Why Weren’t We Bored?
The Bronx
Midway through the 1930s, and on to the 1940s the Great Depression provided the economic setting of our lives. With nothing but dust and unraveled threads in our pockets, and parents trying to sustain a family on meager or absent funds, we found the means to add color to this dismal background.
We came home from school and dropped our books onto the kitchen table. Sometimes there was milk and cookies, sometimes just milk. We ran down to the black asphalt street; our combination Yankee Stadium and Steeplechase.
Stickball? No, not yet. Our reflexes couldn’t synchronize to the fast, bouncing ball. But, rolling marbles on the street alongside the stone curb kept us occupied until dinnertime. For added weight, we impressed an orange peel into soda bottle caps to play Skelly on the sidewalk. The player who was “It” searched building entrances and alleys for the “hiders” in Hide and Seek. A stick was hidden when we played Hot and Cold. If the player was near the hidden stick we would say, “Warm” if he got closer we would say, “Hotter” until he found the stick.
A milk box with twelve square metal-spoked sections was tipped at an angle. From the curb, the player threw the ball towards the milk box on one bounce. If the ball was lodged in one of the squares, it was a base-hit depending on which square the ball had settled.
Three Feet To Germany, Johnny-On-The-Pony, Boxball, Ringaleevio and others kept us occupied until dinner. There was no place for boredom into our busy schedule.
Was there crackling of gunfire to break the boredom? The only crackling was on July 4 when one of the boys who had a few cents to buy a small package of red firecrackers set them off.
Recently a young man lit a mattress in a building corridor which burst into flames. Two police officers responded to the fire, one died, the other was hospitalized for a month. When he was asked why he did it, the young man said he was bored.
A creative mind has no room for boredom.
Daniel Wolfe