Telling Time
It has occurred to me that since my retirement from
paid employment that time is beginning to resettle into its simpler forms that
I knew in my earlier years. At least
there are days when time is simpler.
When I was four years old my parents purchased the
only home they ever owned on what was then the very edge of the westside of
Green Bay. On the gravel road that our
house was built on there was our house, one neighbor to the west of us, and
then field after open field. Those all
were fields that used to be farmed, but the owner decided that development paid
better than the going price of alfalfa and field corn and twice-daily milkings. About one mile farther west there were fields
that were still actively farmed.
During our summer vacations from school time was extremely
simple. All you needed was a stomach and
a streetlight. When we woke up it was
breakfast time. Then my brother Mike and
I scrambled out the door armed with bb guns, slingshots or baseball bats. If we had baseball equipment we headed up the
road to Murphy Park where there was an actual softball diamond. Whoever was at the park got divided roughly
in half and a game was begun. We adhered
to the rule of only getting three outs for every “ups”, but we never kept track
of the innings; instead, we played until lunchtime. Once hunger had reached the tipping point,
someone yelled “last raps” which meant the team that was behind was down to
their final three outs.
If we were armed to pester critters, usually meaning
gophers or starlings, we headed out into those vacant farm fields and roamed
all morning, again, until lunch time.
After lunch, we again headed outside to play. We roamed the fields or the park until it was
time for supper. After supper it was
time to shift gears and play games closer to home like One O’clock, Two O’clock,
the Ghost is Out Tonight. There were
several other games, but most of them were just different versions of hide and
seek.
Since there were so few houses it was easy to see the
one streetlight that was on the corner of Dousman and Murphy. When the streetlight came on, it was time to
go home. Sometimes it took a while for
someone to notice that the streetlight was on, especially when the game was
intense. My father had little patience
for tardiness; I never quite figured out how we “should have known”, but I was
smart enough not to argue the point.
Of course, there were situations where using an actual
clock was helpful, such as knowing that it was time for Bonanza, or time
for Gunsmoke, or time for Walt Disney.
There were some unpleasant times as well. For me, the most inconvenient was when my
mother announced that it was “bath time”.
Thankfully that only happened on Saturday evenings.
His Peace <><
Deacon Dan
Photo by Cole Parrant on Unsplash
Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash
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