My Moments of Remembrances From Age 6 to 14 during Springtime and Summer in South Louisiana
The smell of jasmine, orange blossoms, magnolias and honeysuckle. It was aroma therapy for sure.
Seeing the big breasted Robins return.
Going barefooted for 5 months causing the soles of your feet to harden and you could run barefoot over a gravel road.
Swimming in the crystal clear Bogue Chitto river naked with both whites and blacks.
Stealing flares from parked railroad cars. I was caught and brought before the Juvenile authorities who only warned me.
Always sleeping by an open window with the attic fan drawing in air.
Listening after school to Inner Sanctum, The Fat Man, Sky King.
Catching green back turtles and selling them to the Post cereal guy who came around every Friday.
Rising at dawn to go to the lake a block away and cast my arm off using a jitterbug lure and occasionally catching a bass.
Setting my 3 muskrat traps at the lake's edge and never catching one.
Getting a dollar every Saturday from my parents. Catching the bus downtown for 5 cents each way. Going to the movies for 15 cents.
Eating a candy bar in the movies for 5 cents. Afterward, going to Sip and Nip cafe and having a hamburger and malted milk 40 cents.
Afterward, going by the newsstand and buying a comic book for 10 cents. When I got home, I still had 25 cents left over.
Riding on my Doodlebug motor scooter and later my Servi-Cycle.
Big bream and Sac a Lait(crappie) would bed in the early spring and I would catch a mess with a cane pole using worms or crickets.
Running all over the lake with my 14 ft. Thompson boat and five hp Royal outboard.
Using my boat to go to the island in the lake and camping out.
Taking my 22 rifle on the crossbars of my bike and riding to the swamps below the lake spillway and shooting anything that moved.
When the lake rose from the rains, going to the spillway and catching large shad with my hands like a bear catches salmon.
Shooting gar fish from the bridge over the spillway with my 22 rifle. They would come up to roll.
Riding my bike for miles and miles exploring.
Riding my bike 10 miles down Perkins road to my black friend Nat's little wooden shack where his mother would feed us cheese and crackers.
Catching crawfish with a piece of bacon tied to a string. Boiling the crawfish right there in a soup can and eating them.
Riding my bike over every inch and cranny of the large LSU campus and especially loving the building that housed the fossil displays.
Selling soft drinks in the stands of LSU football games, basketball and Boxing. I made good money.
Killing more birds than I care to remember with my Red Rider BB gun.
Building tree houses. How I never fell is beyond me.
Washing glasses and opening oysters in my Dad's Silver Dollar Bar and Lounge.
Watching people lose their paychecks in the slot and pinball machines in my Dad's bar. Due to that, I never put a dime into a slot machine.
No TV and no air conditioning. We didn't sit for long and were always active outdoors.
Catching flying squirrels in a trap and domesticating them to be friendly pets.
Catching baby raccoons and doing the same. I had one I named Bill that followed me around.
Spending two weeks every summer at Camp Cherokee or Camp Windywood swimming, horseback riding and just having fun.
Oh yes, I got a 20 gauge single shot Harrington and Richardson shot gun for my 12th birthday. No animal or bird life was safe from me.
My parents pretty much left me to my own devices and I was really free to enjoy a Huckleberry Finn type of youth.
I wish more kids today could have enjoyed a childhood like mine. Not any more with Helicopter parents watching over them.
It's hard to imagine parents letting their kids having this freedom much less letting them run around with a rifle or a shotgun.
Contrasting that with today and it was two different worlds completely.
Bob White
