Today’s Tab featured a Guest Column by Village 14 regular Bob Burke. Bob tells the story of he and a friend pedaling off on their bikes to Mount Monadnock and back when they were in the 8th and 9th grade. He tells about riding through a nor’easter and getting back to Newton at 2 AM.
The most intriguing part of the story is between the lines – how parents, kids and the world have changed since then. I don’t believe there’s too many parent today who’d be game for their 8th graders to make a trek like that today on their own.
Are there any activities you engaged in as a kid (with your parents knowledge) that you would never allow your kids to do today? I’ll start the ball rolling with hitchhiking. In high school, I constantly hitchhiked around the greater Boston area. In college, I hitchhiked back and forth to the west coast twice. My parents involvement consisted of telling me “to be careful”.
I grew up in Manhattan in the ’60s and had lot of freedom, which I loved. While we didn’t hitchhike (no need with excellent transit and school kids getting bus/subway passes) nor explore nature beyond Central Park, I took myself to friends, orthodontist, wandered around after school by myself.
I’ve let my son do almost everything that I did. The one exception is being skittish about him biking longer distances – not because of the distance but because I was nervous having him bike in the streets filled with Boston drivers (I’d be more nervous biking in NY these days than I was back then, too). I’ve pretty much given him the same freedoms I had at similar ages within any logistical constraints (i.e., there are a lot of places he just couldn’t get to by T, so needed maternal chauffeuring whereas my mother never had to get me to extra-curricular activities or friends’ houses).
mgma – I grew up in Boston (Jamaica Plain). When we were 12, we got unfettered access to the T. So long as we were home for dinner, we could be any where from Harvard Square, to downtown, to Revere Beach all day. My daughter’s only 10 but I expect we won’t be giving her that long of a T leash at 12, maybe at 14 or 15?
Great story Bob. Expand into a novel!
P.S. Where is Grootchy’s Cave?
I grew up in Syracuse, NY, directly across the street from LeMoyne College. My younger sister and I would cross the (busy) street and spend hours just romping around the campus. We figured out how to manipulate college kids into buying us soda and candy, and we were in and out of dorms, academic buildings, and the dining room. I remember listening in on a Vietnam protest once.
I think the only part my mother worried about was how much candy we were eating.
We moved out of that house when I was going into 7th grade and my sister was going into fifth grade, so we’re talking about two very young children running loose on a college campus. Blows my mind to think about it in today’s world.
P.S. Great column, Bob! Thanks for sharing.
@Terry “Where is Grootchy’s Cave”?
That’s the location of the next Village 14 get together – it’s a great pub, you’ll like it.
On the road in Panama heading up to the Panama Highlands and Costa Rica. Finally found a good computer. Thanks for all the nice comments here and on my email account. What we called Gootchie’s Cave was actually Devil´s Den in Hemlock Gorge. At least, that is what John and I remember.
The Hole was a an open space of the aqueduct that was sandwiched by Harrison and Carver Road backing up to the now MBTA train tracks. Several houses on Carver border the Hole including the home of recent Congressional candidate Herb Robinson.
Fanny Fogg’s was another gully where the aqueduct runs adjacent to Woodward and Plymouth. There’s a renovated colonial house were Fanny used to live. We were told that she once fought off some native Americans with a shotgun, but I have no idea when she lived there of if this story is true.
The Route 128 we rode our bikes on looked very much like the portion of 128 that currently goes from Danvers to Gloucester. It was a clear shot from Hemlock Gorge to the Route 20 turnoff to Prospect Hill as cars and bikes were visible to each other and simply stayed out of each others way.
Finally, I don’t want to over romanticize the early 50’s. We were treated royally and got many forms of help and food every step of the way. I’m not certain how we would have been treated by some of these folks if we had been African American, Spanish etc. I’m pretty certain it wouldn’t have made much difference to Park Ranger Charlie Burrage or to the doctor that treated me after the fall. There was a strong spiritual side to these two men that was reflected in the way they talked and the way they acted.
Got to go. The Flower and Coffee festival is underway in Boquette and we are on our way there tomorrow.
Bob, I think you just landed the coveted gig of being Village14’s foreign correspondent …. though you probably could have got the job by just reporting in from Needham.
I grew up in NYC in the 70’s and 80’s and I too had a long leash. I rode the subway alone by age 9. My daughter who is 9 does not ride the t alone and doesn’t want to do a lot of the things I might let her do. ( prob not the t. I just rode it to school, not off for fun and was put on the train, just had to exit and finished the trip alone). However she and her 6 yr old brother went sledding alone this month and that was a lovely breakthrough of independence.
I grew up in northern New Jersey, about 20 miles NW of downtown NYC. I remember walking to school independently from very early in Kindergarten (only a mile, but through some fairly secluded woods). Later on, we sued to bike all over the place. At age 15 or so we also figured out how to take the bus into New York and then walk from the Port Authority Bus terminal (41st street) down through Times Square (which was decidedly not a good place in the early/mid 80’s) and up to 48th street where all the guitar stores were.
Another guitar related story. At about the same age I had saved up enough paper route and summer camp counselor money to afford an electric guitar I’d wanted for a while. I and a friend of mine rode our bikes ten miles to Bergenfield to buy said guitar. I then carried said guitar by the neck as I biked back. Its worthwhile to note that the roads in question were not unlike Washington and Needham Streets for most of the length.
Bob, that was a great column. Thanks so very much for sharing the story.
I think we need a photo of that young bike riding, electric guitar slinging, Chris Steele.