I grew up in a tiny town in western Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, in the 1960s. It was a time when tiny towns still had a local grocery store with a fully stocked candy counter with prices in the penny to nickel range. It was a time when kids in tiny towns were on their own, out roaming the town and its environs, from breakfast to lunch and then again from lunch to dinner, and in the incredibly long days of summer, from dinner until near bedtime.
It was an unsupervised time. At least as unsupervised as a kid or gaggle of kids could be with an entire tiny town of adults watching and ready to report any truly bad behavior to believing parents.
At the same time, it was unsupervised to the point that a kid could disappear into the fields, forests and swamps surrounding the tiny town for hours on end, without raising concern among parents. It was unsupervised to the point that a kid could travel miles up the side of a mountain, so long as that kid was back home in time for the next meal.
It was a tiny town served by clanging ice cream trucks, refrigerated butcher wagons, chip and pretzel delivery vans, and milk and bread trucks. Santa made the rounds of every street on the back of a fire truck, tossing popcorn balls to kids along the route, every Christmas Eve.
A bicycle was a kid’s primary mode of getting anywhere. Some backyards were prime playgrounds, and others carried restrictions to the point that they were religiously avoided.
Small streams awaited damming with sticks and stones. Tools were readily available on a father’s workbench, if they were returned before being missed.
Familiar trails led off to special spots in the fields and forests. Every spot in the town could be reached more quickly through a well-known short-cut.
It was growing up as wild as acceptable in a simpler, more innocent time.
