Didn’t we all do ridiculous things back in the day when we were free roaming kids in the 60s and 70s? Novels could be written about the shenanigans, but when I narrow it down to things that were downright dangerous the list gets shorter. Thankfully.
When we were really little and most of the mayhem took place inside, many of the casualties seemed to occur at the T-intersection where the living room, kitchen and hallway intersected. The transition from bright red shag carpet to the polished grey kitchen tiles was a particularly high collision site. Mom regularly shined those tiles up with generous scoops of solid wax that she then buffed with an electric mop that had two spinning brushes at the bottom to whip up a sparkle with gusto.
We were warned of this spot and I remember chasing my three siblings right through the danger zone. I was only about two and was still much smaller than all of them, but I had (strangely) stuck a straw up my nose and it had begun to rot, leaving me with really bad breath. I was successfully chasing them around just by breathing on them. My superpower.
I’m really not sure if it’s possible to actually have these memories or if I’ve just heard the stories, but I have a sepia-tone memory of picking up that dirty used straw outside Gramma’s house several weeks earlier. My sister has clear memories of watching me lift it to my nose and crumpling it way up inside. And I have memories of having to spend a night at the General Hospital where they had to remove it surgically.
We all have clear memories of that same sister succumbing to the dreaded T-intersection a few years later. Mom and Dad had gone out somewhere, so we tied her hands behind her back and bound her ankles and good-naturedly chased her around the house (I think we were taking turns in that role, but even so, it’s pretty clear we were hellbent on The Chase). She hopped through the shag carpet laughing, but growing more frenzied and we all stopped as we saw she was hopping with abandon directly toward the intersection. We recoiled when we heard the crack where her chin hit the perfectly polished and buffed kitchen tiles. She still has the scar from the stitches.
Later we moved outdoors, and hands became tied to the back of bike frames with the person having to run to keep up with the pace of the bike. Then we moved onto climbing pretty much everything we could. Trees, the playhouse next door, fences, the garage. We would gather on top of the garage and jump off – whoever didn’t cry won.
Even later still, we played Goofy Darts, where someone ran in front of the board trying not to get punctured by the dart. I can’t recall if the person throwing the dart was supposed to miss the person or hit the person in order to get points. But I don’t remember any stitches being needed during that game, which had a very short lifespan. We were adults soon after and the world presented untold numbers of dangerous games every day, whether we liked it or not.
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