Growing up in the Mid 60’s

When I was growing up in the mid 60s, the world was a very different place than it is today. It may have been more illusion than reality but there was generally a widely held belief that kids were safe in their communities and, in a time before the internet, video games and other forms of entertainment, my brother and sisters and our friends were almost always playing outside. We would leave home in the morning and often didn’t return home until dinner time.

I grew up in Grimsby, Ontario. Situated between the Niagara escarpment and Lake Ontario, there was no shortage of terrain and lakeshore to explore. When we weren’t walking along the beach to see how far we could go before running out of shoreline, we were climbing “the mountain” in search of any new adventure we could find. Fun almost always consisted of something that would be considered risky and downright dangerous by today’s standards. There were cliffs at the lake and on the face of the escarpment and we spent a great deal of time ascending and descending those cliffs for the simple pleasure of claiming a vantage point that offered an opportunity to survey our world. We were always doing stupid things and I am amazed that we all survived… but we did survive and I know that our lives were enriched by the experiences that we shared.

I remember one such experience. My brother and I decided to head to the lake for a swim. We had a favourite spot. It was a favourite because there was a large rock that sat about 50 yards offshore. The top of the rock was pretty much even with the surface of the water and the water was about 8 feet deep all around. We would always swim out to the rock, stand on it, jump off of it, push each other off of it; we just plain horsed around on it.

On the day that my brother and I went swimming, it was windy and there were large waves rolling in. Undeterred, we swam out to the rock for our usual “fun” but soon learned that we couldn’t do much of anything because every time we managed to climb aboard, it was a matter of moments before a large wave would wash us off. Very quickly, we invented some new “fun”. We repeatedly climbed on to the rock, seated ourselves and hung on for dear life. The one who was washed off lost that round. I don’t know how long we played that game but it must have been a long time because, as we started to head home, my brother was few steps in front of me when I noticed that the seat of his bathing suit was gone… worn right through… one butt cheek protruding from each side! I thought it was quite funny until I reached around to feel the back of my bathing suit and realized that I was in the same predicament. We arrived home with our towels wrapped around our waists and everybody had a good laugh at what we’d done.

For years after that, the story would get trotted out from time to time and we’d all have a laugh recalling the humour of the situation and wondering at how hard we used to play when we were young and foolish. My brother died about 10 years ago and, although we hadn’t talked about that day for decades, the story was told again as we sat around talking after the funeral and we all had one more laugh about something that happened in our family so long ago… a shared memory and a fitting tribute to a childhood well spent.