When We Were Young

When I was young, in the summer I would wait for my parents and everyone else in the house to go to bed at night. When I was sure they had, I would get up, sneak out and leave my backdoor unlocked so I could get back in, and hang around with friends in my neighborhood most of the night. It was dark and quiet, at the same time something was always happening.

We would run around under the stars at night able to go anywhere we wanted, running up and down the allies and secret shortcuts and passages through backyards. Sometimes we would play Hide and Go Seek, or sometimes we would just sit talking, looking up at all the stars, and wondering about what was out there--thinking about the vast universe and the thousands of stars, or looking up at the moon floating in a sea of darkness as we wondered about our lives and what they meant.

We would look for UFOs sometimes and we would see them every so often as a string of lights darting through the sky changing direction quickly and silently. It wasn’t always quiet though. We did have a place to go where, unlike during the day, we could socialize with adults and see them at their best.

A young couple was renting an apartment up the street close to us. Sometimes on the weekend all the young adults would meet on the porch of an old abandoned house. They would have a barrel with holes cut in it and a fire going. As they sat and talked we would search for branches with green leaves that they would burn to keep the mosquitos away, and we would sing.

Some of them would sing the latest soul hits and we, as children, would perform songs in harmony by the Temptations and many other singers from that time period. It was a time of laughter and sharing, probably like the time before we were all taken and we were all domesticated enough to spend our time working at jobs that didn’t make sense for at least 40 hours a week, getting to bed early as to get up right after the crack of dawn, and learning to come home and fall in front of a TV set to live our lives vicariously.

We were alive. The TV was there, but it wasn’t a substitute for life. Neighbors talked. They saw each other. They experienced each other face to face. There were arguments and disagreements, but they didn’t turn into grudges, most of the time, that is. And for us kids, it was great because no one was too ashamed of how they would like to sing, or dance, or just have fun.

The night world was a whole new world that my parents and siblings never experienced. It was my secret time to hang around with my friends whose parents would sit out, sometimes, with neighbors on the porch, laugh, sing, and just enjoy living in the neighborhood they had chosen for a home. I am happy those are some of the experiences I had.

Times weren’t always fun. Sometimes things were even painful, but those times and those memories take away the sting of the past and remind me that salvation–healing, is always possible. It happened back then. I’m just sorry that I don’t see things like that happening now where I live or anywhere near.

It is happening in other countries and among many other cultures, but not here among the dominant culture. I am afraid that many of us have been civilized to death. The only way to cure ourselves and become alive again is by getting out of the little house boxes and from in front of the flat boxes on the wall and the small ones that we carry in our pockets, and being willing to interact with the world. Life…the joy of life, is out there everywhere.

The End

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