"Truck rides" used to show up on the streets of our neighborhood once the weather started getting nice. Basically a flatbed truck with a carnival ride mounted on the bed.
My favorite was
The Whip. Buckets that could seat two or three kids would move on an oval track and at each end,
whip around the curves.
I loved the smell of the leather, oil and grease.
"Rockaby Baby" was, for me, far less enjoyable. It was a crescent shaped double rows of seats that rocked back and forth at increasing speeds. The higher rows experienced the most motion and thrill, but the former meant nausea for me. I stopped going on
"Rockaby Baby" when it became clear that sitting in a top row with my pals would lead to vomiting and sitting in a bottom row that I could weather mean't being identified as a "weeny." Becoming "car-sick" was, unfortunately, a common occurrence. I can't recall the number of times, on long trips, my mother would yell for my father to
pull over so I could puke on the side of the road. For some reason,
The Whip never bothered me.
If I recall correctly the rides cost a quarter. Maybe less but more than a frozen treat from the
Ice Cream Man. In our town the premier vendor was
Bungalo Bar, even though
Good Humor made the rounds as well.
The kids' favorites were the Choco-nut cone or Italian Ice, preferably
blue gellati . The best part of the ices were they would last forever, if you used the little wooden spoon to shave off curls.
We all loved
Mr. Softee, but for some reason he rarely came to our neighborhood. Don't know why because we lived in a classic suburban community in the NYC area. Small homes, the majority owned and occupied by young couples from The City, looking to raise their kids in the fresh air of what relatives who remained in Brooklyn or Queens called
"the country."
The neighborhood or "development" was laid out in a NYC grid with streets and avenues. There were only three streets but maybe ten or twelve avenues that divided the community into
blocks. Just like in The City, your gang of friends lived on your
block and maybe you ventured one
block to either side if you met a kid in class who you liked and who lived on an adjacent
block.
If you dared to venture onto one of the two other streets, you were in enemy territory and were liable to be attacked as an intruder...
dirt bombs being the weapon of choice. They hurt like hell but were a lot less punishing than rocks which were reserved for the rare but often bloody
Street Wars. There was always some sick kid who would select
dirt bombs that had rocks in them and then deny he or she knew they were in the
bomb. Such dastardly conduct led to a few
Street Wars.
On one of the blocks adjacent to ours a cranky old couple with a teenaged daughter lived. In their cyclone fenced yard they kept a snarling, vicious monster:
Bombo! He looked like a German Shepherd, but could have been a mutt and barked and growled like crazy whenever we walked past the house on our way to and from school or the Stationary Store. Every once in a while the crusty old husband would threaten to open the gate and set
Bombo on us. Each time we ran like the wind even though he never made good on his threat. In retrospect, I'm sure he thought it was harmless fun, but it gave 5 and 6 year olds nightmares.
Bombo terrorized us for only about a year and then disappeared. Everyone was sure he had escaped and was lurking in the
Woods waiting to pounce on and rip apart any unfortunate kid who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It kept us from playing in the
Woods for a time, but eventually we gathered up the courage to return (it was just too good a place in which to play to remain away for long), but for almost a year, everyone going into the
Woods carried a spear fashioned from a tree limb, just in case the beast attacked.
For several years after
Bombo vanished, whenever a stray dog would come into the neighborhood and saunter down our block, every kid playing in the street would sprint to the nearest house crying
"Bombo's brother!" or some other relation depending upon the looks of the strange canine marauder. We even had an episode with
"Bombo's Grandfather" when a mangy old cur came our way.
Whether stalking the
Woods, invading enemy turf on another street, fleeing any of
Bombo's many relations, or any of the other harebrained acts we engaged in, it seemed like everyday held an adventure, and if some level of fear was involved in the experience, so much the better. The more danger and fear the louder the chorus of little kids recounting their roles in the adventure to one another after reaching the safety of someone's backyard.
It was grand.
