A Carefree Childhood

Growing up in the 1940’s in the Northeast Bronx was for me and the neighborhood children a time of great freedom and fun.  Unaware of, or sheltered from the fears of the war years, we spent every waking hour of good weather out-of-doors, playing, exploring, fighting, and learning.  In summer we had the beach down the block on the Long Island Sound for swimming and water games and planned athletics.  For the rest of the year we had the backyards, sidewalks and streets for roller skating, jumping rope, all kinds of games.  And for adventure, we had the marshlands.

Because gas was rationed and cars were scarce, the streets and roads became our playgrounds.  While the bigger kids played Stickball or Stoopball, even Baseball, and Basketball, once someone’s Dad nailed a hoop to the telephone pole, we youngsters with lesser skills had our own games: I Declare War, Kickball, Boxball, Ringalevio, and Potsie, our local name for Hop Scotch.  A piece of chalk and a ball were the tools for almost any game, but the most desired was the glorious, pink rubber Spaldeen, a rarity during the war years.  When that ball rolled through the curbside opening into the sewer below, there was panic.  Someone would race to my house for the ultimate retriever, a wire mesh French Fryer pot which my mother handed over along with a long piece of twine.  With the twine tied to the handle, the pot would be lowered through the opening and swung under the grate as the ball bobbled in the water.  Back and forth it would be swung until the ball was scooped up and the game resumed.  My mother earned the name, “The Good Fairy”, and that pot never saw a potato.

In winter we had backyards for Snowmen and snow forts, and the hills for sledding.  The best one was at the top of my street.  Kids came from all over with sleds, garbage can covers, or cardboard.  Some just came, hoping for a chance to fly down that hill if someone shared, and share we did.  My Flexible Flyer could hold a sandwich of three, the biggest youngster on the bottom to steer.  The goal was to hang on till the hill flattened out, but most times bodies went sprawling well before that.  Up we’d get, trudge up the hill to try again and again.  Occasionally there would be tears, but few, because the heckling and names like “baby” and “sissy” stopped the fussing rather quickly.  You learned fast on the hill with the bigger kids.  The most daring did belly flops to increase their speed.  Clutch your sled, run fast to the crest of the hill, throw down your sled and plop on top.  The key was to synchronize or you’d smash your face on the sled or, worse, on the icy hill, while your sled sped down, riderless, an ignominious result.

Few left before the shine from the streetlights signaled dinnertime.  We’d be covered in snow, more snow stuffed in our boots, our mittens clumped with ice.  Once home, the mittens spread to dry on the radiators, snowsuits and galoshes hung to dry for the next time, we hungrily ate our dinner and headed for an early bedtime.  If the hill still had snow, we’d be out again the next day.  When the snowfall was heavy, the flakes layered on top of the reeds in the marshland, looking like a roof of snow, treacherous to the unwary.  My young cousin thought the roof was solid and stepped out onto it and plunged down a hole to the bottom.  Lots of screaming and yelling brought his Dad running, and he rolled down the hill, flattening the reeds as he went till he reached little Tim and carried him to safety.  Another lesson learned for all of us that day.

The marshlands around our neighborhood appealed to the more daring, or the  more disobedient of our group.  We skated on the creek in the winter, caught tadpoles in the summer, climbed the Weeping Willow and swung over the creek practicing our Tarzan calls, crashed through the tall grasses scattering the rabbits and muskrats, causing the pheasants to fly up in alarm, and occasionally, disturbing a long black snake.  It fled and we fled.  We cut the tops, or punks, of cattails in late summer, drying them for a few days, and then, with purloined matches, tried to smoke them, pretending they were cigars.  The blackberry and raspberry bushes offered delicious fruit that we willingly plucked, hoping to avoid the poison ivy close by, but we suffered annually with nasty, itchy blisters.  The Blackeyed Susans that spread across the marshes in Spring filled vases in many houses, but were not as hardy as the Cornflowers that grew along the edges of those fields. We raced each other across the narrow, temporary roads that bisected the fields and anchored the existing parallel streets.  Today, the streets are wide, running next to the Clearview Expressway, which swallowed up the marshes that we played in so happily.

The Depression years were a reality, and money was short in our house and a large part of the neighborhood.  Hand-me-downs were welcomed; everyone we knew shared.  Yet our lives were full and happy with the fun we created and the freedom we enjoyed.  No angels, we, though.  Streetlights were fair game for a strong arm and a snowball; the ice truck was raided for chunks the minute the driver made his delivery; matches, though forbidden, held a special allure until young fingers suffered a burn.  A particular thrill, totally forbidden, was to grab hold of the rear fender of the bus while on your roller skates, and sail down the major road to the next stop.  The penalty was severe.  Fists fights were few, but proved a suitable way to solve a dispute since no adults were present.  But, the watchful eyes of those we called the “busybodies” saw, or listened to the tattle tales, much more than we knew.  They shared the stories with the parents, and the guilty were reprimanded or punished.  Those “nosies” proved to be the neighborhood safety net, totally unappreciated by all of us at the time

When the war ended in 1945, some of us piled into my cousin’s car, my brothers and I in the rumble seat, blowing party horns, wearing folded newspaper hats, yelling for all we were worth, not quite sure why.  Prosperity began to move forward.  Spaldeens and bubble gum returned to the candy store counters, and we had money to buy such treasures.  Bread rose in price, but we had sugar and tasty meat again.  How I hated Spam!  The Saturday matinee price surged from 12cents to 15cents, but a candy bar could be bought for a nickel.

For my ninth birthday, my Dad bought me a used bicycle for the astronomical price of $20.00.  My boundaries spread out further, but the rules governing my behavior also increased.  The carefree days of childhood were ending.  I was growing up.