Halcyon Daze - Growing up Canadian

by N. A. Dalbec

  The new house was in fact a very old house. It was big, very big, and had tons of charm. There were three storeys, eight bedrooms, two of which comprised an apartment on the top floor. This place was great for a kid like me. It sort of took the sting out of moving. The area was also very neat. It was chock-full of big old houses, many of which were held by embassies. There were also lots of alleyways and hidden streets, even a place called Lover's Lane. It was a walkway that cut right through the center of a city block. Had they not put in this walkway, people would have had to go a long way to get to the other side.

  So there were many new things to discover, but I still missed my friends from the other part of the city. I adjusted, of course, but to this day, I can't understand why kids get so screwed-up when there is a change in their lives, because as kids, we are so good at absorbing newness. We seem to thrive on it. We seem to want it all the time. But a psychological line is drawn when it comes to certain changes, and one of those is moving. I guess it might have something to do with the fact that as a kid, the only real feeling of control that you have comes from being able for the most part to choose who you want to hang around with. And it brings to mind something that adults often say: “Well, I'd go, but I won't know anybody." The first thing that comes to mind when I hear that is: “Well how on earth did you make the friends you already have?"

  Who Needs to Talk?

  Summer was upon us. It was a real summer. None of this modern day stuff, no sir. You could count on freezing your butt off in the winter, and sweating your previously frozen butt off all summer. No freezing rain in the winter, no snowstorms in the summer.

  I was out riding my bike along the sidewalk, not too far from where I lived. The cicadas were singing, and the air was thick with humidity. I liked it like that, because there were absolutely no cold spots to be found anywhere. You could wear a pair of shorts, a T-shirt, and a pair of running shoes day in, day out.

  As I was ambling along, I noticed a kid about my age across the street. He was riding a leg powered go-kart. It was one of the neatest things that I had ever seen. It was orange, and looked like a blast to ride. The kid riding the kart looked at me as he drove slowly along the sidewalk, and I looked at him as I slowly rode my bike on my side of the street. I made my way across the street to get a closer look, and I told the kid that I liked his kart. As it turned out, he didn't speak anything that we spoke here, so I gathered he was from some far away country. So instead of talking to each other, we made hand signals to each other. He did tell me his name, and I told him mine. We looked over his kart together, and he offered to let me try it. I was as thrilled as a kid could be.

  It was amazing how well we could communicate, without words, and have such a good time, and it amazes me how today we stress talking to solve problems, but rarely do we emphasize communication. The kid from across the street and I became very good friends, and I ended up teaching him a lot of English. He turned out to be the son of an ambassador, and had a great number of wonderful adventures to recount, even though he was only six or seven at the time. He had already been halfway around the world, and had lived in South America and Western Europe. He spoke Portuguese, and Italian. He was a pretty special kind of person.

  As you can imagine, it didn't take him too long to learn English, and we had gobs of fun during the process. I'll always remember him confusing push for pull. I don't exactly know why because the words did not seem to be part of his mother tongue. Anyway, you knew that when he said push the door open, you had to pull it open. The words were less important than the communication.

  Things One Shouldn’t Do

  I still can't believe some of the things we used to do as kids. There are many adults out there who should thank their lucky stars that someone other than we were looking out for their interests.

  Of course some of the devices used on adults were devised by adults, so I guess there is some kind of poetic justice there, until you become an adult yourself.

  One of the things I remember doing, with friends of course, involved the use of pea shooters, a device whose popularity has never been the same. Maybe the powers that were decided that the things were dangerous. The plan consisted of placing ourselves behind a decorative cinder block wall that bordered a busy street in our neighborhood. This was done under veil of night to protect the guilty. The idea was to load up your mouth with a handful of peas, and send rounds of these out through the end of the pea shooter at an alarming rate onto the sides of passing cars. Now imagine yourself driving along at night, in the fall, in the dark, maybe a little frazzled from your day's activities, and all of a sudden hearing the sound of little pellets hitting the entire side of your car. You have to consider the exponential factor here. We're talking about six, maybe eight pea shooting kids, all zealously trying to outdo one another. And don't think you could catch us. We knew every nook and cranny of a ten square block area of the already labyrinthine older part of the city. As an adult, you just went home and probably poured yourself a large stiff drink, to try to forget what had just happened to you.

  Another rather entertaining thing that we enjoyed doing in the fall was to gather up piles and piles of elm, oak, and maple leaves near the side of the street. There are very few elm leaves left, so you would have to rely on oak and maple leaves if you were a kid doing this today. The stately elms have succumbed to Dutch Elm Disease. Once the piles were arranged, we would set up teams on both sides of a one-way street. When traffic lulled we would quickly place a line of leaves across the street, then when a car came close, we would pretend to heave a rope at either end. This usually caused the driver to lock up the four wheels of their car. As soon as that would happen, we would scramble.

