Guns, Toys, Kids, Growing Up, Life....

As posted by Porta's Cat, this post is a reflection started by this posting at Xaviers" and continued by Porta's Cat.

I found myself leaving a comment, but as I was made to go back in time, I found myself re-living several childhood memories. Oh God! I couldn't leave this comment on his post, it needed a blog of it's own. I'm probably taking this post in a different direction than even PC and Xavier did, but in going back in time, this is where my mind goes...

I can't speak too much or hardly, on the topic of Guns, more like Barbies lol....andI can speak of other Toys, Kids, Growing Up and Life.

"And, mostly, we are probably the last generation for a long time, maybe ever, that knows what it is like to both "have to and want to" stay outside all day long in the summer and not come home till we heard our own special whistle, yell, car horn morse code, cow bell, or whatever signal mom used to pull us back in for supper."

This...brings to mind a back bone chill of hearing my mother screaming in her strong Mexican voice:

"SYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYLLLLLLLVVVVVIIAAAAAAAAAAA"

She tended to drag the Y in my name and stress on the A. If I didn't hear her, the whole neighborhood did and I was hunted down and warned (with a fear of God in their eyes) how long she had been yelling!!! God the nightmares that can cause... ooooooooohhh!!!

I'm afraid I've blocked most of my childhood years, I don't remember much at all, little to nothing at all. I don't know why, but for some odd reason, I'm afraid to open that door.

For what I do remember, I remember being able to go outside right after breakfast til late night, playing in the rain as the street flooded (and I'm talking about knee high water at times), walking to school down the railroad tracks, playing kick ball, baseball, hide and seek, late in to the night in the street, no cell phones to keep track of us.

Toys, well... don't get me started on that one. I really don't remember too much, I can say two things of what I remember the most, I will never forget the chalkboard with pegs. Since I was a little girl, I have had the passion of drawing. That little chalkboard with pegs went everywhere with me. I also remember (and have a scar to remind me of) how I was not allowed to have a bicycle throughout my childhood and teen years. To this day, people, I have never owned my own bicycle (I feel like Phoebe on Friends)! I remember being so upset that I couldn't have a bicycle as all my friends did and one day I decided to ride my friends. I couldn't let mom find out so we went to the end of the street where she couldn't see me. Well, upon getting on the bicycle, I immediately fell off and skinned my knee. I was too scared of what mom was going to do that I didn't even cry. I had a large gaping hole in my knee, I knew that I was going to have to go home and get it looked at, you could see the knee cap cartlidge. Well, upon getting home and going to mom, she asked the inevitable question "How did this happen?" I couldn't lie, I just knew better. So.... she went and retrieved a bottle of rubbing alcohol and "poured" it on my knee, right over the gaping hole. No kisses, no hugs, no tender words.... "This will teach you not to go against me!" I remember having lots of barbies, those were lost after they were handed down to my niece.

On a bad note:

I remember walking to my Elementary and as we kids walked to school, there was actually a house that we all had to pass by and we always knew there were "bad" people living there. Why do I say "bad" people, well, that's how they would be labeled in those days, actually today they would be known and labeled as Pedophiles and Exhibitionists. Rumor had it that it was a mid 20's, late 20's couple that lived there. Oddly enough no-one ever really saw them out of the house. I remember them coming to the window and having the curtains drawn close enough to hide upper torsos and knees down on the man and enough to show the chest and lower extremities of the woman. These days, they would have been hauled off to jail in a second. This went on for what seemed all of my elementary years.

I also remember being jumped by a gang of cholas (20+) on the last day of school right before transferring to High School. I'm still here, I survived all of it, but gangs were very visible, the guns weren't, it was all fist fights and ofcourse your Cat fights.

As for guns referred to in this post, I was never exposed to guns growing up, I'm sure my dad had his share stored in the house, from when he served for our country, but I was exposed during high school to the damages guns can bring about from carelessness. That was the extent of my exposure to guns.

What it boils down to in reference to "my days" growing up, we were your average family, or atleast in my mind we were. My mom was tough... my dad was the quiet and more passive one. I have a different recollection of growing up than my brothers and sister do. It's not all good, unfortunately. There are memories that I prefer not to dig up, nor open the dark, cobwebbed closet doors to. All in all, I survived... I'm still here, alive and kicking... I just wish that my kids could use their wisdom to benefit them in a positive way. My kids are smart, I allowed them to some degree the same type of growing up as I did. They were allowed to go out, they were not kept indoors, they were allowed to go out and explore. I've learned of days when they would go out in to the fields behind our subdivisions, late in to some nights. I'm glad that I was able to pass that on atleast, I just pray that the chain can be broken when it comes to the negative things I experienced or their father experienced, and that they break the chain of ignorance that comes from todays blinding and distracting world events, technology, etc...

"I just want my son to be able to grow up as I did, in many respects. But he won't be ble to."

I'm with you on this sad, but very real and true fact! My kids are as ignorant and as blind as a TV and a video game can make a child.