Streetcorners

In some ways, 7th and 8th grades were awkward years. Too young to play the games that always kept us busy before and too young to really have any sort of independence or self-reliance, we just had to find the best ways to deal with our changing social awareness, hormones, relationships with adults, etc. Before online social networks, regular organized activities, even cable TV, that often meant just hanging out.

There weren't many places to go every day after school, weekends, or during those glorious and endless summers before having to work or even do a lot of homework.

What we often ended up doing was just walking around in small gangs which meant oftentimes "hanging out on street corners" as our parents often complained.

But, besides street corners, we were lucky to have had a house which was under construction, seemingly forever, where we could hang out in the afternoons after school. It was on Chestnut Drive, right across from the Volunteer Fire House #3. We were oblivious to any concern anyone might have had regarding these young kids milling around the house under construction and certainly we neither meant nor did any harm. It was just a place to go, a place to be. But I can just imagine all the eyebrows our presence must have raised.

We would also play basketball or pool at someone's house, but things were different when girls entered the equation. Somehow we got through it all. We knew so little, we talked so much, we dreamed, we fantasized...and eventually we got our driver's licenses.