We would sit on the lawn by the store and watch the cars go
by while eating bananas until they came out of our ears. We never did
have to pay for any.
We had many other enjoyable pastimes outdoors. We would cut the cover
off a golf ball and unwind some of the miles of rubber bands inside.
By putting half on each side of the street we could stretch it across
and when a car came down it would stretch the rubber about a quarter
mile. We would also go to the top of Arsenal Hill and hit golf balls
with baseball bats. They really go a long ways. We found our golf
balls in the bottom of the creek down by the golf course.
On the west bank of thad Chapin Street there was a row of black oxhart
cherry trees belonging to Doctor Behan's widow. When they were ripe we
could not resist trying to get some. As soon as we got in the trees,
"Old Lady Behan" as we called her, would come running down the street
yelling and waving her arms. Guess she watched those trees all day
long. One night Ray and I went over and filled our pockets with
cherries and ran through the tall weeds back to the tent in our
backyard. To our utter dismay, we had run through the weeds where a
skunk had just sprayed and we had to throw away all the cherries and
change our clothes.
During the harvest season the wagon loads of pea vines passed up Thad
Chapin and, when we saw them coming, we hid along the road until we
could run up behind the wagon and pull off a big armful of pea vines.
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