It has been a wonderful week of accomplishments. Therefore I thought it appropriate that I begin a new week with achieving a goal that has been on my ‘list’ for quite some time.

I have always wanted to participate in Sunday Scribblings. In fact it has been ‘bookmarked’ as one of my favorites for over a year. Yet as each Sunday rolled around I would find myself finding other areas of interest to write about. This Sunday is different. This Sunday I am taking the time to do what I want to do. Participate in Sunday Scribblings.

The prompt for this week is: Photograph. (Or you could shorten it to photo.) Describe one, take one, or show us one! Talk about what seeing that picture meant to you or use the prompt to create a character. Who is in it? What are they doing? Why does that particular picture matter? When people have to decide what they would grab in a fire, after living things they nearly always say photographs. Why? And what is so special about that one?

This is a photo of my Dad at around age 8.

I chose this particular photograph (and the one posted on Daily Photo) because yesterday was my Dad’s 85th birthday. For those of you that are familiar with the situation with my parents, you may be wondering if I called him on his birthday. Yes I did. However, I got voice mail both on the land line and the cell phone. I did leave a birthday wish on both. That’s all I can do. But it’s not all I want to say about this photograph.

My Dad began writing his memoirs many years ago. He has had two books self-published. I would like to share one of his stories with you today.

 

Boyish Recreation

Summers as I can recall, say from the age of 8 to 14 , were never dull. They began long before school let out at the end of June. About early May, when the days were warm and sunny. Each summer vacation didn’t end when school began after Labor Day. It sort of lingered through mid-October, when the cold started to set in.

I always had things to do, activities to attend or places to discover and explore. There was no time to be bored or lament as today’s kids seem prone to do.

My door to the world beyond our immediate neighborhood (say five blocks in every direction) was opened when John (my brother) answered my lament of not having a bicycle. He had salvaged enough parts from various bikes discared at the City Dump to assemble a working one.

The front end didn’t fit the frame exactly, the front wheel was a different size from the rear one and the handle bars were from a baby’s tricycle. The chain was also too loose and slipped. But it could be ridden. Learning to ride was an adventure in itself.

My first afternoon ride beyond our neighborhood was truly revealing and exciting.

I knew Fall River was a Mill Town, but I ended the day with a mind set that the city had more mills (variously built of granite, fieldstone or red brick) than it had tenements or houses. The number of factories amazed me, as did the fact that many were closed and boarded up.

I decided that one or two looked good for exploring and the following Saturday I picked a rambling, three story, wooden factory that bordered the street and had a cellar window that had not been boarded up.

I got into it and onto the first floor and found the elevator. It was a manually operated freight mover. You had to enter, close the gate before you could pull on the heavy rope that would raise it.

I explored each floor and was amazed at all the material abandoned and cluttering up the place. I left fully intending to return the next day after church, and help myself to items I knew I could sell to Charly, the Junk Man. Little did I realize that Mike, the Irish cop, on whose beat the factory was, had seen me entering and patiently waited until I had exited with a sack full of goodies.

Not a word was said, he just grabbed me by my collar and off we went. My goodie bag laying where I had dropped it.

Up to the station house on Hamlet Street and into a cell. There I languished (scared out of my mind at what would happen when my mother found out) . About 7:00 PM, Mike was getting off shift. He opened the cell and walked me home. No conversation, no talking to my parents, just that ‘LOOK’.

That one ‘LOOK’ kept me very honest and away from any mischief for many, many years.

Stanley J. Batog

Personally, I think today’s parents could learn a lesson from this particular event from my Father’s life. Kids today don’t suffer consequences. Their parents swoop in and try to ‘fix’ whatever mess their children made for themselves, rather than let them suffer the consequences or scare the ‘crap’ out of them. But that’s something I have already touched upon before.

Thanks for reading.

Although I used to participate in several weekly memes, it is rare that I do it these days. Therefore I am planning on doing something a little different this week. I am going to do a meme a day. I hope you come back to see where this takes me. Perhaps you will join in.

Consider yourself tagged.

Oh, one more thing. Tara from If Mom Says OK has decided to do something new on her blog. As you know, due to a glitch in Wordpress, I no longer receive your comments via email. I think I will give Tara’s ‘You Comment, I Answer’ a try. Who will be the first ‘test subject’?