The first thing Old Folks bought when
he got on permanent with IBM was a secondhand yellow fiberglass canoe, an Asahi Pentax
camera with a zoom telephoto lens, and a fence around the house to keep the dog in
and the mango thieves and burglars out.
They were living in Old Folks's grandparent's
house and didn't get broken in on as often, although it still happened more often
than Old Folks would have liked.
What did they do with the canoe and the
camera?
They went camping at state parks and to bluegrass festivals in Northwest
Florida.
They camped out in yard-sale tents and hiked nature trails, they
fished and swam, they scalloped and crabbed, they cooked and ate and told stories
and played or listened to acoustic string music.
The kids roamed free. All
of the grown-ups took care of everybody's kids.
Wherever they ended up at
meal time, that's where they ate.
It was the difference between fear, aggravation,
and the discontents of civilization and the simple pleasures of fellowship, participatory
entertainment, and vigorous physical exercise.
* * *
When Old Folks, Brenda, and the boys moved to Panama City it was to move
towards nature, and a more rewarding life, as much as to move away from crime, overcrowding,
racial tensions, and anxiety.
It's no fun living in a place where you don't
feel safe, where sirens go all night, where you worry about how safe your children
are, and whether some older playground hooligan, held back from being retarded, was
saying to them, "Your dog want to suck my dick."
Let them have
a childhood. I had one.