Flashback

Today, Good Friday, we had a very good Friday. My son played outside all day. It was like a 1970's day for those who experienced the 1970's. No fear of bad people, no fear of bad drivers, just horsing around all day.

Don't get me wrong the 1970's was rife with danger. We just didn't know it. And that was the beauty of it all. For a 70's Christmas, my parents gave us the Ronco bottle cutter. This was funny on multiple levels. First it was primarily used to cut wine bottles, of which there were plenty, at least in my house. Second, who gives a child a cutting tool? Third, the cuts were not exactly precise so what you were left with was a jagged edge open wine bottle to make, say a votive holder for your memorial service once you developed Hepatitis C.

My parents had that rule, the one everyone had in the 70's. Be home by dark. The idea being how far could you push dark before you were punished. In Arlington, Texas where I grew up, dark meant when the street lights came on and the bats started to circle. Again, bats probably not all that sanitary or safe. But we lived in that bubble where nothing bad ever happened.

Today kids are subject to all sorts of badness and cruelty. It may have been the same then, but we had no idea. As I've said before on this blog, Mystic River scared the crap out of me. I was terrified someone would take off with my son and do terrible things. I'm still worried. Look at the news. A young girl found in a suitcase in a drainage ditch.

But today, we were free from worry. Today was like the old days before media and news and whatever else told us how really scary it is out there. See we live in a fringe neighborhood where people drive too fast, do burnouts and throw their airplane bottles of liquor outside. Today was a good day in the hood.