I used to walk to school. .7 mile. I used to walk places. I picked up the groceries. Visited friends. Rode my bike.
That time is never coming back, and it’s impossible to go back to that place.
= = =
I would like to walk the train tracks, bike down to the river, stop at a friend’s house, ... like those days long age.
But today, I’d carry.
When I was a kid we lived in Montebello, Ca. about a 1/4 mile from the Rio Hondo River.
My brother and I (me about 5 or 6, my brother about 7 or 8) would spend all day on weekends and all summer down in the river bed, we knew if we heard the rumble to get out of the river bed because the rumble meant they opened the flood gates of the dam, it could happen any time.
It was great tactical experience escaping from Jerry’s Hispanic gang (yes we had them even back in the late 40”s/early 50’s), we would get to one of our locations that had limited access points and defend ourselves with stockpiled rocks, they would usually give up after short time and a few bruises.
We would outrun the freight trains across the Whittier trestle and if we couldn’t make it we would jump off into the sandbars below(about 15 foot drop).
We would catch buckets of crawdads to bring home for supper, fish for trout with hand lines, raid duck nests for eggs, hand catch bull frogs for frog legs.
We left the area in the late 50’s and my brother and I never went back until the late 70’s, yup, the river is all concrete now and has no wildlife whatsoever.
Weirdest thing was my brother and I went to Redondo Beach in the late 70’s to do some beach diving and decided to visit the old haunts on our way home, it was about 5 or 6 pm and we were standing on one of the new to us bridges.
Who walks up? JERRY with 3 of his boys with him, me and my brother figured we were dead men!
He stares at us for a few seconds and then yells “YOUR THOSE CHINGADA JAMES BOYS”, me and my brother KNEW WE WERE DEAD!
Jerry walks up to us with a big smile on his face and grabs our hands and gives us a big shake.
He then tells us we shouldn’t hang around this are very long because it’s a dangerous place for “pedejo gabachos” now days.
We talked “old times” for a few minutes the shook again and left.
BEING A KID IN THE OLD DAYS WAS FUN AND DANGEROUS AT THE SAME TIME, I guess Jerry would be the head GANGBANGER now but when we were kids it was still a game.
Played seriously, but still a game.