Sooner or later, it happened to every family and when it happened to ours, well…

We didn’t have SUV’s or mini-vans back then, we had station wagons! They were an inevitable part of the

fifties and sixties if you had a family and needed to transport everything from band instruments

to the neighborhood kids.

The green Valiant Station Wagon in our drive way was (I believe) the first brand new car my parents

ever bought. We had nice cars, but this one was showroom new and had that smell that once sniffed,

can never again be mistaken for anything else.

The idea of a station wagon, while not terribly exciting, was at least made more so by the fact

that no one in the neighborhood had a new car at that time, so at least, I was proud of the “newness”

of our family vehicle.

Our front porch was a favorite gathering place for the neighborhood kids. My parents were the

“cool” parents and my friends enjoyed them immensely. Dad never missed a chance to entertain

us (actually I think looking back he was entertaining himself) on summer evenings when

(with so much at our disposal) we had “noting to do.”

He would sit on the porch with us and tell us to “go throw coal at ourselves” or “go to Mansfield

by way of Bucyrus”. The first was in reference to the old coal cellars most of the houses on our

street had and the latter was funny because Mansfield was 12 miles east of us and Bucyrus was

12 miles west. Ok, maybe you had to be there, but we were, so it was his way of saying that if we

were bored he wasn’t really interested in breaking the boredom at that very moment

by doing anything terrible exciting.

Dad always came through for us though, he once took a roll of pennies and scattered them in the front

yard. He told us that as soon as we’d found all 50, he would take us for ice cream. Of course, we

managed to find 49 and not that doggone 50^th (which he had pocketed).

When we had busied ourselves trying to find that last penny and he was satisfied that he had had the

opportunity to read his paper and relax after a long day, he would take us for ice cream anyway

kidding us that we owed him a penny and not to forget it.

Once the station wagon entered the picture, we would beg him to put the tail gate down and let us ride

in the back of the car on the tailgate with our feet dangling off. Considering today’s safety standards,

it probably seems dangerous and maybe in a way it was, but in our little town, traffic meant that two

cars actually faced each other at a stop sign.

He drove very slowly and there we all would be packed into the back of that little car with the lucky

few who made it to the car first, sitting on the tailgate.

(please don’t send me any email telling me how dangerous and unacceptable that practice was, remember, we didn’t even have seat belts then and the ice cream stand was a block away on a little side street)

At any rate, we would get the ice cream and fight over who got to ride the tailgate back to the house. If we got

too rambunctious he would make us put the tailgate up and sit in the seats properly, so we resorted to silent

altercations; pinching, punching and pushing.

One evening in particular, we were not so silent about our bid for the tailgate and he stopped the car, made us all get out

and walk back to the house. You have never in your life heard such whining and complaining as 6 kids did that evening

having to actually walk a block or two! Dad, ever the clown, kept circling the block honking the horn at us and

sticking out his tongue. Finally our complaining gave way to yelling at him and laughing.

Once home with ice cream all over us, we would get a game of hide and seek going and would play until every

porch light in the neighborhood flickered off and on, the universal signal for “time to come home.”

If you had a really good hiding place and you noticed your own porch light flickering, you had a decision to make.

“Will I obey and give up my best hiding place ever, or will I disobey and stay right where I am until someone

gets tagged?”

I once made the wrong decision! I won’t go into that, but suffice it to say, I didn’t do it again!

My dad liked to play tag with one of the neighborhood boys. Jim adored my dad and my dad loved to tease him. Jim would go up to my dad, tap him on the arm and say, “You’re it!” Dad would chase him and almost always re-tagged and the game would go on for days!

I can remember one particular game that turned out so funny, we talk about it to this day.

On one occasion, Jim tagged my dad and was immediately tagged back. Later that night, there was a knock at our front door and Jim’s dad was standing there. He said, “Jack, will you please come over and let Jim tag you? He’s in bed and won’t go to sleep because he’s “It”.” Dad actually had to go to his house, go to the kid’s bedroom and let Jim tag him so Jim would go to sleep! Apparently though, as he was leaving the room, dad went right back to the bed, reached down and said, “You’re it and I quit!” Then he raced out of the house laughing his head off!

People travel through childhood in many different ways. Sometimes the way is very difficult and not happy. I truly feel bad for those who do not have happy memories. But sometimes, we travel though those magical years of learning and growing, on the tailgate of a Valiant Station Wagon with ice cream running down our arms and smiles the size of Texas.

You know, if everyone had a Valiant Station Wagon, maybe this would be a less complicated world.

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