Danger
The untented Kosmos my abode/I pass, a willful stranger;
My master still the open road/And the bright eyes of danger.
Robert Louis Stevenson
When I write in parts or chapters I always use some kind of quotation—poetry or prose—to begin. I think it adds a certain amount of class to a piece of writing; the author has taken the time to research and find the words that best fits what follows.
Our danger was bright eyed…
I can’t write about my particular childhood without addressing this subject. At the end of (part 3) I mention the freedom we were accorded while at play. I also wrote that Shady Avenue Extension was similar to a humming hive, everyone busy with their tasks that had been set out for them. That, to me, is the closest I can come to defining the atmosphere of our street.
As I have already explained, our group of three girls was not entranced with femininity. Fortunately our mothers didn’t nag. If we were playing outside that was enough for them. This is a good place to note that being a housewife in the 1950s was hard work. (Physical strength, cooking, cleaning, and management comprised this difficult role. Fewer “instant” foods. Most households had a cleaning woman who came once a week to do the “heavy work.” But remember: there were no automatic washer/dryers, no polyester which meant ironing everything, no second car available to rush to the grocery store in case dinner didn’t turn out right; hungry husbands coming home tired.) As long as the children were not underfoot, so much the better.
I can only imagine what my mother and her neighborhood friends on the block would have thought if they knew our real story…
We poked and pried and stole; peered into windows, spent hours investigating “the alley” that ran behind the houses on one side; kicked everything available. But the worst of all was our fascination with fire.
It must be noted that we all spent hours watching westerns on television. Our heroes were always camping out in the wilderness and they always had a fire. We decided to try this out for ourselves.
Matches were easy to find; no problem there. It was also easy to find paper and twigs. So, yes, we “set fires.” Fire, more than any of our exploits, calmed some sort of inner restlessness that we shared. Once lit (and these fires were quite small) we squatted down and stared at the flames. Burning wood smelled so good…we were hypnotized and we were cowboy cool.
However, after this we got more curious and began raiding our basements for anything worth burning. At my house we couldn’t find anything. But at my two friends’ –Arlene and Naomi—houses we found lots of candles in the basements and at Arlene’s, an old-fashioned candelabra.
This is the ultimate tale of danger that capped our excursion into playing with fire.
We had stolen enough candles to fill the entire candelabra. These were “Shabbos candles.” Arlene and I locked ourselves into one of the Steins’ storage rooms in the basement, inserted the candles, then lit them. As we stood, transfixed, at what we had accomplished, we could hear Mrs. Stein thundering down the stairs into the basement. She demanded that we unlock the door and we did, terrified.
She saw our burning candles; apparently she smelled smoke even though the storage room door was locked. She marched us up the stairs, “screaming bloody murder” and not just at Arlene. I had never been yelled at by somebody else’s mother before. Mrs. Stein called my mother and told her what happened.
My mother responded by racing the short distance to the Steins’ house and grabbing me by my shoulder. In that way she propelled me home, commanded me to stay in my room with a dire warning to “Wait until your father gets home.”
While all this was going on my mother had to prepare the house for a cocktail party she was giving for a relative. My stomach at my feet, frozen with fear of what punishment my father would decide on, I sat and stared out the window. I waited. Finally I heard the car pull to the curb, a door slam…my father was home. I was called downstairs where my mother was rushing around in one of her pretty dresses, delicately arranging the party food on big serving platters and making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for me and my sister at the same time. I sat quietly, listened, and watched. Had my mother forgotten the blazing candelabra in the Steins’ basement? The twisting feeling in my stomach began to relax while my father was in the bedroom, changing his clothes.
I thought that by this time my mother had a chance to tell my father the terrible story. But nothing happened!! I lay in bed, listening to the guests talking and laughing. I was unable to fall asleep, though, until the people left. Certainly, now, there existed one last chance for me to be punished in some awful way. But nothing happened. My parents went to bed.
I believe that every kid should experience this once…getting away with some terrible deed. It makes you believe in forces beyond yourself. Nothing about fires was said. As for Arlene and Naomi and myself, a non-verbal agreement was made the next day; experimenting with fire was over. Arlene had been punished but that was not discussed.
However, the thrill of danger held us in its grip. We got this idea that it would be fun to take one of the empty mayonnaise jars we’d been given and rove around one of our kitchens, taking a bit of everything on the shelves and making a mix. This included baking soda, baking powder, vinegar, pancake syrup, salad dressing, milk, etc. Our downfall came when vinegar, added to baking powder, created a minor explosion. We were in the Steins’ kitchen and poor Mrs. Stein was somewhere else in the house. Frantically, trying not to scream, we ran water over whatever we’d created and dumped the contents of the jar down the drain.
lgmwriting 