I was racing my bike around the block, happily flying down the hill on the last leg, before bombing down the sharp decline into my yard. My friend was on the sidewalk tossing his football up in the air. A mischievous smile crept across his face.
“I bet I can nail this football right in front of your bike tire!” His eyes danced with glee at the prospect of the challenge.
Mine did too, and I could feel the spark of excitement rush through me. It would never occur to me to show fear or back away from a challenge, especially one from a boy. In fact, this was all about showing him up and proving, yet again, that I was as good as any boy.
Taunting him back, I threw down the gauntlet with, “I DARE you!”
Then I shot past him down into my yard and started my next circle of the block. This was too good to pass up.
Rounding the corner of his street, I pedaled to the top of the hill and stopped. I could see him waiting for me, tossing the ball in the air, then taking his position to throw, a big grin on his face.
I grinned back at him, lowered myself flatter against the bike, and pushed off. Pedaling with all my might, I flew down the hill. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see his arm go up. I pedaled faster. He took aim. I leaned flat against the bike. He spiked the ball.
I was just about to clear it, but he was good. He landed that ball on the road an inch in front of my bike tire. It hit the ball, and I flipped up into the air and turned over as I flew toward the curb. Of course, we didn’t wear helmets then.
Crashing against the road with my shoulder, I skidded across the pavement and stopped against the curb. My shirt was torn to shreds on that shoulder, and my skin was scraped up. But I had avoided hitting the curb with my head. Not that I’d shown any wisdom in my choice to start with.
His mom came flying out of the house, yelling at him and shepherding me into their bathroom. Without missing a beat, she tore into her son, all while cleaning the scrape on my shoulder and patching it up with iodine and a bandaid.
This was not an unfamiliar thing — getting patched in their bathroom after some crash or run-in while playing. Not that long ago, as all of us were playing “war,” something very common in the early 1960s, I had accidentally gotten “gored” in the stomach by his toy rifle when we both ran into each other from opposite directions in his yard. She dutifully dragged me into the bathroom that day, made sure I was okay, yelled at her son, patched me up, and sent us back outside to play.
I can’t remember if I told her I dared him. If I didn’t, I should have. Frankly, I was as much to blame as he was. But I don’t remember anything after that, so I assume we just did what we always did back then, go back to playing after surviving another injury.
Summers in our neighborhood were safe, fun, and had a routine. A group of us nearby all went to the same Catholic school, so we spent our summer days and nights playing together, unless we had to be somewhere with our parents. Even if it rained, we were together.
The routines were based on “go outside and play,” and we either played at home or with the kids we went to school with, on the back street. If it was with them, we always seemed to gravitate toward my “football” friend’s house. He and his sister, our group, and his cousins made up a mix of boys and girls, and the activities were the same every day:
In the morning, we chased each other around, playing war. It was the era of WWII TV shows like “Combat,” with Vic Morrow, and war movies and books, so that was our daily morning game. We’d split up and race around his house, duck down into a gully, climb rocks, or crawl on our stomachs to sneak up on each other. Sometimes we caught the boys and tied them up in the garage until we decided to free them because standing guard over prisoners was boring.
My friend had promised to marry me one day because I played war with him. While I liked that idea, what I really wanted was his toy M-1 Garand rifle and plastic pineapple grenade. My own equipment was pretty good, though no grenade, and included a Marine Corps helmet, canteen, and pistol. The 1960 Dick Tracy machine gun was cool, but oh, that Garand, that was the best.
When we tired of that, it was time to get shovels and dig a deep pit in the dirt pile. We dug holes deep enough for us to climb down into, and we thought we were both digging to China and discovering gold as we went — fool’s gold or pyrite to be specific. He had the best collection of those old yellow and black, metal Tonka trucks — shovels, bulldozers, cement mixers, dump trucks. Again, I WANTED those.
If we weren’t in the dirt pile, we were climbing trees or the supreme challenge — the “fence climb” down into the cemetery behind his house. That involved going behind the garage past the trash cans, climbing up onto the cinder block wall, and slowly leaning forward over the gap between the cinder block wall and the top of the chain-link fence. All without leaning too far and falling headfirst down into the cemetery. Also, the only spot we could do this from was framed with overgrown poison sumac bushes, which, if touched, gave an itchy rash worse than poison ivy. It was a battle of nerves, coordination, and agility.
