July 04, 2008
July 4th 1950's
July 4, 2008
For most of my childhood, July 4th was a holiday that created "fun" memories...those early days in Indiana before fireworks were illegal, and we had the gawd-given right to blow our fingers right off if we felt like it, daggone it.
Indiana in the 1950's - Solid MidWest America - was perhaps THE definition of post-war U.S.A.. I don't know. Maybe EVERYWHERE was, somehow. It's ALL I knew at the time...but thinking back, it seems like THE place to grow up, despite the rough winters, summer humidity, gnats and 'skeeters. (The film "A Christmas Story" is goose-pimpley near-identical to my early, northern Indiana life.) Our neighborhood was filled with young adults - younger than most of us reading this now - that'd survived the Great Depression and World War II. They were all busy making lots of babies at the same time...especially in my neighborhood, which was almost all Polish immigrant descendants...and dedicated Catholics.
Our neighborhood was an ant pile of activity, the kids knew none of the fears that are now so prominent, we didn't think about whether we were rich or poor, we played much the time...and mainly outside. We learned, by some weird childhood/genetic/grapevine-through-the-ages osmosis phenomenon, the kid's group games - like "Red Rover Red Rover", "Hide and Seek", and "Mumbly Peg". How DOES that happen? Most of the time, though, we made up our own games. There was "Sandbox Army Man Rubber Band Slaughter", "Catalpa Bean Slap Each Other on the Back Screaming Pain", "Metal Clamp-on Sidewalk Skating Until Your Feet Feel Numb", "Shake the Lightning Bugs to Death in a Jar at Night", and "Teddy Saves His Pee in a Mason Jar". Uh, you did that TOO, right?
The "popsicle man" came around on a special peddle bicycle-freezer vehicle, and had a metal ringy-bell on the handlebar. You KNEW his name. HE mattered. The "milk man" came around early in the morning, and while he'd deliver the glass bottle/cardboard stoppered milk to the rear of each home, us kids would jump into the back of his truck and take big, clear, beautiful chunks of ice. This is what kept his milk cold. No refrigeration in those early deliveries. That ice was SO COLD in our hands it was painful, but was the BEST tasting ice of all time. It was puuurrrrrrrrre.
Being Indiana - nasty hot and humid in the summer - the mailman worked hard, carrying all that real mail (no e-mail) in his large, heavy, worn, tan leather bag. Our Moms would always offer him ice water. I'm sure he accepted the refreshment in a democratic style, as to not offend anyone. Hmm...you know.......A LOT of "popsicle, milk, and 'male' MEN came around A LOT during the day...when our Dads were gone..... and... come to think of it, I've always had a special thing for mail order ice milk on a stick...
.......nah...............
Anyhow, I can think back to nearly every square foot of that neighborhood & it's surrounding fields and woods, and come up with rich memories. We LIVED that place. I knew what the bark looked like on each tree, where the grasshoppers liked to sing, which tree would first "turn" in the Fall, and whose roof edge produced the best icicles during a short, midday Winter melt.
We lived those days of undistracted freedom without ever having to think about it. Our parents, Grandparents, and those before them lived, and died, to help make our moments possible. July 4th, for me, is NOT about frayed flags still flying over a fort. For me, now, July 4th is about the people below all those flags, living and dead, that made it possible for me to be oblivious and innocent, if for only a few short, sweet years.
Then it was on me to somehow do MY part for the next group - allowing them their chance to happily and securely take their lives for granted.
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