remember my ghost dog.  He was real, all right, but  he would appear and disappear at what I considered the strangest times.  He looked like a bird dog, cream-colored with spots and one that circled his eye.  He would never get close to me though, and would run off if I approached.

I wasn’t always by myself, there were several kids in the neighborhood I ran with.  I remember a couple of us braved an old house.  It wasn’t haunted or anything, but it was interesting to a couple of seven year olds indulging their curiosity.  There was broken glass everywhere, insulation (I think it was fiberglass) falling out of the ceiling, broken water pipes. We climbed rickety stairs and saw all kinds of neat stuff.  Nothing happened to us, of course.  Didn’t even get a cut on the glass.

We’d crawl through culverts, have rubber-gun fights, play baseball and football.  I wasn’t much good at football, though.  That was how I dislocated my collarbone.  I went out for a pass, caught it and ran smack-dab into the neighboring house.   

I had my share of injuries.  The school was on a hill, and one time I was leaving on my bike to come home when I hit a rock and sprawled in the gravel.  Luckily, a teacher saw what happened and called my mother.  I skinned up my face and lost a tooth that day, and if it weren’t for the dentist I’d still have a gap-toothed smile.

I had a sister and two brothers, but they were older and by the time I started school they had
already left home and gotten married.  My sister, fifteen years my senior, was my built-in babysitter.  My father was a banker at the local bank, and they had a black cook there who made lunch for everyone.  One day I was eating there (as I often did) and tried on her hat.  My father scolded me to take it off, it had lice.  I looked in the hat, didn’t see anything crawling and I didn’t get lice.  It was my first experience with racism and one of the times I realized my father was far from perfect.  The African-American community, known as Dalworth, had a rather more nasty name from a lot of townspeople.  My experiences with them, however, had always been pleasant.  The cook at the bank, and my grandmother’s housekeeper - I knew her as Charlie - were always kind to me.  These experiences led me in a more positive direction, and have stayed with me all my life.

I’ll admit, although I had a lot of freedom, I didn’t get much direction.  I just grew up.  By the time I was in High School my parents were already in their sixties and it was I suppose like being raised by grandparents.  My father wasn’t much help - he would scold my mother if she punished me.  When I had my own son, he did the same thing, spoiling him relentlessly.  However, my childhood gave me a lot of memories, good and bad, that affect me still.


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## Plasticweld (Apr 25, 2015)

I love the narrative and the voice.  My imagination at work I picture you and I just sitting at the bar having a drink and I asked you about your childhood.  The first paragraph sets the stage and the tone well, of course in our imaginary conversation you are just talking to me, not a group.   Thanks for sharing part of your life and the story...Bob


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## Kevin (Apr 25, 2015)

This is very well told. As far as premise or content, well, you're pretty much preaching to the choir. I don't know if it is meant to be a specific argument against the current news story and generally held opinions, or just a retort in general about current ideas of safety etc. in regards to child rearing. If it were the former you'd probably be more 'conventional' if you were to rebut specific instances cited in the news. Forgetting all that, as an exercise in writing I think I most enjoyed the small town descriptions, boys running round the countryside. Probably some people hate that, and others love it. You know which group I belong to. As far as I'm concerned, the more description and detail, the better. Some might say, _well, that's because you're old_, but that's baloney. I read Mark Twain, Ray Bradbury, Stephen King as a kid. They all incorporated their childhood surroundings as setting, and I liked reading about it.


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## LeeC (Apr 25, 2015)

I thought this was well written, home-spun wordsmithing at its best. I enjoyed reading it, especially in reflecting thoughts I've had. Not sure that many of the high-speed, wham-bang youngsters would have the inclination, but it's their loss. Note I didn't say their fault, as things inevitably change, and they're faced with situations I'm glad I wasn't ;-)

Thank you for sharing this.


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## InnerFlame00 (Apr 26, 2015)

I liked this, it had a conversational feel and it sounds like you have a lot of interesting stories to tell. The one downside was that is did ramble here and there and I was unsure of a central theme or not.

I grew up in the 80's and 90's, and I think I was on the tail end last generation of children before the helicopter parents. I have many fond memories of playing outside for hours making little houses with sticks and stones and using nothing but my imagination to keep me entertained.


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## midnightpoet (Apr 26, 2015)

Thanks, guys.  I didn't have an agenda other than the LM non-fiction contest brought back memories so I thought I'd write them down.  I tried to balance it, show the good old days weren't perfect.  The black High School, the Dalworth Dragons, produced several NFL players, Charlie Taylor, reliever for the Washington Redskins (oops, Native Americans) was the one I mainly remember.  It closed with integration, but I'll admit I don't remember any problems when they joined the main High School. I used the "ghost dog" in one of my published stories.


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## GaminEsques (Apr 28, 2015)

Thank you for sharing.

The narrative style gives a comforting feel--as if you were in front of me talking about your childhood in a natural, spontaneous voice instead of reading from a prepared script. The paragraph on encountering racism from your father and the tragic revelation that your father was not perfect houses the most emotion. Not that the other paragraphs convey some sentiment about your childhood but it is salient in the bank paragraph.


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