And then there was the time...

By Felix Carroll

And then there was the time one of our scout leaders got his family jewels gored by the antlers of a six-point buck – right in front of us! Yes, stitches. Yes, that marked a welcome turning point in my scouting career. No, he was no longer an annoying, know-it-all-Davy-Crocket that made camping intolerable.

And then there was the time when we caught up in a wave of grueling “-athon” charity enterprises. We organized an all-night “street-hockey-athon” down at the town park, only we  forgot two important requisites: actually choosing a cause to support and actually raising money. My mom brought us a Thermos of hot chocolate at 2 a.m. while our sticks clacked with decreasing clarity.

And then there was the time my friends and I taped, tied and pried lobster buoys to fold-out lounge chairs and waded out into the deep. Maybe we made it all the way to the Minot Lighthouse, that groaning beacon, scary even from a distance. Maybe we came upon pirates. Maybe sharks circled us. But maybe just turning lounge chairs into flotation devices is enough.

Anyway, the point is this: He wants stories from my childhood. My son, that is. He wants to know what I did when I was his age.

I had grown up listening to the adults in my life tell stories from their feral childhoods. Stories that careened dangerously upon chassis riddled with hard-won, hairline fractures. Stories whose props included homemade engines, catapults, and dizzying heights. Somehow, someone always seemed to be falling into a pond in the evening. 

“We did things you kids couldn’t get away with today,” they’d all say. I hated those words. While, certainly I’d be spellbound, their stories only served to agitate my molecules, which sought to reorganize themselves into something more mesmerizing. Comparatively, my life was unbearably normal. I went to school. I came home. Nothing worth remembering. I’d see the old photos of the adults in my life. The photos were in black and white. I literally thought the old days were in black and white, everything in high contrast. Everyone looked like heroes, weary but triumphant, having spent another day squeezing life for everything it’s worth. I grew up hating color.

“Dad,” my son started saying about three years ago, “tell me a story about your childhood.” I’d usually read him a book. But now he wanted a real story of the real me when I was a real kid. “Um … um.” I nearly resorted to the time I was chased on horseback by Apaches. Or the time I single-handedly brought a band of bank robbers to justice. Or the time I played hooky and sailed around Cape Horn.

Yikes! Did I even have memories that could be assembled into a unified “story” -- with a narrative arch and all? Memories that could serve as a thing “you can’t get away with anymore?” I wasn’t prepared for the question. I squinted back trying to plumb from my past. I felt like a spelunker with a spinning headlamp looking for that piece of coal that could be pressed into a diamond, but finding only Snicker’s wrappers.

Telling him how my friends and I would peek at dirty greeting cards at Spencer’s at the mall just won’t cut it. Telling him how my brothers would hang me on the bunk bed by my underwear was not an image I wanted him to ruminate.

But then I had an epiphany. The truth began with this: There really was a train trestle in my town. We really did dare each to cross it by foot, then by bike, then by dirt bike. The freight trains really did have no discernable schedule. This was the stuff of Stand By Me.

I finally understood how to tell a story. Assemble the characters. Put them in location. Have them do what they were born to do. Be the wistful narrator. What he wants and needs now are real stories about real heights, real depths, real speeds, real dares fulfilled, real weaponry made by hand, real mud, and real critters caught, caged, gawked at, and released.

I am only recently remembering these things. I know their origins. They were the result of a resolute rebellion against the “today” in which certain things are no longer permitted. I continue to suture them together until they are “stories.”

I’ve even taken to saying, “You can’t get away with that today.” But I say this not to sadden, demoralize or discourage him. Maybe I’m egging him on – to discover the things kids won’t get away with tomorrow.