Dog Days of Summer
By some calculations, today is the last day of the dog days of summer, a 40 day period of inactivity in the northern hemisphere. Though Sense has not been inactive during the past 40 days, it has been underactive, especially in the form of reader comments. Nine postings (not including this one) have only produced five comments and three replies from me.
Growing up as a school kid in Seattle, it seemed like dog days extended until school started again after Labor Day. Summer weekdays meant sleeping in while the parents were off to work, then rolling out and heading up the street to see which playmates had also emerged. Hanging out and loafing around were the main weekday endeavors, until teenage years when lawn and yard work for neighbors generated more blisters than dollars. Weekends meant more blisters trimming the lawn at home, which was holder of the Guiness record for the most lawn edging on the smallest lot. String trimmers replacing hand shears is an under sung glory.
Back then, the impending end of summer, at first prompting a sense of remorse, soon generated a renewed energy, getting ready for school and Husky football to start. I lived far enough from my schoolmates at the now defunct School of the Immaculate Conception [currently being used as temporary quarters by the exclusive Bush School] so that I did not see them over the summer and instead played full time with my neighborhood public school friends. Heading back to school meant renewing friendships with last year mates and meeting any new ones. It also meant meeting a new teacher, who though they all wore the same medieval nun outfits, definitely each had her unique personality. But mostly, starting a new school year was a sign of growing up and progressing in life, all measured by ascending grade levels with some vague concept of lights at the end of tunnels - 8th grade graduation, then high school and nothing much beyond that because that was too far ahead to clearly see.
My underactive desk is covered with notes for possible Sense postings: intelligent design, flu viruses, knocking Republicans, AFL-CIO, energy policy, stem cell research, political log-rolling, Fallujah damage, Afghanistan, the f word in movies, housing bubbles, Current TV, death taxes, the ultimate sacrifice, CAFTA, Karl Rove, privacy, Internet and ICANN, Bush and Africa, Iran, credit cards and other debt, Bush is not like Truman, white Christians, CPB, Reagan bailed out of Lebanon, and welfare myths. As my own dog days end, I expect to post on these subjects and maybe others, and am always open to suggestions from readers of other topics.
You may note I have made two changes to this blog. First I have learned to add images to the posts, such as the picture above of my old school. Second, for faster loading times, I have limited the main page of sense to only show the seven most recent posts.
posted by Tom Blake | 11:56 AM
4 Comments:
Tom,
Yu mentioned hanging out in the neighborhood with your friends as a chief entertainment. I remeber that very well. My mother did not have a regular job, so she was at home. When I was very young, her rule was that I could not go farther than hearing distance of her bellow from the back porch. But sa I got older she relaxed that rule and I wandered several blocks. The remaining rule was that I had to be in the house at noon for lunch and 6:00 PM for dinner. I got my first bicycle at age nine (unbelievably late by today's standards but not unusual then). Then I traveled a couple of miles or more miles from home. My mother did not have any idea of where I had been, and did not quiz me much when I returned.
And this was normal. Today a mother would be considered neglectful at best and abusive at worst for allowing a young child to roam so freely. Later, when I got a car at 16, my mother suddenly became very demanding to know where I was going when I left the house. But she had no worries when I could travel only by foot or bicycle.
Why are parents so different today? Are there really more sickoes today out there waiting to prey on any child who wanders off? I don't believe that. I'll bet the sicko ratio has stayed constant over the centuries. I think it is a cultural change brought on by something. Maybe the scary shows on TV. Maybe women's guilt at not staying home.
John from Phoenix
I remember my mom having my brothers and/or I going to the local Safeway grocery store maybe 1/3 mile from home on foot to get bread, milk, or whatever was lacking in the house. As Tom well knows, my parents live in the same house my brothers and I grew up in. I can honestly say, I would not send MY kids (if I had any) to the store NOW. Although I feel quite safe in my parents neighborhood, I do question the safety of kids without parental supervision.
I'm 36yo now, and I often wonder if the world (or my small 'hood for that matter) is more unsafe than it was then. I think of several things when I ponder this subject... when my brothers and I would go to the bowling alley to play video games, going to the schoolyard to play, or walk to the store. Were my brothers and I "angels" and could be trusted and know the right thing to do when a questionable situation arises? Did my dad feel that as a career (now retired) police officer, he taught us enough as kids to know who to trust and how to avoid trouble situations and people? Maybe he just thought my brothers and I could run fast enough if someone was chasing us? LOL!
I think about level 3 sex offenders and how you can't watch the local news without some mention of one. I don't think much was said about pedophiles in my younger days, although we all know they existed, but not in media like today.
In a nutshell, I do think there are more "sickos" out there as John states, but I think it's just one of many factors that have changed our view of the way things are now as opposed to "X" amount of years ago.
In closing, I'd like to say to Tom, that I once again like hearing about his childhood days. Although some of them may not be directly tied to my father's childhood days, I like to read about them.
Thanks Tom!
~Rake
It may be that the sicko ratio is about the same now as when you and I were kids, John, and when you were too, Reiko. There may be something to the suggestion that more working mothers means more concern, though my Mom usually worked at cooking jobs outside the home when I was growing up and I don't think she felt guilty. She usually did get home,though, around the time we got back from school. I think the 24 hour news cycle of today contributes significantly to the parnoia about dangers for children.
Going home for dinner was not usually a problem for me, because it was always at the same time and Mom's cooking was good, so she rarely had to call for me. What was bad was when the kids would tell me my step-dad was on the corner looking for me - that meant he was pissed that I was not home trimming the grass.
Like you and your brothers, Reiko, I felt safe enough wandering the streets as a kid. I knew enough not to go into the house of a stranger or get into the car of someone I did not know. When our kids got old enough to know how to cross streets safely, we did not have a problem letting them wander the neighborhood. That should be part of growing up. It will be interesting to see if I feel the same way when my grandkids are that old, though I expect their parents will not be as comfortable letting them wander.
It is sad to think the greatest danger of sexual molestation of kids, then and now, is not from strangers. Sick family members and friends and people in positions of authority, such as priests, have been the perpetrators of too many of such offenses.
I'll try to include more childhood memories from time to time, particularly if I can relate them to matters of today.
Rake,
Like you I remember being sent to the corner grocery store at a very young age. The big concern at first was whether I could be trusted to cross the street safely. Also like you, I would never send my (grand)kids out today to the store by themselves. But I still say that we would not do it because it would be against our cultural conscience to do it. Not because there is any more danger today (in most neighborhoods). What has changed is our cultural conscience, but why?
Tom says his mother was a working mother, and she didn't seem any mnore concerned about him than other non-working mothers. That's because all mothers have approximately the same cultural conscience, then and now.
Possibly the cultural conscience has changed partly because of the guilt of a large number of mothers who have had to "abandon" their children to assist in earning a living for the family.
John from Phoenix
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