African American

Last edited Sun Aug 10, 2025, 07:57 PM - Edit history (1)

one somebody's porch. Maybe mine.

Or rollerskating until 10 or 11:00 p.m., under the two street lights . And the street itself, the road was smoooooth. No pebbles in tar. You could skate up and down the street without hitting any bump. NOT ONE BUMP. By 11:00 or so, we were out of gas so we went home to rest up for another day at the swimming hole.

August, a couple of times, we were out until 4 a.m. watching the meteor shower. 11, 12 or 13 years old - I don't remember. Talking about which girl was the prettiest, if anyone was going to make the little league all-star game next year. Life in general as it pertained to pre-teen boys.

Girls - they took part in our daytime activities but usually disappeared into their houses after supper. Roller skating, board games, bike riding. They were with us.

We were feral. We were watched out for but the parents were sly about it. We didn't notice them. They were just taking out the garbage or walking the dog. They weren't watching what we were doing.

1957 - Sputnik. The Newark (NJ) Evening News told us we could see it around 7pm. So we were all out at the street corner that had an unobstructed view of the sky. And there it was. Just a dot sailing across the sky.