Last Stand In The Pumpkins

How did we manage to grow up in one piece? The dangerous things we did that we would never allow our children to do are scary just to think about.

Now I admit that things were more lax because I lived in little bitty towns or on farms. We did not have to worry about the dangers of the streets. Where I lived we knew everybody and they knew us.

We could get up and as soon as our chores were done we could roam at large. We climbed trees, caught snakes, and wandered to places we were not allowed to go. Somehiw we were not seriously injured.

We could go visit a neighbor and not worry about being in their house for hours. As a matter of fact if we stayed too long we were usually put to work. But we were not harmed. And we often got a few cookies and some milk.

On Halloween we grabbed our paper grocery sacks and went from house to house all over town. We got candy bars ( the real sized ones not the minis) that did not need to be checked for harmful materials before we could eat them. We got homemade goodies too. Popcorn balls, candy apples, cupcakes, candies, cookies, pieces of cake, muffins... all kinds of things. When our grocery sacks filled up we just went home and got another one and went out again. None of us were ever poisoned or injured in any way except for maybe an upset stomach from eating too much of our swag.

I have told you about our rides in the country on Sunday afternoons. Most cars had bench seats at that time. Room for the driver, his wife who would hold the baby, and whichever child was lucky enough to sit in the middle. The rest of us crowded into the back seat. If we had our friends with us as we usually did there were children all over. We sat on top of the convertible top which had been lowered into the recessed area. We stood on the floor. We sat on the sides of the car and the back. No one ever fell out or was injured in any way.

Cars had no seat belts or air bags. Only race cars had safety features like that. Often just to have a bit of room we rode standing on the floor. We only had one casualty that I can remember.

We were on our way to my grandparent's farm for Thanksgiving. There were going to be a lot of people there because it is a big family. Mom said she would bring the pies.

She made pumpkin of course and mince meat pies. I do not remember if there were any fruit pies. But there were a lot of them.

The pies were placed on the shelf of the back window which was large but could not hold them all. So the rest were put on the back seat.

Of course there was no room for us to sit but that did not matter because we liked to stand up and see things anyway.

We were a little over a mile from the farm. Suddenly Daddy slammed on the brakes to keep from hitting something in the road. We flew forward into the back of the front seat.

I was the one who then bounced off the front seat and sat down onto the back seat. Not too bad, you say?

That seat was covered with pumpkin pies. I sat directly into one and my hands managed to find a couple more. What a mess.

So there was a dead pie and a couple of pies that needed surgery before we could eat them. My fingers tasted pretty good for a couple of minutes though.