On NE 1st Street

We carried our lunches in the same, brown, sack bag that we folded up, brought home everyday and used until it ripped. On a good day, we got Oscar Meyer or Wonder Bread or Hostess with carrots or celery, an apple or orange, and 4 cents for milk.

We were always outside playing.

After the bus dropped us off, we ran home to change clothes and came back when we heard the dinner bell ring.

We would spend hours building forts with wood scraps. We climbed under the laurel and hung on the vines. We invented worlds out of piled blossoms, leaves, and grass clippings. We took turns rolling around in an old refrigerator box. We played Seven Up in the street and Wiffle Ball in the orchard.

We found caterpillars and collected chestnuts that we strung together to make necklaces. We rolled May Day baskets and hung them on doors and ran away when we rang the bell. We would shoot hoops, pick plumbs, and ride cookie sheets until the snow melted.

We learned about the breaks on our bikes by riding into bushes or skinning our knees on the gravel.

When we fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth, we ran to somebody's home for help and there were no lawsuits.

We baked cookies, wore high heels and dress ups, wrote scripts and illustrated programs for our neighborhood plays. We walked to our friend’s house and knocked on the door or just walked in. We listened to KJR Seattle, Channel 95, watched CBS on Saturday nights and TV specials at Christmas.

Little League teams and cheer-leading squads had tryouts and not everyone made it. We learned to deal with disappointment.

Parents trusted school teachers and sided with the law.

The generations before us produced some of the best risk-takers, inventors, innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility. We learned how to manage it all.