Published: May 22, 2009 10:28 pm      

DAY: Back when, once again

I miss those days of old. I miss my parents and my old childhood friends.

Most of them have been called Home. I won’t see them again until God decides that I have been around long enough – that I have endured enough pain in my body and my heart.

Until that eventful day, this old body and heart will continue to go back in time to those days when Mom and Dad were the ones in charge and life was great, with strict rules and love.

As all youngsters do, we got in trouble doing things that we knew were wrong. Mom and Dad were there to make sure that it never happened again. Like leaving things where someone could trip over them, or sneaking out to play with our friends even though our chores were not done. Like leaving the ice box door open, causing the food to spoil. Like breaking a window while playing softball in the garden lot and not letting them know about it. Like going somewhere without cleaning up and putting on clean underwear. And the worst thing you could do was to tell a fib or take something that was not yours.

Sure, that sounds like what you did, too. And your family probably was like ours, where Mom and Dad were the heads of the house and all of us had to live by the rules they put down.

In those days you learned your lesson quick. There wasn’t anything called child abuse back then. They called it training and education. And Mom didn’t wait until Dad came home, because she lived by the rule of taking care of business herself and not leave the job for her man, who would be pretty tired by the time he got home from work.

We were around Mom the most, and she was like our friend and Mother, too. Dad was considered by most of us as the crabby old man who wanted things his way when he was home. That was OK with Mom, as she knew we would be little angels when he was home.

I am not saying Dad was a mean person, because he wasn’t. He had in his young life gone through some rough times, and he knew deep down that his children were not going to be disrespectful to anyone. There were times when he had time to play with us, but it didn’t take long before he would have to go sit down and rest. It took me a long time to realize that his working job was his main thing to do. Until the days when I went to work beside him at the mill, I did not realize how tired he really was. I found out in later life that Mom and Dad were really our best friends, because they prepared us for the outside world.

Mom’s homemaker duties were to take care of us kids and to be a friend as well as the mother. Mom could entertain you with her stories of old and her piano playing, and friends from two blocks down would be sitting there on the porch, listening to her as she told some of the best stories around. Some got to be scary, and Mom knew that once it got bedtime she would have to check our rooms and under the bed. Her stories sort of got you thinking.

Dad used to comment that Mom knew how to keep her children’s trust. Those two had a lot of experience and also a lot of love for each other even though it wasn’t said very much. Our time together in those days was mostly at the dinner table, and then all of us sitting on the floor in front of the radio, listening to our favorite shows. Dad and I liked to listen to the fights and, also, we were big fans of the Chicago Cubs.

Ray “Uncle Ray” Day is a weekly contributor to the Kokomo Tribune. Contact him at uncleray@earthlink.net or (765) 457-3819.