The tastes of childhood: bread and butter with sugar on it . . . homemade lemonade . . . Mother’s strawberry pie. . . watermelon which could be had only in summer . . .
The sounds of Summer: The strawberry man singing out “Strawberries, Straw BERRIES” as he came down the street . . . “Over the can with John!” and the clank of the can being kicked down the street . . . skipping rope — “Down in the valley where the green grass grows, there sits Rose Mary, sweet as a rose . . .”
When Wanda was six, I proudly escorted her to the beloved Jessie Nay Wagoner’s first-grade classroom in the old Academy building the first Monday after Labor Day.
Recesses and lunch hours had their own set of games: “Mother may I?” “Mardella, you may take three dishpan steps. Sally, you may take five baby steps . . .” “Red Rover, Red Rover. . . “ We played King of the Hill on a big boulder near the junction of the diagonal sidewalks. One time I noticed that our boulder was gone. “What happened to our King of the Hill rock?” I asked Sarah. “Oh, some silly administrator decided that a kid might fall and had it hauled away,” she replied disgustedly. Duh!
The grade school teachers stood at a big window, watching us play red rover or the farmer in the dell. If someone acted up they pecked loudly on the window. After lunch, dozens of kids of various ages played Black Man which consisted of two groups running back and forth across the southeast corner of the school yard and tagging each other. Clifford Sterns and I collided one day and broke my glasses — much to my mother’s ire. (Black Man had nothing to do with race, as we didn’t use that word to describe race at that time.)
While we walked the two blocks to school in October, Wanda and I selected the prettiest leaves to give to our teachers. After school we raked up leaves, jumped in them and then lit a bonfire. We set sticks afire until the ends glowed and then waved our pretty “fire sticks” through the air. We must have had neglectful parents, because they let us use matches! We went trick or treating without fear and attended the Halloween costume party at the gym that the businesspeople sponsored.
Wanda and I were avid fans of the Knightstown Falcons and were the first in line at the doors of the gym where “Hoosiers” was filmed. We rode in the school bus to out-of-town games. In my mind’s ear I hear our singing “A hundred bottles of beer on a wall. . . ” “Do Lord, oh do Lord, oh do remember me . . . ” “Tell me why the sky is blue . . . ” “You are my sunshine . . . ” and “You’ll never get to Heaven on a pair of roller skates. They’ll roll right by those pearly gates . . . ”
Christmas was a wonderful time. Miss McKinney’s art students painted Christmas scenes on the classroom windows, and she led the chorus caroling through the halls. Kids filled the Alhambra theater the Saturday before Christmas when the town’s businesspeople provided an afternoon of movies. Afterwards a rather bedraggled Santa handed out sacks of candy and nuts.
When it snowed the big boys would make a foot slide on the sloping walks. Ooh, it was slick! Belvin Durham, the janitor, would destroy it with salt. “Belvin, you meanie!” Girls wore wool coats and leggings. Kids’ mittens were attached to a string run through their coat sleeves. We dragged our sleds through town to Adams St., waddling because of thick layers of clothing and didn’t go home until we could no longer stand the cold. I’d be enveloped in warmth and the scent of Mother’s cooking. “Mo-o-m, I’m ho-o-me.” wclarke@comcast.net