I remember it well.
We were in the Williamsons’ backyard, playing our usual brand of neighborhood baseball, a mix of hustle, imagination, and questionable judgment. I got hold of a great pitch and sent it soaring…straight through the neighbor’s kitchen window. We all scattered like we were running from the law. A few yards later, we realized that the strategy wasn’t going to hold up. So, our heads hung, we marched next door and turned ourselves in. I told my parents, and they worked it out—grown-ups solving kid-sized problems, like they used to.
I remember getting three stitches in my right knee when first base was a rock. There wasn’t much concern for safety, we were too busy having fun. I remember being picked last more than once. My mother, never one to sugarcoat things, told me, “Well, you either need to get better or be nicer. You pick.” It was a lesson in self-awareness and motivation.
Those were the days of dirt clod fights in vacant lots—some exploded like powder puffs, others packed a sting. We rode our bikes to the Handy Hut to buy baseball cards with a quarter and some lint from our pockets, then cooled off at the Dairy Mart with Ocean Water. Kool-Aid was a treat, usually in a plastic pitcher with the sugar at the bottom, and if someone’s mom made popsicles, we all lined up.
We didn’t have bottled water—we had the hose. And it tasted like rubber, summer, and freedom.
Across the street, we had a vacant lawn that served as our ballfield. We used old oil barrels as bases. Kick the Can was a nightly ritual, and Tony Isaac invented a game where we threw a ball over the roof and tried to catch it before it hit the ground. That game, like most of what we did, ran on the honor system—until someone started losing, and then we quickly invented referees.
We built ramps in the alley and prayed for “just a little air.” We chased the snow cone truck, played lots of chase, and collected glass bottles from the bar ditch to turn in for coins—at least until my brother, Brad, wrecked his bike and sliced his arm on a broken bottle. That was the end of that operation, but the memory lives on.
I remember BB guns being part of growing up—until the inevitable accident that caused an emergency neighborhood parent meeting, and then they were packed away for a while. I remember riding on the tailgate of my dad’s ’66 Green Ford, wind in our face, laughing with friends, until the tailgate dropped one day on the way back from baseball practice and we all tumbled out. Yes, we survived. Somehow, we always did.
We even dabbled in urban exploration, long before we knew the term. Scattered close to our neighborhood were a few old, vacant Sears and Roebuck homes—wooden, creaky, and half-forgotten. Mom told us to stay away from them, said they were unsafe and no place for kids, but those empty houses called to us like treasure caves. Each doorway, a mystery. Each floorboard, a secret. We’d dare each other to peek in or step inside, our hearts pounding like drums. There was just something about those places—an air of adventure we couldn’t resist.
My mother had always dreamed of a rose garden on one side of the front yard and an emerald, green lawn on the other. So, as a good husband does, my dad made it happen. He built her a beautiful rose bed and worked hard to make the lawn lush, but dreams meet reality quickly when kids are involved. The roses struggled because our basketballs constantly pelted them, and the lush green grass? It turned brown in patches from worn-out paths to first base, second base, and back again.
It was less of a garden and more of a sandlot—but it was our sandlot.
One story we often recall as a family happened right in that front yard. My mom was chatting with our neighbor, Grace Isaacs, whose boys were a few years older and had moved on from neighborhood games. My mom, partly frustrated and partly amused, told Grace that she couldn’t grow roses on one side of the yard because the basketballs were giving them a pounding, and she couldn’t grow grass on the other side because the base paths were just worn-out patches of dirt.
After listening patiently, Grace smiled and gave my mother one of the best bits of wisdom she had ever received. She said, “Scottie, just enjoy those worn-out bases in your yard. One day, they won’t be there. You’ll have your roses on one side and an emerald, green lawn on the other. So, enjoy the dead roses and the worn brown spots in the grass.”
My mom quoted that often in the years that followed. And as the bases disappeared, the lawn filled in, and the house grew quiet, those words echoed with more meaning.
I sometimes wonder if that old quote, “The more things change, the more they stay the same,” still holds water. Neighborhood summers feel like a relic. These days, kids play organized sports with schedules, trainers, and matching gear. They hydrate with filtered water in team-issued bottles. And they text each other from across the street.
But back then, summer wasn’t managed, it was discovered. There was no app for adventure. There was just a bike, a glove, and a best friend or two.
It wasn’t religious, but it was sacred. We learned more than just how to throw or hit, we learned how to lose with grace, how to share what we had, and how to lead without a title. We learned how to forgive, how to laugh, and how to get back up, and I believe God was right there in the middle of it all—in the joy, the dirt, the learning, the togetherness.
Jesus once said, “Let the little children come to me.” That invitation wasn’t just for Sunday morning, it was for every ordinary, magical, messy, beautiful moment of childhood.
Today, kids still laugh. Bikes still roll. Baseballs still fly, but if we’re honest, they do a lot more watching than doing, and maybe that’s on us.
Maybe we need to help them rediscover what it means to play—to really play, to get dirty. To get bruised. To come home sweaty, tired, and happy.
We didn’t know we were making memories. We just thought we were having fun.
So, here’s to broken windows and rock-hard first bases. Here’s to dead roses, brown patches, Kool-Aid stains, and worn-out sneakers. Here’s to BB guns and oil barrels and collecting bottles from the ditch. Here’s to old Sears homes, ghost stories, and brave hearts.
Here’s to summers that shaped us.
And here’s to the hope that we can bring just a little of that magic back.