Cookies from Strangers − September, 1979
I wonder if my parents knew the extent of the things I did when I was little. It was never anything overtly naughty (usually); it was almost always a safety issue: the "stay away from strangers" kind of safety issue.
Usually when I was walking home from school (first grade), I met up with my friend Brad -- I went to Catholic school and he went to public. Sometimes, we'd be in the mood for a snack, but our homes were a few blocks away and we wanted a snack NOW. What do you think two first-graders would do when confronted with such a dilemma? Wait until we got home? Not a chance.
We knocked on the door of every house on the way home until we got one where someone was home. Then we would very politely ask if they had any cookies for us. And we always got cookies. From people we didn't know.
Granted, Oakley, Kansas, was a very small town where everyone pretty much knew everyone else, so the danger to us was minimal. Still...
Similarly, there were times when Brad and I were playing outside and we'd make our way over to the retirement village a few blocks away. I don't recall how it happened the first time, but every once in a while we would go to an elderly couple's house, knock on their door, and go inside to play.
They were a very nice couple, and they would just sit and watch us play. They didn't have any toys, but we would build things with their domino set (old people always had dominoes and cards) and play with a few small plastic farm animals they happened to have. The lady would usually have cookies for us, and the man would delight us by resetting his awesomely huge grandfather clock, just so we could see the cuckoo bird pop out.
We played for an hour or so before we were off again, running all over the neighborhood with reckless abandon.
I wonder if my parents knew this couple? Or if the couple would call our moms when we were there to let them know where we were?
The cookies-on-the-way-home-from-school thing was just plain stupid. Playing at the elderly couple's house, though, was somehow different. Maybe it was the way their eyes sparkled and smiled when they opened the door to greet us, or the way they watched us with a subtle mix of joy and sadness that told me, even then, that stopping by to play at their house was a good thing.
Even if they didn't have any toys.
Usually when I was walking home from school (first grade), I met up with my friend Brad -- I went to Catholic school and he went to public. Sometimes, we'd be in the mood for a snack, but our homes were a few blocks away and we wanted a snack NOW. What do you think two first-graders would do when confronted with such a dilemma? Wait until we got home? Not a chance.
We knocked on the door of every house on the way home until we got one where someone was home. Then we would very politely ask if they had any cookies for us. And we always got cookies. From people we didn't know.
Granted, Oakley, Kansas, was a very small town where everyone pretty much knew everyone else, so the danger to us was minimal. Still...
Similarly, there were times when Brad and I were playing outside and we'd make our way over to the retirement village a few blocks away. I don't recall how it happened the first time, but every once in a while we would go to an elderly couple's house, knock on their door, and go inside to play.
They were a very nice couple, and they would just sit and watch us play. They didn't have any toys, but we would build things with their domino set (old people always had dominoes and cards) and play with a few small plastic farm animals they happened to have. The lady would usually have cookies for us, and the man would delight us by resetting his awesomely huge grandfather clock, just so we could see the cuckoo bird pop out.
We played for an hour or so before we were off again, running all over the neighborhood with reckless abandon.
I wonder if my parents knew this couple? Or if the couple would call our moms when we were there to let them know where we were?
The cookies-on-the-way-home-from-school thing was just plain stupid. Playing at the elderly couple's house, though, was somehow different. Maybe it was the way their eyes sparkled and smiled when they opened the door to greet us, or the way they watched us with a subtle mix of joy and sadness that told me, even then, that stopping by to play at their house was a good thing.
Even if they didn't have any toys.
Comments:
peahayes (September 6, 2008. 09:21pm)
That's a wonderful and amazing story! You little guys must have brought that couple a lot of joy.