  In the winter, snowballs were all the rage, and we would throw them at anything that moved...usually cars. One day a friend of mime threw a snowball at a car. Nothing unusual there, except that the snowball went flying into the driver's side window, just missing the nape of the driver's neck, and continuing on into the rear passenger seat. This really made the driver of the car understandably angry, and us scared. The idea was to hit the side of the passing cars, not the side of the occupants' heads.

  Well the chase was on, and the driver of the car would not give up looking for the perpetrator of the act. We all ran to hide, and I really don't know why my friend gave himself up, because the driver would never have found any of us. My only guess is that he felt guilty about the incident, and in good Catholic fashion, wanted to somehow pay for his wrong-doing. He was brought to his parents by the driver of the car, and duly punished. After that we collectively agreed not to throw snowballs at driver's head height.

  I can't remember anyone else ever getting caught for doing things like that, and indeed, my snowball pitching friend had not been caught. He had given himself up. In retrospect, many of those things, one should never do.

  Things We Liked to Do

  One of the great winter things that we liked to do was jump off garage roofs, and other high places. There seemed to be more snow then, and I would be hard pressed to try anything like that today, unless I knew a really good chiropractor. In any event, we rarely get enough snow to do that sort of thing today.

  It was just a great adrenaline rush to just let yourself fall from heights, and it probably helped develop bladder control.. One daring maneuver involved doing backflips onto the snow below. My greatest fear was that of being impaled by a fence post or picket. It would not be a pretty sight, I'm sure you would agree, to have to pull one of your friends off a picket.

  Something you discover about yourself, and others, when you do these things, is that character is intrinsically linked to the order of activity. There is always one person that is ready to try something first. It must be some kind of pride enhancer, but it is truly only worthwhile if none of the participants have never undertaken the challenge. The big question is, and always will be: "Who will be the first?"

  Now when it comes to teenage dating and sex, everyone seem
s to want to be the first. As soon as someone clues you in to what is happening, usually an older teenager, everyone wants to get in on the act. Jumping off a garage is pretty daring, and you need prompting and motivation, but have someone stick their tongue into your ear like a Q-tip and the rest becomes history.

  Before puberty, boys don't seem to have much use for girls, and girls seem to have less use for boys. Then the hormone factory start churning out carnal desire, and even a zitty-faced partner of the opposite sex starts to look good, and all of a sudden, the things you liked to do, things like jumping off garages, don't seem to be as much fun as other things any more.

  A Fine Residence

  It belonged to a country, not an individual. I suppose when it was first built that it had belonged to an individual, a wealthy one at that. Sometime in the past, it became an ambassador's residence.

  I still have a very clear mental picture of the place. Of the outside, I can be reminded of anytime I drive by, It's a very elegant and stately looking place, set deep in a city lot. The grounds take up nearly half a city block, and are very well kept. There's a long half-moon driveway, and a separate building houses the garage. The exterior of the house is made of brick, and there's a long green awning that greets visitors at the front entrance.

  The main hall is very impressive, and is surrounded by a wide stairway to the mezzanine. To the right is a solarium that if followed, will lead you to the main dining room at the back of the house. The rest of the floor is dedicated to the kitchens, where the chef worked her magic. The servants could also be found rummaging around.

  Most of the basement was made up of reception halls that, when not used doubled as the judo-lesson area. The best part of the basement is that it housed the soft drinks, wine and spirits supplies. As kids, we would sneak in and drink warm Coca-Cola from the small six ounce bottles. The far end of the basement area was usually darker, and had a wonderful fragrance all its own, and it just seemed to be there. A beautiful black piano also adorned the room.

  The second floor had a combination of bedrooms, a sitting area, and an office. All of the rooms were beautifully appointed, and exuded a particular atmosphere.

  The third floor contained yet one more suite at one end, and the servants' quarters. There was also a storage room for furs.

  You could communicate from any room in the house to another by using those wonderful marine-type blow tubes or whatever you might call them. They were a lot of fun to play around with.

  The whole house was really special, and it supplied us with plenty of room to play around in when we were kids. I'm just glad we didn't have to pay the bills.

  Things You Had to Have

  It doesn't matter when you were born, or where you grew up, you will remember those things that were special to you and your friends. If you were lucky, you got them first. If your parents didn't have the cash you got them later, maybe. In any event, the unrelenting advertisement of these products geared to kids made it impossible for you not to want anything at one time or another. When I was growing up, there were no advertising restrictions on programming geared to kids. Advertisers could, at their leisure, bombard the airwaves relentlessly in order to get kids watering at the mouth over their products.

