Yesterday I was raking the leaves for the fourth time in as many weeks. Yesterday though, I had help from Sam. We were raking for a while and when the pile was pretty big I asked Sam if he'd like to jump in. He looked at me like I was crazy. He wanted nothing to do with it. So I continued raking. And as I raked, I thought about when I was a kid and all the stuff we used to do in the fall, things like jumping in leaves and collecting acorns. And it made me wonder, do kids still do things like that?
When I was a kid, fall was a great time to play outside, better in some ways than summertime.. it wasn't as hot and more kids were around since none were away on summer vacation.
The street where I grew up made a big loop. All of the houses were on the outside of the loop facing the center. In the center of the loop was an oval park. The park wasn't thickly wooded but there was a mix of maples and oaks at one end and some scattered throughout. Down at the far end of the park there was a grove of pine trees.
On a typical fall weekend, the neighborhood kids would rake the leaves into huge piles and jump in them and toss the leaves in the air. This would ultimately morph into grabbing fistfuls of leaves and winging them at each other and stuffing them in each others faces. I remember going home for dinner more than once with leaves and twigs clinging to my sweater like Velcro, me sneezing the whole way with the taste of leaves in my mouth.
Sometimes we would make the leaf piles into poor imitations of snow forts. This is where the acorns came in.
When the leaf fights were done, we would spend time collecting acorns until our pockets were full. Once our pockets were full we would have to go home to get paper lunch bags and then fill them with acorns too. After everyone had collected enough, war would break out. Acorns would be flying in every direction. My lousy aim would be even worse because I would be throwing acorns blindly as I was running away...usually yelling "No fair!". Most of the others had similar battle strategies...everyone that is except Karl.
Karl was the lunatic who lived across the park from us. He was a few years older than us and had a sneer on his face that looked like he was born with a cigarette in his mouth...a
lit cigarette...unfiltered. He also had a mean streak in him the likes of which I haven't seen since, thank God. Karl always had sacks filled with acorns that were larger than anyone's. These were large mutant acorns that he got from some secret stash he wouldn't reveal. I think he also had a few rocks mixed in. He would whip these "acorns" at us with an intensity that made Ahab look like a piker. When Karl showed up, it was "Game Over". The rest of us scattered to the shelter of our homes before we ended up covered with welts. We'd cower inside until Karl finally got bored and went after some other prey. Then we could safely go back outside.
Rather than risk attracting Karl again by playing something that might somehow appeal to his violent streak, we would go more low key. And slightly hidden. We would head down to the pine trees at the end of the park.
The ground below the pine trees was bare for most of the year but in the fall there would be a decent cover of needles. The neighborhood kids would rake the needles into long, narrow rows forming circles and squares into what eventually looked roughly like the floor plan of a house, which was appropriate since these were meant be our pine needle houses. Hallways from room to room weaved like a maze. Breaks in the "walls" were made for the doorways and there would be outrage if someone stepped over a wall rather than use the door like a decent person. Some of the room outlines had smaller rooms inside which were the closets. A small square would be formed in one of the corners of a room and we would crisscross sticks inside it. This was our fireplace. Across from the fireplace, mats of leaves and needles made the bed. I remember lying in those beds looking up at the tree branches, the smell of the leaves and the pine needles all around me.
And as I was raking the leaves yesterday, I was thinking about Sam not having or even wanting that experience. And I wondered if this is it the way it is with most kids or is it just Sam's style? Certainly Sam doesn't like to get dirty and he's not one to socialize, but still, he's missing out on the thrill of pulling pine needles out of this pants, the taste of leaves in his mouth. And that's not to mention the sting of acorns on his face and arms...
Back then, most weekday meals consisted of whatever I could throw together when I got in the door from work... usually it was leftovers from the weekend before. Nothing fancy but they did the trick. But no matter how wanting those meals were in the way of fine cuisine, we always spent them together at the table. Everyone had stories about their day. It was a chance for each of the kids to talk, and more importantly, a chance for each or them to be heard. The table became, in a way, a stage.
