THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 25, 1994 TAG: 9409250040
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ELIZABETH SIMPSON
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
``When I was a kid, I'd get up in the morning and go all over town,'' says Nick, who was busy cutting my hair the other day.
We're more than a decade apart in age. He grew up in The Big Apple. I grew up in La Plata, Mo., population 1,377. But I knew where he was coming from.
``Same here,'' I say as his scissors work their way around my head. ``I'd get on my bike and be gone the rest of the day.''
Down deserted country roads. Into the seedy Laundromat that smelled like grape soda and wet socks. Sitting on the curb on Main Street, talking to whomever happened by. A stranger just off the Greyhound, the local eccentric at the Tastee-Freez. It didn't matter.
Just as long as I was back before Walter Cronkite told my folks, ``And that's the way it is.'' Our family's signal for supper.
``No one locked their doors,'' I tell Nick. ``At night you could look through the window of City Hall and see a cop sleeping at his desk.''
``Yeah,'' Nick says. ``No one worried because there wasn't anything to worry about.''
``In New York?'' I ask, ``Wasn't there crime?''
``Oh sure. Lots of thugs. But,'' he says, jabbing one finger in the air, ``There was a code. You didn't mess with kids.''
He pauses between the words, giving each emphasis.
``Everyone used to follow the code,'' he explains as he leans back down to business. ``It was a macho thing.''
Children, women and old people were off-limits. ``And a pregnant lady?'' he says. ``She could walk down the worst street in the middle of the night and not worry.''
``Now?'' he says. ``They're the targets.''
Whatever happened to the code, I wonder, as hair flurries down around my feet. Whatever happened to Walter Cronkite calling you home to supper?
All it takes is a glance at the paper to know the code is gone. And that Cronkite's words wouldn't sound reassuring even if he still said them every night.
Now molesters prey on children too young to say no. Robbers single out mothers in parking lots because they know it takes time to strap children into car seats. Rapists attack elderly women too weak to resist.
Those guys never heard of the code.
So it is that my children, and Nick's, are on a shorter rein. We tether them in ever-shrinking circles, not the wide, free-ranging ones we roamed as kids. We outfit them with pagers. Cordon off their worlds. Tell them, ``Call when you get there.''
They will never know the sweet freedom of a day adrift.
Because all the prisons and police officers in the world won't bring back the code. No midnight basketball will bring back the neighborhood. No new law will bring back the childhoods we grew up in.
Nick finishes the cut, brushes off stray hairs, and whirls me back around to face my reflection.
But the kid who pedaled furiously down that dusty country road is gone.
And so is the boy who explored the mean streets of New York. by CNB