Growing up in Detroit

[turkeycall]

Consider this:

1950s. Far east-side Detroit - around the Mack and E. Warren intersect. A week day or Saturday in the summertime.

Six or seven - sometimes more - neighbor kids - all within two or three years in age of each other - gather together around 8 AM. All have a brown-bag lunch. As a group, they head for Balduck Park [[not the wooded side, the sledding hill side).

There are no adults with them to oversee the day's activities because adults are just not necessary. Neighbor kids become brothers and sisters for the day. The older kids watch out for the younger ones.

A scrub softball game materializes. "I'm Al Kaline" is shouted out by one and another shouts, "And I'm Rocky Collavito." The tennis court fence functions as back-stop. A ball hit over the archery range fence is a home run. Funny thing about it, the score isn't kept nor is it remembered. The game is played for the fun of it.

The game comes to a conclusion - who knows why? The gang heads for the picnic tables near the tennis courts. The little swarm of friends sits and eats their brown-bag lunches.

Now the swings, the slide, and the monkey bars beckon.

The sheets of waxed paper that wrapped the sandwiches now serve another purpose. They are used to sit on while descending the slide. The waxed paper makes the slide more slippery.

Now, understand, not one of those kids is wearing a wrist watch. They really don't know what time it is. They just know that it's time to head for home.

All that day, mothers have had no special concern for their children. It was a reasonable assumption that all was well; their children were safe in the company of friends. And, that's the way it was growing up in Detroit in the 50s.

[Ben]

Those were the days. I grew up in Morningside and have many a memory of playing for hours all over the neighborhood without my mom worrying at all.