Beyond The Pulpit Ministries

In today’s atmosphere of modern technology, it sometimes is lost on us the innocence of a bygone era. The days before Twitter, Facebook, Tik Tok and Instagram – a time before Tinder was how we dated, and DoorDash was how we ordered take-out food.

At the risk of sounding like the front porch curmudgeon yelling “get off my lawn” at the children playing soccer, I can’t help but long for those days before six-year-olds began thinking of shooting their own teachers; the days when adult neighbors would take it upon themselves to scold unruly neighborhood kids. (Even the word “scolding” has become a thing of the past.)  Those were the days before “living to age 25” became an entry on a Black kid’s bucket list.

In those days my two brothers and I would have peanut butter on a spoon for breakfast, watch a few Saturday-morning cartoons, then leave home not be seen for hours by our parents.  They didn’t know exactly where we were, but they knew in those days that we were safe.  They didn’t worry about us being abducted by strangers, or that we might find our way into the crosshairs of white police officers with hair triggers on their weapons.  No.  The only admonishment we got from our parents back then was: “Be home before the streetlights come on.”

No one knows who came up with this idea that streetlights would be the universal measure for curfew, but the phrase itself defines a generation that was much more adventurous, much more obedient, and much more hopeful than today’s young people.

A typical Saturday morning for us might include a walk across town (and I mean a walk — 5–10-miles) to the pet store.  Do they even have real pet stores anymore?  Our neighborhood pet stores have been replaced by Petsmart and Petco — companies focused on billions of dollars in profits, which include pet psychotherapy, pet health insurance and pet burial plans.

When our dog, Rex, acted skittish, we just put him outside.  When he got sick, mom gave him castor oil just like she did the rest of us.  When Rex was near death, we didn’t have a burial plan, we just took off his collar and let him wander away.  People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) would bring our whole family up on felony charges if we did that today.

All we had in our pet shop back in the day was the lone shop owner trying to eke out a living selling live animals.  It didn’t matter to him that we weren’t there to buy anything; we only came to play with the puppies, gaze at the fish in the aquarium and leer at the lizards.   Good luck trying to take a gaggle of Black kids with no money on an excursion through a Petsmart or Petco today.

After the pet store, we might go spend some time in the junk yard where we tried to feed tin cans to the goat behind the fence.  Now, I’ve heard of junkyard dogs, but don’t ask me why ours was a junkyard goat. We never saw the goat actually eat a can, but rumor had it that he would, so nearly every weekend we kept trying.

Inside the junkyard was a virtual gymnasium for us to enjoy.  We ‘d climb atop rusted out step-vans, you know that kind that the ice cream man might have driven.  We’d leap into the air from the roof of one van to the next, challenging one another to make the next leap the farthest.  Had our parents known the danger we were courting, they would have killed us.  But their major concern for us was only that we be home before the streetlights came on.

In the years before our parents could afford bikes for three boys, we went from place-to- place rolling tires.  We’d get worn-out tires from behind the full-service gas station and each of us would roll our tires in front of us as if it were our means of transportation. You can get some good speed out of a used tire.

Sometimes we’d put rocks inside the tires to make a “shushing” sound as we’d go. It made us think we actually had an engine underneath us.  Rolling tires was a dirty business, and we often found ourselves shrugging our shoulders trying to explain to mom how our clothes got so dirty.

My point is we weren’t concerned about $200 sneakers, or spending hours at the shopping mall, or burying our heads in social media every second lusting after likes and followers. We collected real trading cards; not virtual cards like NFT (non-fungible transfers) that kids clamor for today.  The only gambling, we ever did was when we played the marble game “long tar keeps.” We’d treasured the marbles we’d have stuffed into our pockets and which we had painstakingly purchased package by package, 10 cents at a time. Sometimes we traded them, but it was rare that we ever “played for keeps.”

We were rubber to the road kind of kids who experienced life to its fullest; breathed fresh air whenever we could and respected our elders because there was no other choice.  We took books and lunches to school, not guns and cellphones and bad attitudes toward teachers.  

Life was somehow simpler back then, and seemingly more stable.  Life was better.  Our future seemed brighter than that which young people face today.  But that was then, and this is now.  Then, our only obligation was to be home before the streetlights came on, and that has made all the difference.

Marc A. Tibbs is the Senior Pastor of Centenary United Methodist Church, Akron, OH