  Late fall into December was the time for tried and true products, and a lot of big ticket items. So you'd get a lot of advertising for board games, the venerable G.I. Joe, his more attractive counterpart, Barbie, and a variety of other Christmas tree staples, such as train sets, erector sets, race car sets, guns, lots of guns, more dolls, dolls that cried, peed, talked, and so on. I always wondered why G.I. Joe or Ken had no penis, but Barbie had breasts.

  Then there were the novelties that came out at other times of the year. These were seasonal, and probably quite a lucrative portion of the market. Once again, advertising was non-stop, and very repetitive. You could easily see the same ad four tines during a half-hour show, and then see them again another four times during the following show. Slinky was one of the first ones that I remember. Somebody out there had a bunch of extra flat stringy metal that they knew exactly what to do with. At ninety-nine cents, it was all the rage, and everybody had to have one. What a stroke of genius, a sexless toy, and who couldn't scrape up that kind of cash. The magic price point. With tax, which as kids we always forgot to factor in, the thing came in at a dollar and five cents. Many a retailer ended up biting the bullet on the tax, especially when the kids would put on the long face. Anyway, the things did go down the stairs, just like in the ads, and they made a neat sort of noise when you used them. And sometimes, they would get all tangled up, and you'd end up throwing them away.

  Yoyos were a really big item too, especially when they came out with the ones that "slept" and had zircon diamonds encrusted into the wooden lacquered sides. I got pretty good at using a yoyos, but I remember having to take breaks from using them because the circulation from the first joint to the tip of my middle finger was cut off too long, and the finger looked like it was dead. The other hazard came from overzealous yoyoers sending their instruments into space, which just might be your head or a sensitive part of your body.

  One item that really captured the imagination was the Frisbee. Now that has to be one of the best performing novelties that was ever put on the market. I hope the inventor had well protected his/her idea. Ninety-nine cents got you a projectile that did everything they said it did. It hovered, it boomeranged, it skipped. You could bob it on the end of your finger, your nose, or just about any other appendage that you cared to use. The first ones were made of rather thick non-pliable plastic, but they lasted forever. As time went on the plastic improved, and the rest is history. If the edge got scuffed from sliding on the pavement, you ended up removing a very important layer of skin from, you guessed it, the side of your middle finger.

  Hula hoops were introduced way before Slinkies and Frisbees, but were also very popular. They certainly were good for those who were, shall we say, large in the middle. That is, they helped those people become small in the middle. Now these didn't do anything to your middle finger, but they could induce one hell of a cramp in your side, just like you might need to have your appendix taken out. Wonder if they ever used them in Medical School?

  Bat-A-Balls were very popular with the girls, although it was very acceptable for guys to use them too. The really proficient players would add three or four extra elastics to the things and that would allow them to send the ball clear across the schoolyard. They also made a great weapon, and you never lost the ball.

  Lest we forget Indian rubber balls, and their offspring, Super Balls. Where on earth did they get the material for these things? How many people had one of their eyes see the inside of their heads when pushed in by a rebounding Super Ball? Then some genius figured out that you could attach a Super Ball to a Bat-A-Ball paddle.

  +Boomerangs were for the true aficionados of novelty items. They were not ninety-nine cents. As a matter of fact they cost a lot more. It helped to be a doctor or lawyer's kid if you had such tastes, because the boomerang would come back, only if you knew how to pitch it. Otherwise, you got the thrill of seeing it fly once, and if you happened to be in anything but an open field, that was probably the last time you saw your boomerang fly.

  There were many more novelty items of course, and all of them began life by being able to stir the imagination, for a while anyway. The fact that they were ninety-nine cents also helped a lot, especially when you just had to have one.

  More than One Bargained For

  A birthday would come along, but before it did, my parents would ask me if I wanted anything, or I would volunteer the information. More likely than not, I would volunteer the information. I remember spending an entire fall season hinting that I would like a train set. I would do the usual stuff that kids do, like make train sounds while going through the kitchen, drawing trains at school, and bringing the drawings home, and so on. My older brothers had received a train set, but it had long outlived its
usefulness, and had been disposed of. It was a rather unique electric train for the day. It was an American Flyer. and unlike most of the other trains that you could get, this one ran on two rails, just like real trains. Three-rail sets like the Lionel were infinitely more popular.

  I wasn't looking for anything special. I just wanted the regular Lionel freight train. Nothing fancy. An acquaintance had a full-blown train setup including the table, the village, the switching mechanisms, and a room used exclusively for trains. I knew my parents couldn't afford something like that, and so I resigned myself to hoping for a simple setup.