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Hammond Indiana

Subject	Message	Replies
When we were kids Date: 12-10-2011 By: Paddy	On the Downtown Hammond thread, we shared our thoughts about why our treasured downtown withered and died. As a Hammond kid who was raised in in the 40's and 50's, I want to comment on something else that dissappeared in Hammond and elsewhere since those times. I am talking about the freedom that we had a kids to explore without worry. Back then, we could roam our neighborhoods without concern for our safety. I was reminded of this when I recently found a childhood playmate while doing family history research. Doris McNeil and I were born in 1941 and lived two doors apart on Beech Street. She reminded me that we didn't need the playdates of today, where parents phone or email neighbors to arrange playtimes. Back then, a neighbor kid would simply knock on our door and ask, "Can Bobby/Danny/Doris/Pat etc., come out to play?" Our playground covered several blocks around Beech Street, where excavations for new homes became our very own sand dunes, or where we spent hours catching tadpoles and snakes in the swamp along Hoffman Street. My last memory of Doris is the two of us taking a bus downtown to see a movie at the Paramount. In today's environment, I can't imagine kids like me, Doris and our neighbor kids having the freedom to be on our own like we were back then.	13

Replies

Date	Member	Message
12-11-2011 ( Reply#: 7671 )	Roger D	I feel for the of today in that they are not able to grow up as we did. we moved from Ky. in 1950, I was 6, to north Hammond. we lived on State Line, Deaborn and Clark Streets from then until 1957. We walked to school at Lincoln Elementry, winter and summer. It was noemal to leave the house on Saturday morning or during the summer and not get home until dark. You ate lunch wherever you were playing. Either at home or a neighbors. If you misbehaved the neighbors would pass the info on to mom and dad or take care of the situation themselves. Everybody knew everbody, no worries, just be a kid. After moving to Hessville when I was 13 I had three guys I played with, Frank Yates , Jack Cambell and Dave VanAlstein. They are all gone now , but the memories remain. Jack's mother had a police whistle and when he was needed at home she just blew the whistle. You could hear ir for about three blocks. Now you don't see kids out playin sandlot baseball, football or basketball as we did. Now it has to organized. The fun of being a kid is gone!
12-11-2011 ( Reply#: 7672 )	duane	I agree, but some remnants of that freedom still exist, albeit in the smaller towns of this country. I lived in a small town in Northern Wisconsin about 15 years ago. The day we moved in, there was a knock on the door and a neighborhood girl, about 5 years old stood there saying "I saw a little girl, can she come out and play?" There were about 6 families on our block (which was a cul de sac) and 4 of them had kids the same age as ours. Whenever one would go outside, all the others would see them and join in. We never worried where they were, or if they were at a neighbors. Also, the parents would also get together. On Fridays, the first person home from work would bring a bottle of wine or a 12 pack of cokes or beer and sit on their porch or stoop. As the others came home the others and the spouses that were stay-at-home would come out and join. Eventually, someone would throw on a barbeque and several families would eat together. We all commented about how this neighborhood was similar to the ones we'd grown up in. Some of these neighbors became God-parents to our children, and a few remain life-long best friends. After about 4 years, I got a new job and we moved away (as did several of the other families) and our new location is a nice place to live, but not nearly the neighborhood we had in northern Wisconsin.
12-11-2011 ( Reply#: 7675 )	seejay2	From what you have written, Duane, your family could have easily been a part of our neighborhood. "Go outside and play, just have your butts back in here before the street lights come on". The reason for that was because we sat down and ate supper as a family, went to Sunday mass (not the old man, he wasn't Catholic) and always got 25 cents, and a little more, to go to the Ace on Saturday afternoon. People had respect then. The neighbors always watched out for the kids and, as kids, we knew it. You couldn't put too much past the neighborhood CIA mama's. They always found out. I'll tell a little story here, in short, that I have posted before. Even a few years later, when we were around 14 or so (too old to play Army---to young to have a car), a friend and I got involved in a shooting club that they held in the Civic Center. The instructor was a teacher from Tech, I don't remember his name. On Saturday morning, My friend and I, would get on the #2 bus in front of Hill's Agency with .22 cal rifles and head for the Civic Center. Nobody even looked twice at us. Try doing that today...Cj
