The Childhood Home
I am an Atlanta native, one of the few left I believe. More precisely a Decatur native, which is a quaint little town just 7 miles east of Atlanta. A few days ago, I had an opportunity to drive by my childhood home. It was sort of a small house by today's standards, but remains in a great neighborhood to this day.
The back yard of the home abutted a small area of woods with a trail that led to the playground of the elementary school. On the other side of the school was a forest, fairly sizable, that was great for explorations as a kid. On the other side of the playground was a ravine with a single set of train tracks running through it. What a great place to grow up.
My end of the street had about 30 homes, and to this day I can still name every single neighbor and their kids. I can't name more that about six of my neighbors where I live today.
When not doing homework or inside chores, most of my life was spent outdoors. Pick up touch football games in the street, tackle football games in the yard, basketball games on the school playground, as well as softball & baseball games. Whenever there weren't enough players, there were always adventures to be had in the forest. My good friend and I kept a stockpile of dirt clods on the edge of the ravine. It was a race to the tracks every time we heard the train coming & we took great delight in busting the dirt clods on the box cars as they ambled by. Summer evenings were spent with a group of neighborhood kids playing "freeze tag", or "mother may I", or "hide and seek", or "red rover", or just catching lightning bugs.
Playing outdoors was sort of a no brainer back then. We had no video games, no computers, and the television was "black & white" with poor picture quality & 3 channels to choose from. On the days my mother was in a cleaning mood, she would send me outside, hook the screen door, and I was gone for the day. Locking me out was not a malicious thing, she just didn't want me and my crew racing in and out and tracking stuff in on her freshly mopped floor.
Seeing the old place just brought back a flood of great memories. It also reminded me of how different the lifestyles of kids are today. I think I prefer the good ole days.
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