Jaywalking

My childhood was set in a small town. To the North, South, and East: corn. To the West was  a mid-sized city of sufficient insignificance that it didn’t warrant having suburbs. My brother, our cousins, and I wandered the sidewalks of this town, not suburb, with the boredom that was the hallmark of childhoods then. After all, there were only four channels on TV.

There were two pools in our town, not suburb, one old and one new. The old pool cost 25 cents to enter and was so ancient that it may have been the very first cement structure filled with enough water to paddle around in until your cousin Danny tries to murder you by drowning. The other pool, which was closer to the Tastee- Freeze our favorite post-swim treat, cost 50 cents to enter. This second pool was glamorous. It had a wading pool and three diving boards. One diving board so high that it probably wasn’t legal. I’m sure the rumors that they let all the little kids pee in that pool were started by lifeguards at the old pool.

 It was a time when children ran errands for adults. So, I knew how to make a deposit at the bank. I knew that you had to time it just right so you’d get Mrs. Jacobson as your teller, because she was the only one who gave kids suckers. I knew that if I slid in the back door of the Main St. tavern that the cook, Elsie, would sell me an order of cheese fries and let me and my friends sit in the cracked vinyl booth in the kitchen to eat them.

I knew the librarian personally, she went to our church and one of her sons was in my class at school. I loved her even though her son was an unrepentant nose picker. She let me check out more than three books at a time (the rule for punks my age) because she knew how much I loved to read.

My father was once walking with my brother and me in our small town, not suburb, and was appalled when we tried to cross the street in the middle of the block. This triggered one of his most vehement ‘Dad Speeches’ regarding the scourge of jaywalking. He really brought home to us that this conduct could get us arrested. He had no idea how often a day we’d done this very maneuver over the course of our short lives, thank goodness, or he would have arrested us himself. My father was rarely self-righteous but there is no other way to describe his outrage.

This morning, I brazenly jaywalked for the first time since that speech. (How long ago was that you ask? Shut up.) There were no cars coming, so I didn't even speed-walk. I strolled. The police did not appear. No one even bothered to look shocked.

The only thing that happened was that I was transported, for just a moment, back through all those years to the sidewalks of my small town, not suburb, with my father lecturing my brother and me with the potential of a Tastee-Freez treat on the next block.