In the past, Linda's husband Philip has bemoaned the lack of interest in sports among the Green Valley kids. When I pointed out Bill Little’s athleticism, Philip maintained that Bill developed his interest in sports before moving to Green Valley. Through our blog, I have seen that the older kids among us were interested in sports. While I don’t want to be sexist, it was true that girls’ sports teams were just beginning during my high school days -- at least in Hampton Township. It seems to me that the older kids' "generation" might have been more dominated by guys, with Trish and Wendy in the minority. My "generation" might have been more dominated by the girls who had seniority on the street before an influx of boys. At any rate, many of my memories of things my age group did together are strongly verbal. Turns out, as proven by the list of What to Do This Summer, even my girl-dominated group engaged in casual street sports. And Linda and I watched the Pirates and went with her father to celebrate the Pirates World Series victory (1971?).
It would be interesting to figure out names for the age groupings we had on the street, as a sort of sociological tool – or at least a less bulky way of talking about similarities and differences among our childhoods. Still waiting to hear how the generation that came after us experienced similar and different aspects of living on Green Valley.
I've also found it interesting to hear the perspective of people who bridged the various age groupings. For example, David was very involved with the older kids, but became friends with the next "generation."
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When I met Danny in NYC, I mentioned the little kids and was musing whether or not they might come to the reunion. He stared at me for a minute and asked, "The little kids?" I said, "Yah, you know...the ones that are almost 50 years old now." After that sunk in, we both burst out laughing. Therefore, I propose the title, "The Little Kids." This would include, Anthony Fisher, Susan Seidel, Mary Ellen Chesley, Flip Thompson and more?
ReplyDeleteYou are right that there were no formal sports for girls "in those days"--pre-Title IX. Little League was boys-only, and soccer hadn't yet caught on as the ubiquitous sport that it is today. Having said that, I do remember lots of softball or stickball games (up on the flat top) and maybe even dodge ball (in the Rubys' back yard?). The only girls I knew in organized sports in those days were the Joseph Twins (Farmview), who went to "tumbling," what we now call gymnastics. I think at the high school level, the only organized sport for girls was cheerleading. (When I went to Winchester-Thurston in 10th grade, an all-girls school in those days, the situation was completely different. All the sports teams were, of course, girls, and there were field hockey in the fall and basketball in the winter. I don't recall any softball in the spring. Title IX changed all that. My sophomore year in college, Temple University recruited its first female scholarship athlete--a baton twirler, underscoring the dearth of girls' sports programs in the public high schools. Obviously things have progressed from that very modest beginning. On the other hand, while there was Little League in Hampton Twp., I don't remember that any of the boys played on those teams, either. Is that right, or did some of you guys go out for Little League? It seems, though, that we all played baseball on the street, and apparently most of us were Pirates fans as well! (Some kids did swim team at Chapel Gate
ReplyDelete--Peter and Trish I remember; I'm pretty sure other Thompsons and Rubys must have been swimmers too.)
from Walter:
ReplyDeleteI was on the Chapel Gate swim team. I was a pretty fast swimmer but always dove too deep, so had a hard time making up the time on the leaders. I was a hell of a Pirates fan--the 1960 World Series was definitely one of the high points of my childhood. As Bob Prince (the greatest baseball announcer who ever lived), used to say,
"We had em all the way."
Danny and I can still recite most of "The Impossible Pirates" record (about the 1960 team) by heart, though we must have lost it sometime in the 70's.
As for my own baseball skills, woefully exhibted many a day on Farmview Field--well, lets not go there.
By the way, as an adult one of my lines about how our family was culturally different from the dominant motif in suburban Pittsburgh was that the main interests of Hampton Township 13-14 year old boys in my last years there were sex, the Pittsburgh Pirates and carburetors, though not necessarily in that order. I was definitely into the Pirates and had a fair, (OK, intense) interest in the opposite sex, but felt totally alienated from the automotive fixation of many of my peers. I mean, what was the high of sticking one's head into a greasy, yucky automobile engine? (Although I must admit to being a huge fan of the Beach Boys song '409').
Anyway, I told that story a year or two ago and was stunned when someone told me that carburetors stopped existing in car engines in the 1990's. So I have outlived the mighty carburetor! Not to mention Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and vatrious other bugaboos.
Walter
Walter, I do remember watching my boyfriend "sticking his head into a greasy, yucky engine." So fun--hanging out watching, while he tuned the car. You are right--I thought that's what guys did. But I'm a bit surprised that you were so uninterested in cars--as I commented earlier, one of the things I was first aware of on GVD was the Rubys' cars. You had that cool '57 Chevy two-tone wagon, and the first Beetle any of us had seen. Your parents certainly seemed to be car buffs.
ReplyDeleteI, too, swam for the Chapel Gate swim team, tho I think the highest I ever placed was third.
ReplyDeleteWendy,
ReplyDeleteThats true--we had VW's (your memory is amazing) throughout much of my childhood and adolesence. I drove the family VW from ages 16-18 in Glen Ellyn, Ill and have always loved driving--just as long as the damn thing doesnt break or the tire goes flat--I haven't a clue how to deal with either contingency and no desire to know. All I can say is 'Thank God for 'AAA', one of the greater inventions of the American system. My father could certainly change a tire, but dont remember him spending time with his head in the engine either--but maybe I'm wrong. Wendy, I wish I had 1/10th of your childhood memory...In my case, several decades of pot smoking appear to have taken their toll...:)...Oh well, it was fun...