Lately, Mother and I have been taking a cup of coffee with us to the front porch to sit a spell and watch the sunset. These evening repasts are nice as we run back over the day or just sit quietly watching the lightning bugs and occasional ground hog or opossum in the yard. These evenings also bring back vivid evenings of my childhood in East Moline, IL.
We (Mother, Big Daddy and we four kids - the birth of #5 would necessitate us moving) lived in a quiet neighborhood out in the countryside on the other side of the Silvis Yards of the Rock Island Railroad Lines. If you rode your brother's bike from end of the only road that ran down the middle of the neighborhood to the other end, your nose would be entertained by the diversity of our little confines. From Mrs. Urbanak's Polish sausage to Mrs. Nache's enchiladas past Mother's cornbread and beans on to Mrs. Marinangeli's lasagna ending at the Bettis' outdoor grill full of hamburgers and hot dogs. It was an aroma that signaled a beautiful, peaceful place to live and raise kids.
There were no electronic gizmos or satellite TV or home computers or I-anything in those days. Our black and white TV was fed by an outdoor aerial antenna that picked up three stations (if the wind was blowing just right, we might pick up one from Iowa). The boys played Little League baseball. On those summer days when there was not a game down at the ball park by the Triangle Inn, there was usually one happening at Mum's Field (an open pasture on the other side of the Bartholomew's).
Kids would ride their bikes (or in my case, their older brother's bike) up and down the road of Garden Tract Addition. We were safe playing in each other's yards and homes. I had been after my brother to teach me how to ride his bike but he was always in a ball game somewhere. One day I decided to teach myself.
The bike was too tall for me to swing my skinny little body onto. I pushed it up against a tree stump in the front yard, using it as a step, I was soon aboard. One of the peddles hit the bottom of my bare foot and I was off. I flew through the front yard into the bar ditch that bounced me up on the tar and gravel road. For some unknown reason, I turn the handle bars to the right and I was flying! I then realized I had no idea how to stop this thing! I decided to head for another ditch but instead clipped the back bumper of Mr. Nache's car. No harm done to either vehicle or stringy headed little girl. Mr. Nache got me back on the bike, pointed it toward my house and gave me a push. Again, I was flying. Same thought -- how do I stop this thing! As I neared our driveway, I turned the handlebars to the left, throwing gravel into the air as I flew past the house. I leaped off the bike just before it entered the garage. It stopped when it hit the back wall of the garage. Good thing Big Daddy was at work.
We kids would play all day long, all summer long. After breakfast, it was outside. We might take a lunch and supper break but, we usually played in other's yards, in ballgames or riding bikes most all day long. We exercised our imaginations as we built secret hide-aways in lilac bushes or went searching for frogs or other creatures down in the swamp at the Bettis' end of the road.
Having no cell phones or other ways to call, as sundown came, mothers all around the neighborhood would start calling their kids names: "Kenny, come home . . . Gina, come home . . . Michael, Karen, Kay, come home." Mother's soft alto voice could be heard all over the neighborhood. Mother only called once, that's how things happened in our house. Other mothers might call several times and in louder, angrier tones but when we heard Mother call: "Come home." Home we ran.
She would meet us on the back porch step with a hot cup of coffee and an empty glass jar with holes punched into the lid. We would run around the back yard collecting lighting bugs and putting them into the glass jar. Then we sat down beside her and told her all about the day's adventures. When her cup was empty, we opened the jar and set the bugs free.
We don't chase the lighting bugs when we go on the front porch now but we both carry our cup of coffee and review the day's news and adventures. When our cups are empty, we go back inside the home we now share together. Because home has always been the best place to come for a Davis kid.
And home's the most excellent place of all
And I'll be right here if you should call me
-- Neil Diamond, "Turn On Your Heartlight"
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