By Don Harrison
Our families couldn’t afford to send us to camp, so we just hung around.
Out on the street, we’d play infinite baseball improvisations — boxball, stepball (“Points,” we called it), stickball, halfball, wireball. When it got too hot, even for us, we’d pursue less vigorous pastimes.
Dead Box was a checkers offshoot, using a “board” chalked on the sidewalk (if we didn’t have checkers, we’d use bottle caps). We’d swap bubble-gum cards, which usually featured ballplayers, but sometimes more esoteric subjects (I remember a “Crime Does Not Pay” series, about how the FBI brought down “Public Enemies,” and a “Horrors of War” series, which actually glorified combat).
‘Choosing sides’
When we got too loud, the cops would ask us to keep it down or order us to break it up. They drove red patrol cars; “two worms in a rotten tomato,” we called them.
… Not to their faces, of course.
I lived only a half-block from Cobbs Creek Park, but we preferred hanging out on the streets because that required no organization or planning — you just poured out of the house and other kids were there or soon would be. Games were improvised on the spot.
“Choosing sides” was done either by throwing out fingers or gripping a bat. It could be humiliating for those of us chosen last — it certainly wasn’t good for our self-esteem — but self-esteem hadn’t been invented yet.
“Anger management” hadn’t been invented yet, either. Games, cards, conversations erupted into arguments, usually settled in favor of the toughest.
We argued about everything, but mostly about sports — usually which Philadelphia baseball team, the Phillies or the Athletics (now in Oakland), was better. “Worse” was more like it. Both were pretty bad.
All that arguing could become explosive, but violence was confined to fists. Kids had a good chance of growing up intact (except for the threat of some illnesses, like polio and scarlet fever).
No grownups allowed
The Depression was not yet over, and some dads were around all day because they were unemployed — but grownups didn’t live in the same world we did.
Little Leagues? Play dates? Soccer moms? Adult-organized kids’ activities? Unthinkable. Once out the front door, we were on our own.
How did this affect our self-esteem?
I don’t know, but I sure wish I had kept those baseball cards. I’ll bet my cherished “Indian Bob” Johnson card (“politically incorrect” hadn’t been invented yet, either) could fetch a pretty good price today.