Adolescent free time... that's just redundant, yeah? I can't think of anything pressing between the ages of birth and 12 other than needing to use the bathroom and waking up in time to catch the bus. Growing up in Springfield, MA wasn't as terrible as it could have been; I spent a lot of time with my siblings and over relatives' houses, played lots of video games, and steered clear of the heavy gang activity that was apparently rampant in the area. I had a few neighborhood friends like the two younger boys next door and a a few kids on the next street over, but it seemed like I was more a liaison from one group to the other.
Through elementary and the beginnings of middle school, I would go to the train tracks behind my mother's neighborhood and flatten pennies and go fishing on either of the two lakes that were divided by the tracks. Over my Dad's house, my brother and I would venture over to Forest Park and build lean-tos or find the "bubblegum tree" [peppermint black birch] and rob some flavor to chew while we played on the playground by the Forest Park Zoo. Forest Park deserves it's own chapter, but since it plays into so much of my foundation, I'll just keep referring to it instead of setting it apart. Forest Park used to be owned by a wealthy guy named Barney. He had a large lake that he opened a Skate House on and would rent/sharpen ice skates in the winter and rent/maintain paddle boats in the summers. Barney donated the entire estate to the City of Springfield in the late years of his life so that everyone could enjoy it. When I was young, there used to be a collection of water buffalo that would graze in a valley off the main road that runs through the park. There was also a stable for horses that would be utilized by horse trainers and later by the Springfield Police Departments' mounted division.
The park was essentially divided into two parts: the upper register and the lower tier. The upper elevation was essentially a flat span of greenery, which was a collection of about 6 baseballs fields in one giant green plain, a collection of dinosaur footprint fossils, the horse stables at the entrance, and a zoo on the side opposite the entrance. It's the perfect place to do anything from flying a kite to lighting off model rockets and praying they don't get caught in the trees. From the upper fields, there are two roads leading down to the lower elevation which was mainly comprised of the big lake, ducks ponds, an animal hospital, and the amphitheater. This was a manually-terraced hillside that was used for meetings and natural acoustic projection way back. The main road leading to the lower level is about a half mile straight shot down a 4 degree grade hill. The smaller road is about a 7 degree grade with a sharp bend to the left about halfway down. Both are perfect for the bike riding and rollerblading that my brothers and friends and I would do down them. The wildlife of Forest Park is a myriad of species, but once the water buffalo were removed from the inaccessible lower fields, all that remained were a billion ducks and year-round geese (thank you bread-chucking patrons), an equal population of pond fish, a family of 4 giant alligator snapping turtles, and some dog-faced eels. Of course, there are also a bunch of woodland creatures like chipmunks, squirrels, birds, and deer, but with a name like Forest Park, I figured it would be implied, despite the inner-city location.
Growing up as the supreme middle child (the middle child of two different households), wasn't too difficult: My older sister skipped out on the partying/rebellion kick that the eldest child usually paves the way through. instead, she kept with the books, held some decent friends, and was pretty involved in the Girl Scouts as a counselor and, eventually, the waterfront director of the campground all summer. My younger sister was the baby and, therefore, spoiled rotten, mainly by my step-father and mainly on the topic of daily chores. We each were taught the importance of chores and however tedious they were, they were necessary for a clean home... or at least, that was the idea. I suppose it worked in the end, but really what it was teaching me was that if my little sister was assigned a task, I should keep mindful of what it was, because either my older sister or myself would have to pick up the slack. We'd complain about the lack of evenness in the "system", but I realized that we each got our just rewards in the end, mainly in the way of "hey Mom, can I/you"s. If we worked hard, we would get what we asked for, mostly. If not, we'd either have to wait, or if there wasn't anything we asked for, whenever we got in trouble we'd just get the guilt trip of : "And you didn't clean the bathroom like I asked you to yesterday morning!", for instance. I didn't realize how serious my Catholic-guilt was until fairly recently, but it definitely works.
As for my brothers, they were products of my father always being at work and his wife laying around passed out and sloshed on the couch or in bed all day. Despite the lack of discipline from them, my older sister and I kept them occupied as often as we could and they turned out on the straight-and-narrow. Destructive as young boys are, but wholesome, which balances it out, yeah? It also helped that my grandparents on my father's side also lived in a house in between the 6 blocks from my father's house to Forest Park, so we would always go over there and visit whenever we had the time. My Babci [BAH-chee] and Dziadziu [Jah-joo] (Polish for grandmother and grandfather) were incredible. They lived with, and cared for, my Uncle Phil who has a mental deficiency.
Both my Babci and Dziadziu traveled over from Poland with their parents at a very young age, fell in love, and started a family of my father and my uncle. They both worked at the Springfield Union News until retirement. Then, my Babci worked at a daycare called Krickets Korner about 3 blocks from her house (where my older sister and I attended when my mother worked in Hartford all day). My Dziadziu worked at the paper until retiring when I was about 3 and when I would visit in my younger years, we'd spend all day out mushroom hunting in Forest Park, or we'd walk the 6 miles downtown to the paper factory, see the printing presses and hang out in the editing room, then take the PVTA (Pioneer Valley Transit Authority) bus back to about a block from his house. The bus stop was at a Dunkin' Donuts. He'd get a Boston Creme and a Coffee, and I'd get a powdered, vanilla creme filled. We'd eat and walk back to his house. There, we'd watch the Red Sox play, or a movie, or Columbo/Dick van Dyke/Golden Girls/Murder She Wrote while he played the harmonica and my uncle listened to his Polka tapes. Eventually, we'd get around to making toast with butter, honey, and cinnamon. Dziadziu had a sweet tooth and I'm sure I inherited it from him. In 2nd grade, my Dziadziu got cancer and died at 73 after about 7 months in the hospital. Two years later, my grandmother died in her favorite chair, with a cup of coffee and newspaper ready to read at about 7 in the morning. My father told me she was tranquil, like she just fell asleep. In fact, they both seemed to go without pain, which is what they deserved. When they passed, my Uncle Phil was moved into assisted living because the house was too large to manage by himself. The house, unfortunately, needed repairs that were too costly to manage by my father while his wife was sapping his funds for liquor and medical bills, so he ended up selling the house before his own was foreclosed on.
The rest of my time was spent traveling with my mother's day care to whatever activity they were up to that day. We'd go on multiple walks around the neighborhood each day and sometimes travels to the park, the zoo, the Springfield Science Museum, or out to the Southwick's Zoo, blueberry picking, or the Westview Creamery. Each destination offered it's own amazement and activities, but throughout it all, I began to make my transition from minion to mentor. Taking "responsibility" of the younger kids or kids my age that needed some motivation slowly brainwashed me into being more self-aware, and eventually, lead to my current role as a flight instructor. Occupations are a few posts away, but for now, I think this suffices.
