I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s. A time when we played outside until well after dark. We didn’t think about being snatched from our front yards by a creepy guy in an ice cream truck. Back then, the ice cream man wasn’t creepy at all. We waited eagerly with our quarters in hand at the first sound of whatever happy tune was playing in the distance.
We were safe.
One of the most vivid memories of childhood I have came rushing back to me the other night. Fall is in the air so I turned off the air conditioner and opened my bedroom windows before I went to bed. I snuggled down under the quilt, and listened. Listened to the sounds of a far away train, a couple cars, a barking dog in the distance. And then like magic, it was no longer nighttime. There was no longer a chill in the air.
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| My dad, Willie Chandler, long before I was even thought about. |
I was ten years old and batting my eyes against bright sunlight streaming through my bedroom window. It was a Saturday morning, early summer, maybe around nine or ten. My mother had just come into my bedroom and opened the windows, pushing the curtains aside. I pretended to be asleep to prolong the beginning of the routine Saturday chores. Once I heard her bedroom slippers pad across the hardwood floor and out of the room, I lazily opened my eyes. My room was filled with sunshine. A soft breeze flittered through the open window and gently ruffled the curtains. Outside, my father mowed the lawn. The constant hum of the mower could have easily lulled me back to sleep, but I wanted that moment. I wanted to lay there and experience the smell of the fresh cut grass, the sound of the lawn mower. I wanted to bask in the knowledge my father was just beyond the window, my mother, somewhere in the house with a can of Pledge and a dust rag and tomorrow, Sunday, we would probably pile up in the car and go get ice cream. I felt safe.
