Despite all the kidding that goes on with this blog there is something to be said about home towns. They may not be exotic locales, but their familiarity and the serenity they offer makes for calm safe times. Especially as the world shrinks with the internet, it is good to remember how large it seemed when we were all younger. How big was your backyard? How great was the distance from your house to the ice cream joint around the corner? Didn't the Elysian Fields of the local park seem vast and pastoral?
I came from a gritty little city, Harrison, New Jersey. It was choked with traffic, bordered by either Newark or the meadowlands and the landfill dump sites there that rose like smelly time capsules from the swamps. We didn't have a car in the family until I was a teenager. We walked or bused it everywhere which meant we did not go very far. It was an absolute luxury to make it to the shore during the summer, usually through the good graces of an uncle. Our backyard was a forest though and our horizons were expanded when we climbed the fences to the neighbor's yards and the parking lot across the street was a latter day coliseum and West Hudson Park, though we called it Kearny Park, was our country estate and the site of countless play scenarios.
Growing up my home town was my world. The next town was a farflung destination, another state was light years away and exotic places like Hawaii or Europe were only fascinations of
an incredibly active mind; they only existed in books.
Decades later and now on the downward slide of life, I was recently reminded of how joyful this small, delicate, innocent world had been and how fleeting and precious was that period of my life. Across the street from Janet's home is a ball field and during the summer her town stages concerts, perhaps 3 or 4 a season. People lay out their blankets or set up lawn chairs and listen to a myriad of music styles and the children frolic in the grass and parents sop up errant water ice from chins and chatter with their neighbors. It is all innocent and wonderful and though this particular evening, Phunkadelphia, with their selections like "Brickhouse", wasn't really innocent, Team VFH and the collective souls of Collegeville still cooed at the children prancing to songs that implored them to shake their booty, etc. Hopefully these cartwheeling children will pass on the same simple joys of hometown activities to the next generation.
I came from a gritty little city, Harrison, New Jersey. It was choked with traffic, bordered by either Newark or the meadowlands and the landfill dump sites there that rose like smelly time capsules from the swamps. We didn't have a car in the family until I was a teenager. We walked or bused it everywhere which meant we did not go very far. It was an absolute luxury to make it to the shore during the summer, usually through the good graces of an uncle. Our backyard was a forest though and our horizons were expanded when we climbed the fences to the neighbor's yards and the parking lot across the street was a latter day coliseum and West Hudson Park, though we called it Kearny Park, was our country estate and the site of countless play scenarios.
Growing up my home town was my world. The next town was a farflung destination, another state was light years away and exotic places like Hawaii or Europe were only fascinations of
an incredibly active mind; they only existed in books.
Decades later and now on the downward slide of life, I was recently reminded of how joyful this small, delicate, innocent world had been and how fleeting and precious was that period of my life. Across the street from Janet's home is a ball field and during the summer her town stages concerts, perhaps 3 or 4 a season. People lay out their blankets or set up lawn chairs and listen to a myriad of music styles and the children frolic in the grass and parents sop up errant water ice from chins and chatter with their neighbors. It is all innocent and wonderful and though this particular evening, Phunkadelphia, with their selections like "Brickhouse", wasn't really innocent, Team VFH and the collective souls of Collegeville still cooed at the children prancing to songs that implored them to shake their booty, etc. Hopefully these cartwheeling children will pass on the same simple joys of hometown activities to the next generation.
