When I was your age…
The gray-haired woman sat on a bench at a local park in the Bronx. She watched as the boys and girls played in the park. The year was 1956. A young boy, about six years old, stops to pick up a ball that he has thrown, looks at the woman, and smiles.
The woman smiles back. “What’s that you’re playing with?” she asks.
“It’s my own spaldeen,” he answered. “I just got it today; it cost me 25 cents.”
The woman chuckled. “Did you know that when I was a child, I could buy two loaves of bread for less than that?”
The boy looked at the woman in astonishment. “How old are you?” he asked.
She furrowed her brow and cocked her head as if to be thinking. “Let’s see now,” she said. “I was born in 1905. I guess that would make me 51 years old.”
“Wow,” was the boy’s reaction. “You’re old!”
“Well, not that old,” she replied. “Would you like to know what life was like when I was your age?”
“Sure.” the inquisitive boy said as he sat on the bench next to the old woman.
“First of all, when I was your age, I didn’t live in this country. I lived in a country called Germany, which is far, far away, across a great ocean. My father ran a haberdashery which is another word for clothing store, and my mother stayed home to take care of her six children.”
“Did you go to school? I’m in first grade.” the boy asked.
“Sure, I went to school. I went to a small wooden schoolhouse. There were 14 of us in my class, five boys and nine girls. The headmaster, my teacher, was well dressed, serious-minded person. If we did anything wrong, well, he would sometimes rap us on the back of our hands with a ruler. ”
“Did it hurt?”
“For a short time. I tried not to get in trouble, but it was kind of hard for me. I liked having fun.”
“What did you do for fun?”
“I mostly played with my friends. Of course, there was the one time I got in trouble for climbing on the roof of my house. Girls were not supposed to do that.”
Before he could ask another question, the boy heard his mother calling him to come home. He turned his head as he walked away and asked if he could hear more stories some other time. The gray-haired woman said, “Of course.”
————-
I went back to my old neighborhood about ten years ago. Things had changed. The park we had played in as kids in the 50s and 60s was much smaller now. There were a lot more trees. There was grass on the ground and leaf litter instead of dirt. The sandbox was gone, but the brook was still there, as were some benches. I sat down on a bench, closed my eyes, and tried to remember what it was like when I was a kid. I was surprised when I opened my eyes to see the face of a small boy, probably about six or so, standing in front of me and staring at me.
“Are you okay, mister?” was his question.
I looked around to see other adults with children entering the park. One young woman approached the boy and said, “Don’t bother the man, Charley.”
I was quick to reply, “It’s no bother at all. I was just remembering what it was like way back then.”
Before the mother could say anything, her son piped up, “You’re old! What was it like when you lived here?”
I looked at the mother and asked her, “I’d love to tell you if it’s all right with your mom.”
I could see by the look in her eyes that not only was it all right, but she also wanted to know the answer.
So I began to share as they sat next to me on the bench.
You see, we had a sandbox over there. That was second base when we played baseball. There used to be a rock over there that was third base and a tree over here that was first. That walking path leading up the hill between here and those rocks, well, that was what we used to ride down on our sleds when it snowed.”
They never got tired of my stories of the olden days. It turns out the boy’s mother was a teacher, so I had a lot more stories to share with her.
————
The year is 2075. A young man of 70 is strolling through an electronic playground in the Bronx. A small child bumps into him, wearing a pair of holographic goggles. (real old technology).
They take the goggles off so they can see what they bumped into and are surprised to see this man standing in front of them.
“I’m sorry I didn’t see you,” they say. They hold up their safety scanner, quickly identifying the person that they bumped into as a safe individual. “Why are you here?”
He replied, “I grew up here over 60 years ago when I was about your age. I was just thinking about what life was like back then.”
The child scans the man again to make sure, then says, “I’ve never heard about that time from a real person. Can you tell me what it was like?”
And he did.
What did he share with that child?
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I ask you readers: What kinds of things do you think are important and memorable to the kids growing up now in the 2020s that, when they get older, they will recall and share with the next generation? And how will that information be shared?