12-11-2011 ( Reply#: 7676 )	seejay2	Whoops, I forgot! Duane, I meant to ask you where in northern Wisconsin? My dad's family is from Ashland and the Ironwood, Michigan area...Cj
12-11-2011 ( Reply#: 7677 )	Paddy	quote: On Saturday morning, My friend and I, would get on the #2 bus in front of Hill's Agency with .22 cal rifles and head for the Civic Center. Nobody even looked twice at us. Try doing that today...Cj I had a similar experience in 1959. After graduating from Noll, I worked as a ranch hand in Colorado. Being the most junior ranch hand, one of my jobs was to haul the garbage to the ranch's dump, which was also a favorite visitng site for black bears. I bought a Winchester 30-30 to carry on my dump trips. That August, I decided to join the Marines and traveled home by train from Denver to Hammond, all the while carrying my rifle in a gun bag slung over my shoulder and half a box of rounds in my suitcase. If anyone stared, I didn't notice, and no one expressed any concern about this armed young kid with an unkempt beard riding across country.. Times sure have changed.
12-11-2011 ( Reply#: 7683 )	duane	quote: Originally posted by seejay2 Whoops, I forgot! Duane, I meant to ask you where in northern Wisconsin? My dad's family is from Ashland and the Ironwood, Michigan area...Cj Park Falls - just about an hour south of Ashland on Hwy 13.
12-12-2011 ( Reply#: 7687 )	seejay2	I know the place. I haven't been up that way in 30 years, but I remember it...Cj
12-12-2011 ( Reply#: 7689 )	Jay	quote: Originally posted by seejay2 ...... a friend and I got involved in a shooting club that they held in the Civic Center.... Are you referring to the Hammond Civic Gun Club? My father and I were members of that club. Members also had to join the NRA (National Rifle Association). Membership entitled us to use the indoor range in the basement of the Civic Center one night each week.
12-12-2011 ( Reply#: 7690 )	seejay2	We didn't have to join the NRA (although I did many years later). It wasn't an 'open range', it was an instructional thing: One week was prone psition, one week sitting, etc. We purchaced the bullets from the instructor and were only allowed to load one at a time. I wish I could remember then name of the instructor. Somebody posted his pic, I believe on Planet Hammond, but even then, I do not recall his name. He was a teacher at Tech...Cj
12-12-2011 ( Reply#: 7699 )	duane	quote: Originally posted by seejay2 I know the place [Park Falls, WI]. I haven't been up that way in 30 years, but I remember it...Cj Well, it hasn't really changed all that much in those 30 years. It looks really different from HWY 13 because it now has a "strip" with a Hardees, McDonalds, some new motels, etc. And the IGA, DNR, and Forest Service that used to be in downtown are now out on the strip. But if you go into old downtown, it looks pretty much the same. The Park Theater has even been restored and is still showing movies!
12-12-2011 ( Reply#: 7701 )	Paddy	quote: Originally posted by duane I agree, but some remnants of that freedom still exist, ... . Quite true. When my wife and I moved to Olathe KS in 1990, I was required to live in the city. We had no choice but to buy or build a home in the 80 square miles of subdivisions with look-alike homes and no sidewalks. We were able to ditch that lifestyle three years later and found our present home on Black Swan Lake in Shawnee, KS. Our neighborhood of 150 homes has only two ways to get in or out, and the so-called modern subdivisions passed us by. Lucky for us, our isolation provides the neigborhood playground that I had on Beech Street. The neighbor kids are free to roam. Our property is frequently the site of mock gun battles as the kids pore over our yards, much like me and my playmates did on Beech Street. My wife worries when they use our deck as a hideout, but their play takes me back to my youth on Beech Street. I was a very lucky kid.
12-13-2011 ( Reply#: 7708 )	seejay2	quote: Originally posted by duane quote: Originally posted by seejay2 I know the place [Park Falls, WI]. I haven't been up that way in 30 years, but I remember it...Cj Well, it hasn't really changed all that much in those 30 years. It looks really different from HWY 13 because it now has a "strip" with a Hardees, McDonalds, some new motels, etc. And the IGA, DNR, and Forest Service that used to be in downtown are now out on the strip. But if you go into old downtown, it looks pretty much the same. The Park Theater has even been restored and is still showing movies! I remember the old man and his buddies joking about Hurley, right across the border from Ironwood, Mi., where 'strip' took on a whole different meaning...Cj
12-13-2011 ( Reply#: 7716 )	duane	quote: Originally posted by seejay2 [I remember the old man and his buddies joking about Hurley, right across the border from Ironwood, Mi., where 'strip' took on a whole different meaning...Cj Hurley hasn't changed much either. Still lots of bars and (during hunting season and sometimes on other occasions) the women in the bars tend to dance onstage and shed their clothes.