{"id":94394,"date":"2023-02-01T08:00:21","date_gmt":"2023-02-01T13:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.owegopennysaver.com\/PS\/?p=94394"},"modified":"2023-02-01T08:00:21","modified_gmt":"2023-02-01T13:00:21","slug":"the-old-coot-wants-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.owegopennysaver.com\/PS\/2023\/02\/01\/the-old-coot-wants-out\/","title":{"rendered":"The Old Coot wants out!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cOutside!\u201d That was my favorite place when I was a kid. My generation wanted \u201cout\u201d \u2013 rain or shine, hot or cold. My favorite sound was that of the screen door slamming shut behind me as I ran out the back door. <\/span><\/p>\n

I usually headed to a swing, made from clothesline and scrap lumber that hung from a tree at the edge of our yard. Beyond it was a woodlot next to an abandoned, overgrown farm field. The rusted hulk of an old farm truck was in a thicket, a few feet beyond the swing. It had a bench seat and a steering wheel, a perfect venue for a young kid to play in. I put a lot of mileage on that baby, \u201cdriving\u201d all around town (in my mind). <\/span><\/p>\n

A small pond sat a few yards into the field. It was where kids in the neighborhood scooped out clumps of frog eggs and watch them turn into tadpoles in jars on their dressers. When the legs began to appear, they returned the tadpoles to the \u201cwatering hole,\u201d as we called it, when playing Cowboys & Indians in the field. <\/p>\n

My friend Woody lived one block from me. We started trekking back and forth through neighborhood yards to each other\u2019s houses when we were four years old. Our mothers were not concerned for our safety; we traveled around the neighborhood with my dog Topper and Meg, a beautiful Irish Setter that lived up the street from Woody. <\/p>\n

The urge to be outside grew stronger as we grew older. It was an endless play land out there, providing a place for ball games, hut building, hot rod riding, biking, cowboy wars with cap guns and BB guns, sword fights to defend the castle, tree climbing, roller skating, and exploring the mountain that rose above our neighborhood. We hiked up the mountain with peanut butter & jelly sandwiches packed in army surplus knapsacks, with metallic tinged milk carried in war surplus, metal canteens.<\/p>\n

As soon as supper was over all the kids in the neighborhood started campaigning to get back outside. We all had the same curfew, \u201cCome home when the street lights come on.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes we gathered on \u201cJunk Street\u201d for a game of bat-ball. It was called Junk Street because it was full of junk \u2013 piles of left-over materials from houses going up in our neighborhood during those postwar days when housing was in short supply. We played in those houses as they went up, and \u201cborrowed\u201d some of the material lying around to build our tree huts with; but only from the scrap piles, for the most part. <\/span><\/p>\n

Playing ball or playing Tarzan, swinging from the rafters in newly framed houses, it didn\u2019t matter. All that mattered was that we were outside.<\/p>\n

Comments? Send to mlessler@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cOutside!\u201d That was my favorite place when I was a kid. My generation wanted \u201cout\u201d \u2013 rain or shine, hot or cold. My favorite sound…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":82349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Old Coot wants out! - Owego Pennysaver Press<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.owegopennysaver.com\/PS\/2023\/02\/01\/the-old-coot-wants-out\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Old Coot wants out! - Owego Pennysaver Press\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cOutside!\u201d That was my favorite place when I was a kid. 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