I gotta ask a personal question. My kid wondered loose around Berkeley, Oakland, Albany, or where ever after about eleven (seventh grade) with his up to no good friends, one of whom could be found in the 7/11 after midnight playing video games on occasion (as seen by me on late liquor store runs). The other, would disappear for several days and call home to my neighbor and friend, his distraught mother. These guys were big for their age, although whimps on the inside if they came across a bad scene. They had a cat's sense of smell for trouble and lived by the nine lives code.
My kid showed up home regular as clock work before I got home after five. It wasn't discipline. It was that dog and cat thing, the food factor. I realize this was a primal motivation when often the late nighter and the errant son would be in my apartment, expecting to get fed. It was an honor in a way. I will feed you all you want. Just take care of yourselves and don't get fucked up. I would hound them about homework. That did no good. Both dropped out before high school.
I should explain the future men these guys turned out to be. The late nigher turned into a manic computer programmer (sans degree). The errant son, became a supermarket produce buyer, and mine became a doctor. That's a pretty good turn out all around. I am happy with them. They would occasionally come by long after their little gang broke up. It was always nice to see them and hear what they'd been up too. There was one older kid to this group who was mildly retarted and therefore a satellite. He showed up years later with big broad shoulders, hands the size of hams, he was excited to tell me he got a job in the California Conservation Corp, doing road work. That was a good thing. They did alright in a pretty nasty world of the Reagan and Bush I era.
So I ask, have things changed that much? Do parents really worry over safety and un-warranted after school fucking around?
I was cuing off my favorite trip as a kid which was always the empty time between 3 and 5, when there were no grown ups. It was the only time I felt free to be a kid as I wished. Unless it was raining, I physically could not stand being inside. I would literally rather watch bugs in the grass than sit in a chair. And I realize now it was the only time I could confront the world in its rawness without mediation, a test of sorts, an adventure. For Angelinos, this meant hiking up from Lucas and Beverley to Third street where there was a small hobby shop to look around. Or it meant me and DS in fifth grade would go investigate the vacant lots and weirdness around Belmont High environs. It's hilly in this neighborhood and there were a lot of weird places---can't explain it any other way. Back then there were a lot of neighborhood style grocery stores on corners that could be shopped for candy and snacks or comics. These were some pretty scary streets even back then.
So is this kind of freedom, unimaginable today? I ask also because in my delivery days on the road, I rarely saw any kids loose on the streets. The few I did see were immigrant kids, whose parents were running family stores nearby or so I guessed.
CG
CG