June 17, 2003 10:14 P.M.

Estes Park, Colorado, taken by Marcia

A Different World

The old DC10 approached the landing runway at LAX, gliding in a descending, east to west direction, directly into the remaining glow of an already set sun, which had disappeared behind the Pacific horizon. Outside my passenger window, the darkening light displayed all the more clearly the lights of the city below. They all seemed to be yellow. I wondered, whatever happened to white streetlamps. Everything seems to be yellow these days. Headlights streaming across the grid of intersecting streets, small windows lit from within, and those yellow lights everywhere, caused me to ponder the millions of worlds passing beneath our wings.

Have you ever driven down a darkened street at night, passing warmly lit windows in homes, or stores, or places of business�one after another�and thought, �I wonder what goes on in all these different worlds�. Every business, every home, every office is a world of its own. Most of us have several �worlds� we live and function in. Each of those worlds has its own �family� of people, and its own rules and regulations for functioning. Often what is perfectly acceptable in one world, doesn�t fit in one of the others. We wake up in one, travel to work or school to enter another, go out to dinner and enter another world, and then re-enter the first one to retire at night. Different, but predictable personalities, activities, furniture, rules, and freedoms, are an integral part of each separate world. We find that even our own personalities change to fit and function in each �world�.

Then there are the worlds of our past, present and future. I wouldn�t go there except for something that happened today. I received an email from someone telling me about a little experience with my granddaughter. She wrote, �While at the Park with (granddaughter)--she instructed me to close my eyes while swinging-- so I could "feel the wind on my face." I think this says everything about childhood and summer.� She was in a different world.

My summers as a child had ingredients never imagined in today�s world. Now, I don�t want you to think that I grew up in horse and buggy days. But there did seem to be a vestige of this era remaining. For instance, in summer, certain characters would emerge into my world which were not seen in the winter months. We had someone called �the rag man�. He drove a horse driven wagon down our bumpy, well-worn street, and stopped to pick up any old �throw-away� items at any interested household. There was also, the Donaldson Man. Donaldson�s Bakery was the local city-wide delivery bakery in Louisville. They later transferred all their neighborhood deliveries into small trucks, but when I was very small, they came around in a horse drawn delivery truck, full of all varieties of baked goods. You could hear the clopping of the horses hooves, and as they approached our street, they blew a whistle�sort of like a referee�s whistle. When they stopped, kids who ran out to greet them learned not to stand too close to the rear of the horses, or they might receive an extra �gift� when the horses came to a halt. If you wanted, the �Donaldson Man� would come up to the house with a large tray full of bread, cookies, and cakes for you to peruse. He usually had three kinds of bread: white, wheat, and �my favorite�cracked wheat. Here I had my first experience with peanut butter cookies. They are still my favorite.

In those summer months, the �ice cream man� didn�t sail down the street in a white truck blaring pre-recorded music and traveling so fast that if you want a treat, you have to run and take your life in your hands to catch him. No, it was all a little slower in those days. There were two varieties of frozen confection vendors. One walked on foot, pushing a white insulated cart balanced on two wheels; and the other rode a similar cart propelled by a �half bicycle� attached to push it along. They both had handles on their carts with bells that jingled, and usually �another of those whistles blowing. You could hear them coming for five or ten minutes ahead of their arrival, with plenty of time to find a nickel or dime to buy something. That something was pretty much limited to a popsicle, dreamsicle, fudgesicle, Eskimo pie, �or perhaps a drumstick. But the latter was special and fancy.

When my mind turns back to the summers of my first few years, I immediately recall the smack of little bare feet on the sun-hot concrete of our front sidewalk, curving down to the driveway; the slamming of screen doors all around the neighborhood; the droning sound of cicadas (more properly known in the south as katydids, or jar-flies); and the blinking lights of the muggy dusk as night fell�light�ning bugs. There were the very long days, riding bikes, playing hopscotch and skating repeatedly up and down sidewalks where the smooth and rough stretches were memorized and anticipated, - skipping over the �bumps�. Parents had no concern about their children playing outside with others on the sidewalks and quiet streets of the neighborhood, without having to keep a constant watch over them. They safely played until dark, and then were reluctantly called inside to get ready for bed.

It was a different world.

Text � copyright 2003 - 2008 The Homespun Philosopher

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