The adventures of a Florida boy (part 1)
In the 1960s, kids ran as far and wild as their imaginations would take them.
My boyhood was spent in Florida in the 1960s on an island called Coquina Key. My parents’ waterfront home overlooked a large expanse of Tampa Bay. Back then, parts of the island were undeveloped, which left plenty of room for climbing trees, digging forts in the sand, and swimming in shark-infested waters (though we didn’t give the latter much thought).
I was lucky to have a lot of friends close to my age living on my street just a few houses away. There could anywhere from two to 20 of us at any given moment.
A non-school day typically went like this:
Leap out of bed.
Put on a pair of shorts, a T-shirt, and raggedy sneakers (we would have gone barefoot if not for the sandspurs).
Scarf down a bowl of sugary cereal.
Rush out the door.
Play with friends until noon.
Rush inside for a PB&J sandwich, potato chips, and a Coke.
Rush back out the door.
Play with friends until dinnertime.
Scarf a quick dinner (creamed chipped beef on mashed potatoes was a favorite of mine).
Rush back out the door.
Play with friends until well after dark.
Finally come home and go to bed.
I know it sounds like a cliche, but we rarely watched TV except for a show or two in the evenings, and there were no video games, no smart phones, no texting, etc. When I went out to play, I went out to play.
Every day my friends and I would invent something to entertain us.
Maybe we were knights in shining armor with sticks as swords and garbage can lids as shields.
Maybe we dug elaborate underground forts that we hid from the rest of the world by covering them with plywood and a layer of sand.
Maybe we were deep-sea divers, swimming WAYYY too far out into Tampa Bay (which has more than its share of bull sharks and hammerheads) and then seeing how deep we could dive on one breath. When one of us reached the bottom and came up with a handful of seaweed and sand, we called that “proof,” as in proof that you had made it. (Kids our age did not take another kid’s word for much of anything; “proof” was required because our daily physical activities were too fiercely competitive.)
Maybe we jumped on our bikes and rode for miles all over town, often on busy roads with heavy traffic. I did this—mostly with friends but sometimes alone—when I was as young as 7.
Lost in Space was a popular TV show. We acted that out a lot. A tubby friend of mine was the robot. Even though I was the skinniest kid, I often took on the role of leader. For instance, I was John Robinson.
The earliest James Bond movies were also popular, but everybody wanted to be James.
The scary vampire TV show Dark Shadows was another favorite. My friends and I killed a lot of vampires in broad daylight.
Other popular shows included Mission Impossible, The Outer Limits, and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (I was always Napoleon Solo, even though I had white-blond hair. I once talked my mom into dyeing it brown, but it ended up turning green. I was ahead of my time.)
And of course, we played every sport imaginable: baseball, basketball, football, kickball, even kill-the-carrier.
Nowadays, I’m a novelist who writes mostly epic fantasy. Some adults might consider that a childish genre.
I tend to agree. It’s the child in me who fuels my stories. My imagination was born during a time when children ran wild—and a time when “wild” didn’t mean drugs or sex.
It meant “in the wild.”
I wouldn’t trade my boyhood for the world.
I wouldn’t trade my imagination, either.
Thank you! It was magical, wasn't it? Could you imagine allowing a 7-year-old to ride off into traffic alone on a bike nowadays?
Your writing takes me right back to my own childhood. A magical time, indeed.