….As parents, we baby boomers are maligned quite frequently. Look at the profiles even today on Facebook about our relaxed manner of raising children. I was one of those mothers who trusted in everybody to watch out for my kids. After all, why live in a small town where everybody knows your name, if they don’t know your kids’ names too?
……Our kids ran 2nd and 3rd Avenue in New Cumberland in packs on their bikes. They started in the morning, picking up kids at their houses and returned only to eat (unless they conned someone else’s Mom into feeding them.) Whoever wrote “It takes a village to raise a child” must’ve none about New Cumberland. It worked, but those naysayers in big cities just didn’t get it. As a generation of parents we were not quite trusted lest we revert to our hippie ways. There was even a commercial on TV to remind us we were parents.
……“It’s 10 o’clock, Do you know where your kids are?” The announcer on our TV would ask. The kid’s dad and I would look at each other as if it were the other one’s responsibility. Or, in my case, it was 10 o’clock and did I know where my husband was? Nope, lost track of him, too.
…….Unlike her brother, his sister, Shannon, stuck pretty close to home. I always knew where she was unless she was spending the night with her best friend, Rhonda Metz. I would look up the stairs and yell, “Do you know where your brother is?”
…….The sweet little girl could cop an attitude when it came to the subject of her 12-year-old brother’s meanderings. ”Not my turn to watch him. Why are you asking me? Isn’t it your job to watch him? Or, have you bid that job out to someone else?” She was clear on whose job keeping track of Doug was and it wasn’t her.
…….There was a sound that always clued us in if Doug was near. It was the sound of a basketball being dribbled. The kid lived for basketball and his Dad had even erected a telephone pole right outside our house.
…… It was the era of “no harm no foul” when it came to doing quasi- illegal things. My husband was a telephone man, so all things telephone were at his disposal. He scouted out an old telephone pole; had it dropped off at the house; and had it set at the conclusion of our dead -end street. He mounted a basketball hoop on it and our street became the pickup game headquarters for the neighborhood. And, when Doug was alone he could be found outside shooting baskets into the midnight hour.
…….I glanced outside and I saw no 12-year-old tow head under the street light.
……..From up the stairs which contained the kids’ bedroom and where parents were not welcome, Shannon yelled “he was on his bike headed to upper town last time I saw him.”
…….I relaxed because he has gone to roundup his cousins, the three Webster boys, to play basketball at the City Park. After closing at 10 p.m., the teacher whose summer job it was to monitor the park would keep the lights on and the teacher, himself, would join in a pick- up game with Doug and the Websters. Sometimes Robert Kuzio would come down off Second Avenue and join in. I sent my kids to play with the Webster kids a lot because nobody was more responsible than my sister, Marsha Webster. With five kids she ran a tight ship and Doug was afraid of her, heck I was afraid of her. She had the added clout of her husband, Bill, being Chief of Police.
………At 10:30 the garage door went up and a sweaty Doug appeared still dribbling his beloved basketball in the kitchen. Before I could get “Where have you been?” out of my mouth he took the offensive
….. “Don’t you ever check on me? It’s 10:30 and you were supposed to know where I was half an hour ago.”
……..Busted again. But even with laid back parents these kids grew up to be responsible adults. I think it might have been because we believed in love, kindness and peace and they figured the rest out themselves.
