During summer my Mom basically kicked me out of the house and didn’t expect me back until Dinner, and that’s how it was for most of the kids in the neighborhood, we usually congregated at the nearby ball field, and improvised from there.
Bingo gator. But I am in agreement that times have changed considerably since I our own childhood in the 50’s and 60’s.
Within two blocks of my parents home there were at least 50 kids of varying ages and we all rode the schoolbus together in the mornings. When we needed a couple players for our softball game on the diamond that we scratched-out ourselves in an adjacent field, we went door to door to ask for players.
After the game which could go on for hours, we went on a treasure hunt for pop bottles to cash in at the market. We bought some fresh hamburger so we could have an impromptu barbecue and nobody told us it was too dangerous and nobody got burned or died of food poisoning. That is the California I remember fondly. Long summers with tall dry grass that allowed cardboard races down the banks of a nearby dry creek.
The only instructions from Mom in the morning was ‘stay off Willow Pass Road’ as it was the busiest street in our little corner of the world. She didn’t say watch out for Mr. So and So, the pedophile, or remember to put on your sunsreeen, or remember to hydrate when the temperature topped 100 numerous times in summer.
And we’d always turn up at somebody’s house for lunch. Every mom accepted the fact that she’d occasionally have a mob to feed.
we had a walk in refrig in our store. I would run in and hit a large jar of cold water and then it was outside to play. After dark we played hide and seek and chased june bugs (fire flys).