As to the cemetery, we didn’t care about that, and frankly, we were all afraid of it. No, this challenge was all about the fence. Were you brave enough to stand atop the cinder blocks, lean forward precariously to catch the top of that fence, climb down, then back up, all without falling or touching the sumac? It goes without saying that I never shied away from this, no matter how I felt about heights or the spooky cemetery.
We broke for lunch, then came out in the afternoon for a multi-hour round of whiffle ball. First base was the lawn of the nice lady who would bring cookies, second was the curb by the house of the lady who liked to hide the ball if she got hold of it, third was further down the sidewalk, and home was in the middle of the street.
Because we had various ages and abilities, most of the kids got the ball rolled to them and swatted it up the street before running for base. I would tolerate no such “handicap for being a girl.” They knew that and pitched the ball. I swatted it.
Sometimes arguments broke out, at which point my friend’s mom would say, “Figure it out, or you all go home.” We learned negotiation skills fast since none of us wanted to go home. His mom was wonderful, though. She was always the mom who gave us Kool-Aid and cookies. And if it rained, we were at her house to play inside.
The afternoons after that were a mix of important things like smashing cap-gun caps with rocks, playing cards or board games, or with my friend’s toys — especially his Mighty Matilda aircraft carrier or the “Marx Big Bruiser Super Highway Service Tow Wrecker Truck.” Or racing home to get money if we heard the ice cream man. And after supper, it was a continuation of all of the above, as well as chasing lightning bugs after dark.
In case it isn’t obvious, there were so many toys my friend had that I longed for. And they didn’t involve dolls or playing house. Yes, sometimes that was okay at home. I did like the play store and cash register, the printing press, and the Easy-Bake oven, as well as my “double-rig” cowboy pistol belt.
But I was not one for baby dolls. I couldn’t understand the allure of “cradling” a lump of hard plastic fashioned to look like a baby. I didn’t even have soft stuffed animals, so why would I cradle a baby doll? And at that time, if we “fed” our doll with a water bottle, the water went in its mouth and right out the bottom. So I got soaked, and the whole thing was a mess. What was the point?
We had a larger “walking doll,” and that one at least challenged your coordination. You had to lift her arm slowly to get her feet to move forward, all while matching her pace…which was glacially slow. Even with our Barbie dolls, I had the Ken doll, because he had more “action” accessories. Frankly, I REALLY wanted the brand-new, full-sized GI Joe doll with the SCUBA outfit and battle accessories.
So the toys I wanted out of the Christmas catalog were the ones my friend had — the “boy toys.” They were all about doing and action, and imagination. My Christmas list included things like a bigger chemistry set, the doctor’s medical bag, the weather station, a car service garage, a train set, and the power-tool workshop by Marx. I wanted that leather baseball mitt and a football like my friend, even though I didn’t need them. But eventually, I saved up my allowance and bought both. The football especially annoyed our next-door neighbor, who told me that girls don’t play football. So I made a point of learning to drop-kick it in the backyard while she glared at me. And years later, I bought a model train set, though I could never wire it correctly, so only half of it ran at a time. But the bottom line was, I wanted action toys that mirrored the skills of that world of men, so I could enter that world when I grew up.
In any event, those early times in my childhood helped feed those parts of me that I would tap more and more as I grew up. Also, those times out in the neighborhood gave me a number of gifts.
First, friends. At that point, in spite of what was happening at home, I had friends and fun times when we were together out in the street. We were peers, kind of siblings. When I was with them, life seemed “normal,” and I was not isolated or different, like I was at home.
Those hours provided some much-needed relief from the stress of our house, as well as companionship and emotional connections. That wouldn’t last. But for as long as it did, it sustained me.
The other thing those times also taught was qualities for life. Our play was about “doing and action.” We got a ton of exercise and fresh air. We also learned to challenge our fears, negotiate, and develop creativity and resourcefulness. Even the card and board games we played were things that challenged our brains, so all of that certainly fed that “scientist brain” of mine.
And, learning that fearless, “I’m as good as any boy,” attitude, that willingness to “pick up the gauntlet,” develop my inner spirit and spunk. Those were qualities that I would need soon enough.
Soul Mosaic 
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