The other day when I was teaching Sarah to parallel park, I took her to where I spent my childhood days in the 50's and 60's. From the age of 5 - 16 we lived at Pathfinder Courts. It was every child's dream. Nice families, plenty of room and many friends.
There were 3 buildings. We lived in bldg#1.There was a friendly rivalry between bldg#1, 2 and 3 and very few fights.
Sunny summer days were spent playing baseball, swimming in a nearby pond (with leeches and water mocassins), playing football, roller skating races around all the buildings, hopscotch,kick the can, jump rope and more.
On rainy summer days we would play in the rain and then rescue frogs and toads who were trapped in the storm cellars. We would hook a grocery bag to a string with a safety pin... gently squeeze it through the grate...lower the bag about 6 feet to the bottom of the storm cellar.
The next part was tricky. How do you encourage a frog to jump in the bag? By taking a long stick... we nudged the frog's behind to direct them into the bag....quickly yanking the string to close the bag. Hours we would be at that grate catching frogs so that we could take them to the pond. To this day I wonder how many of them were repeat catches. :-)
Winter days were spent having snowball fights with the kidsfrom the other buildings. Oh, if you could see the huge forts we made. Sometimes we would put snowballs in the freezer to make them special. One thing we DID NOT do is aim for the head...ever. There was also the usual skating at the pond and sledding down the hills. What fun we all had!!!
These apartments many time were first homes and often times families moved on to better places after a few years.
Good families...successful families.
Yesterday I learned that at this development young 14 and 15 year old girls were arrested for prostitution. For crying out loud... I was still catching frogs at that age. Guys were my friends...like brothers.
So sad what has happened in the last 30 plus years. These young girls thought they had it all...when that actually had nothing.
We had little, but had all.
How fortunate I am.