A Saturday in 1966

It’s Saturday, May 14, 1966.

I wake up around seven in the morning to the wonderful smell of bacon frying in the kitchen. That aroma alone is enough to get a boy out of bed. I jump up, throw on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and step into my canvas slip-ons. Just like that, I’m ready to hit the street.

But first, breakfast.

I slide into my seat at the dining room table where Mom already has a plate waiting—sunny-side-up eggs, two pieces of toast fresh from the oven, and a couple of strips of bacon. I wash it all down with a big glass of Nestlé’s Quick.

Life was good.

After breakfast, it’s time for cartoons. By now my sisters are up, and we gather around the television to watch Popeye, Woody Woodpecker, and Bugs Bunny.

After a few cartoons I tell Mom I’m meeting up with my friends. She slips a dollar into my hand, reminds me to be careful, and tells me to be home before the streetlights come on. That dollar joins the change I earned from returning soft drink bottles to the grocery store, and I head out the door.

I jump on my bike and pedal as fast as I can down Montevallo Road, turn at the Catholic church, and head toward downtown Leeds and Spruiell’s Drug Store.

Just inside the door on the left is a rack full of comic books. My friends Bart, Leo, and Mark are already there reading the latest issues.

Bart always goes for Superman.
Leo grabs Spiderman.
Mark settles in with his favorite, Sgt. Rock.

I wanted the latest Superman too, but Bart had ridden downtown with his mom and beat me there, so I ended up with The Fantastic Four instead.

We’d sit right there in the store window reading our comics—for free—and when we finished, we’d just slide them back into the rack like nothing ever happened. Sometimes we’d even scrape together enough change for a malt or a milkshake from the soda fountain.

Eventually Leo waves goodbye and heads home, leaving the rest of us to make our next stop—V. J. Elmore’s Five and Dime.

If you walked into that store and went down the right side almost all the way to the back, you’d find the model section. That was our destination.

They had model cars, airplanes, and even monster figures.

Bart bought a ’64 Galaxie 500XL.
I picked up a Ford “Black Widow” T-bucket.
And Mark, being Mark, went for a creature model—The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Later that afternoon, when I got home, I hurriedly put my model together. I splashed on the paint and stuck the decals wherever they seemed to fit. I planned to enter it in V. J. Elmore’s monthly model car contest, and in my mind I was already imagining that blue ribbon.

Spoiler alert: I didn’t win.

Bart, on the other hand, treated model building like a science experiment. He carefully removed every piece from the card. He applied glue with a toothpick so there wouldn’t be any runs. Then he’d stretch rubber bands around the model to hold everything in place while it dried. After that he’d mask off sections before painting so his lines would come out perfectly straight.

If memory serves me right, Bart took first place in just about every contest I ever entered.

I did manage to win second place once.

When we weren’t building models, we spent most of our time outside.

We swam in the creek.
Built treehouses and rope swings.
And went on long hikes through the woods.

Being teenagers—or almost teenagers—didn’t stop us from exploring every creek, hill, and stretch of woods around Leeds. Sometimes we’d walk all the way over to the Coosa Mountain train tunnel, or sneak around the backside of the cement quarry. Other days we’d hike over to Elliott Lane to explore a cave that was there—if you knew where to look.

Growing up in the 1960s, life was good.

The world didn’t seem as dangerous back then, and parents didn’t hover over their kids. We were allowed to roam, to explore, and to figure things out for ourselves.

Kids were allowed to be kids.

I could go on and on about spending nearly every summer day at the city pool. Or sneaking down into the cement quarry on weekends when the workers were gone.

Nowadays when I see kids walking around with their heads down and their eyes glued to a phone, it makes me a little sad.

Sad because they may never know the thrill of jumping into a creek after a big rain, swinging out on a rope over a cliff, or wandering through the woods with no particular destination in mind.

I suppose I’ll stop there.

But you know what?

I may be getting older, but I think I might just go take a walk in the woods… or maybe go wading in the creek.