Not to be indelicate, but we grew up post-World War II and
the forgotten Korean conflict and even though I cannot remember ever fighting
an imaginary Korean Commie, my 3 brothers and I sent a lot of “Japs” and
multiple thousands of “Krauts” to an early demise and we went to war with them
very often and for a good number of victorious campaigns.
Our favorite rifle was quite often a stick and not just any
stick, but a hand-hewn stick that each of us took pride in selecting. On a
daily basis, we would watch Sergeant Saunders of the TV series Combat and this
would recharge our imaginary fantasy batteries.
While we lived on the corn farm in Michigan, we spent hours in the high
cornrows patrolling and often sustained heavy casualties that we rapidly
recovered from. Now I don’t know what you imagine when I say playing in growing
corn, but it can be a very scary place. A lot of animals and reptiles live in a
corn field, including snakes, turtles, fox, deer, raccoons, and coyotes and
besides all that, it is very easy to get turned around and lost. Needless to
say, it was the perfect place to play army and fight the crafty Huns.
Moving to the suburbs of Toledo, Ohio,
we found ourselves immersed in deadly urban warfare which pitted a good number
of soldiers to help us along with the same number to be “the enemy”. In the city we all carried plastic guns or
Cadet Rifles and the evening war began each night when it was too late to play
baseball and lasted until about 8:30 pm when our Mom’s would call us home. I
can say without bragging that these city boys didn’t have much of a chance
against the band of brothers who cut their chops in the corn rows of south Michigan.
By the time Junior high rolled around, we were still hard at
it and spent hours upon hours in the piney woods of North
Georgia hunting the Boche and believe it or not there was still
evidence of the Civil War battles in those hills. We would run commando style
from pot hole to pot hole, where either cannon balls had blown a hole, or
soldiers had dug down for cover.
We knew every crook and nanny on the trails through the
bushes and dense thickets like we were on a sidewalk and where exactly the ambush
we be so it didn’t catch us by surprise. If it did, we would all make gun fire
noises in the true style of a cross between the monkey house and the blistering
gunfire of the Jeep mounted machine guns of the TV series Rat Patrol. What I’ve
described thus far is only a small portion of the games we played that took us
outside the house and didn’t cost a dime.
When we lived in Ogden,
Utah it was very hot and there were
cactus and succulent type plants, as a lot of other vegetation would not grow.
Our house set on a hill and abruptly behind it was a 60 degree slope that
dropped down about 20 feet. My 3 brothers and I would take off our shoes and
basically slide down this sandy hard-packed slope onto the desert floor and
lifting each foot to keep from burning it, attempt to run up that 60 degree
slope. Sometimes it took 4 attempts and we would grab the brother and help him
up. It hurt like the dickens… but what fun! We would then dip our feet in cool
water and do it again. Now that I think of it, the sand was probably about a
120 degrees.
Did I mention Wiffle ball? Does the Wiffle ball still exist?
We played it whenever there were too few of us to play regular baseball or on
the suburb streets under the street light (when Fritz wasn’t around to shoot at
us). What a great game and at my present advanced age, I could probably still
be a contender (as long as Jim Finley wasn’t on the other team.) I imagine Ol
Jimbo has played his fair share of the tricky game and would snuff out my
attempts at personal glory.
Mom’s and Dad’s back in the day didn’t feel obligated to
provide every luxury under the sky for us and for the most part, couldn’t
afford it if they did. We found ways to entertain ourselves and everything
worked out just fine. The trophies we got, we actually earned. The money we had
come from recycling soda bottles, or mowing lawns. Most of us grew up with rich
imaginations ready to move out when the time was right and make our own way and
most of us have prospered… after 30 or more years.
.
