OP-ED: Recalling a childhood without cellphones
Our play clothes were hand-me-downs from our cousins and siblings with hand-sewn patches on top of patches. Usually the knees wore out first, then the butt. Our socks were patched, too. In fact, my grandmother taught me how to darn my own socks.
Once you found the hole, you fixed it by weaving thread or yarn back and forth across it. It always felt like you had a small stone in your shoe afterward. (Especially when I fixed the hole myself.)
The secret to this preservation procedure was the smooth, egg-shaped wooden tool she slipped inside the sock. It was called a darning egg because it looked like an egg with a handle attached to it. This device held the sock’s shape and kept things steady while you tried not to poke yourself with the needle.
From 1952 until 1964, Pittsburgh television personality Hank Stohl entertained kids on shows like “Mitzie’s Kiddie Kastle.” He eventually had his own shows on KDKA and WTAE-TV featuring a puppet he named Knish. Knish, was the Yiddish word for a stuffed pastry. It had rug yarn for hair and a darning egg nose. During my decade of teaching, I drew cartoons of that hippie-looking hairball to communicate fun ideas with my students.
Speaking of fun, right after we finished delivering our newspapers, Dale, Roy, Joe, Jimmy, Bobby, Paul, and a few other neighborhood boys would meet at the vacant lot two houses up Water Street from my grandmother’s house to play sandlot tackle football. We played with zero protective gear: no pads, no helmets, no mouth guards. Looking back, it’s a wonder we all don’t have chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
I remember my first trip to an emergency room for a back injury at age 28. After my X-ray, Dr. Voytko looked at me and, with a completely straight face, said, “Have you ever played professional football?”
“Me?” I asked, almost laughing. “I’m a 5-foot-9, 160-pound trumpet player.”
“Well,” he said, “you have spurs all along your spine.” As I remember it, he thought they could be related to old injuries.
That’s when I remembered those bone-jarring, back-smashing, head-banging football games where crazy young boys beat the heck out of each other. We spared no one. A hit was a hit, and horse-collar tackles, head-to-head collisions, and gut punches were all normal.
These football sessions lasted only about an hour every night because we had no lights and no referees. Most days it felt like a scene from “Lord of the Flies” where we took turns being Piggy. Let me be clear. We did ban biting, eye gouging, and spitting at each other. That was only allowed in professional football.
Remember, this was before the Steelers’ glory days, but our high school team, the Dunbar Township Mules, was amazing. In the fall of 1965, after I graduated, they finished 9-0 but missed the WPIAL playoffs because of the Gardner points system. Winning every game wasn’t enough.
Like I said, we played baseball, football, and basketball by the open sewage ditches. When it snowed, we would sled ride down well-traveled village streets and pelt each other with snowballs for fun. In summer, we played mumblety-peg with pocketknives near each other’s black canvas Keds and climb to the very top of trees to get buckeyes to throw at each other. Sometimes we threw firecrackers at each other, too. On long summer afternoons, we’d sit on top of the war memorial and see who could spit the farthest.
That was childhood without cellphones. We didn’t have much money, fancy equipment, organized activities, or the latest technology. What we had was our imagination, freedom, and a neighborhood full of kids willing to spend every spare minute together. We patched our clothes, bruised our bodies, and somehow built memories strong enough to last a lifetime. Looking back, I wouldn’t trade a single darned sock for all the smartphones in the world.
Nick Jacobs lives in Windber.