Summer has arrived — but the sounds of summer were better in the ’70s.
As a kid, I woke every morning to the birds chirping outside my window screen, a dewy chill in the air. I’d smell my father’s pipe, which he smoked while he read the paper downstairs. I’d go down to greet him. He’d make scrambled eggs and toast covered with butter, and we’d eat while the birds kept on singing.
The evening sounds were equally powerful: a dog barking; a motorcycle downshifting on some faraway hill; people out on their porches listening to the Pirates play on the radio; a baby crying; a couple talking; children laughing; a window fan humming.
As I explain in my lighthearted book “Misadventures of a 1970s Childhood,” we kids spent our days out in the hills roaming and exploring.
We collected scrap wood and built shacks. We dammed up the creek and caught minnows and crayfish. One summer, we built a motorized go-kart with some scrap items from a junked riding mower and a couple of 2-by-4s. It was one of the great engineering feats in my neighborhood’s history.
Occasionally, we’d fib to our mothers and ride our bikes 20 miles farther than we said we would. Or we’d pluck some baby pears off a tree by Horning Road and whip them at cars.
Every now and then, a car would screech to a stop, and we’d sprint through a creek aqueduct that ran 200 feet beneath the neighborhood.
There was only one major rule a kid had to abide by: You’d better be home in time for supper.
Every kid had a unique sound to call him home.
One family used a riot horn. The piercing “hrmmpppphhhhhh!” could be heard for miles.
My father went with a deep, booming, “Tom, dinner! Tom, dinner!”
When moms did the calling, they always used full names. They always sang, too, as my Aunt Jane did: “Miiiiiikkkeeelllll, Keeeeevvvviiiiiinnnnn, suuuuuppppppeeerrrr!”
The Givens boys, up on the hill across the railroad tracks, were called home by a large bell. The clanging sounded off at 6 p.m. every night, giving us the sense that a riverboat was making its way up the Mississippi or a chow wagon was calling in the cowhands for grub.
I later learned that several families timed their dinners around the Givens’ bell, which Mrs. Givens clanged at exactly 6 p.m. every evening!
These mystical sounds have been gone a long time now. How wonderful it would be to bring them back.
Today, childhood is often lived indoors. We shuttle kids from one adult-run activity to the next, as their screen time climbs and their time in nature shrinks.
Experts call it “nature-deficit disorder” — a term for what happens when kids lose contact with the natural world and the freedom that once came with it.
At least one month every summer, why don’t we cease every structured activity for our children, cancel every tournament, and end every adult-run event?
Let’s turn off the television and computer. Let’s shut down the air conditioner and unshutter the windows and doors.
Let’s allow our kids to go out into the hills to roam and play and discover all day long. That will require us to call them home at dinner.
And our shouts and chants and bells will breathe much-needed music into the sweet summer air.
Find Tom Purcell’s syndicated column, humor books and funny videos of his dog, Thurber, at TomPurcell.com. Email him at Tom@TomPurcell.com.
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